Victoria Graff Photo
Kentucky coach Mark Pope emphasized again Thursday that he got what he wanted when he decided not to open the NCAA Tournament watch party to any boosters or media members this year.
“For one moment we shut the circus down and let our team be our team. I think it was really important. I think it was really good for us and really healthy for us,” Pope said in St. Louis where UK plays Santa Clara today at 12:15 p.m. in the NCAA Tournament first round. “I think it puts us in the best position to kind of have our focus be where we want it to be for this tournament. It was really, really positive.”
The “circus” did get rolling earlier this week when Michigan star Yaxel Lendeborg told the Associated Press that UK offered him between “$7 to 9 million” to transfer to UK which reportedly spent over $20 million on this year’s roster that has lost 13 games. Michigan is one of the favorites to win the NCAA Tournament.
Pope didn’t specifically address that allegation Thursday but did have a long answer after being asked if UK did offer a certain player that much money.
“I have been in this business a long time. At Kentucky it is just different. The amount of information that is — I think part of the problem too is that — I am getting myself in trouble, whatever. This is how we live. I think part of the reason there has been such blurred lines between all media. I don’t think anybody differentiates between social media with someone in their underwear in their basement that has nothing to do, verses the most noted journalist in the world with unbelievable ethics,” Pope said.
“I think that it all blurs together, and we just start reporting what everybody else is reporting, whether it has any validity or not. So like I said, on a daily basis, literally a daily basis, in fact, I had this experience with Mitch (Barnhart). Mitch walked in my office two days ago. Right now we are so dug in that I am not really spending a lot of time on reporting, and had a couple stories where I was dumbfounded and befuddled by what was out there and what was being said and reported. I was like, that’s the same type of stuff that was said the last week and the week before and the week before.
“To BBN I would just say, please don’t believe anything you read about anything. If I was going to tell you the percent of stuff that was actually reported accurately, it would probably be in the 5th percentile. It is an interesting time in the world, and that just is what it is.”
Pope was not done.
“But there’s craziness swirling around, but that’s the circus that comes with Kentucky. That’s all part of what makes Kentucky so great, what makes it different than anyone else, if anybody wants clicks they can just say any crazy thing or write any crazy thing or click any crazy thing about Kentucky and they are going to get clicks and likes and they are going to get controversy,” Pope said.
“It is the way we elevate our stature in the media, unfortunately. This is a broad brush. I am not talking about every media member or social media member, which is really not a media member at all. But there’s nobody more surprised about what the head coach at Kentucky has done than the head coach of Kentucky. I am shocked by it every single day.”
Pope would not elaborate any more when asked if the $7 to $9 million number was inaccurate.
“You guys are smart. Once you get me commenting, then it makes the story bigger. I would like not to take — guys, we could go down a list of, you know, we could go down a list of the plane crash that Leeann (Pope) was in and go down the list of all of the NIL stuff, the list of me being in the hospital a month ago. We can go down the whole list of all of the stuff,” the Kentucky coach said.
“I know that you guys have to come out here with a headline. I am not going to give it to you. But I would appreciate it if it was some segment of the media that is like, let’s actually search for like — I don’t know. I am trying not to make a commentary on it. This is all part of the distraction that my team is not a part of. We will try and embrace the circus nature of this and count on some responsible media member somewhere to actually kind of dig in and find out or just be responsible reporting.”
