Mark Pope Has Surprised Cameron Mills

Vicky Graff Photo

Even former teammates have been a bit surprised by what coach Mark Pope has already done at Kentucky.

“The excitement has returned so far. The whole process has been unreal,” said Cameron Mills, Pope’s teammate at UK on the 1996 national championship team. “I have known him for over 20 years. We kind of went on with our lives after UK.

“I was excited to see what kind of coach he would be at Kentucky. I made the mistake of thinking he would be a coach (Rick) Pitino clone because he revered him so much and he does have the same expectations for players that coach P did. But I forgot he went to other places after UK and has a lot of influences other than coach P.

“He uses words at times that nobody knows what he is even talking about. He’s that smart. Sometimes I have to ask him what some terms and words mean.”

Mills never doubted that Pope would be successful. He just did not expect an 11-1 start with wins over Duke, Gonzaga and Louisville.

“The success is part how well he did in the (transfer) portal and part who he is. Obviously the SEC is going to be brutal but that will only make us better,” Mills said. “The Clemson loss gave Mark more confidence in his team than he had before and you have to know Mark to understand that.”

Pope’s calm demeanor during games — and during practice based on what players say — has not been a surprise to Mills.

“When he played he was very level headed. He would come into the training room or locker room before we knew what would be a hard practice or after a brutal practice and he was the enthusiastic one,” Mills said. “My freshman year I threw up in a trash can at practice and got absolutely undressed by Coach P.

“I would go to Mark and ask him is this how he always is and how do I handle it. He had several things to say to me but one was to embrace adversity. That’s one reason he does not call a lot of timeouts from the sidelines and the reason he did not panic against Colgate when the game was getting close or at Gonzaga when they were getting pounded.”

Mills admitted “I wrote us off” against Gonzaga when the Zags had an 18-point lead and Kentucky was without injured point guard Lamont Butler.

“Lamont established himself as the leader of this team at the beginning of the year,” Mills said. “Lamont is as cerebral as Pope is. It doesn’t matter what Mark is talking about, he inspires confidence and Lamont gets that. It’s why they are such a good fit and a big reason this has worked so well so quickly.”