Kentucky coach Mark Pope on how team can find the joys in basketball
Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope discusses how players should care about something more than themselves to find the joys in basketball with their team.
Kentucky must avoid the significant injuries that plagued its roster last season.The Wildcats need to identify a reliable backup point guard for starter Jaland Lowe.UK has to determine its starting center from a group of inconsistent or inexperienced players.
LEXINGTON — Kentucky basketball’s 2024-25 season ended in the Sweet 16. The Wildcats want to advance at least two rounds further this season — if not four, capped by a victory in the national championship game.
Mark Pope, in his first season as coach, usually concocted a winning formula and pushed the right buttons, going 24-12 overall, tying a single-season Division I record with eight wins over top-15 Associated Press foes, beating rivals Duke and Louisville and sweeping the regular-season series with Tennessee.
But UK fans hope that was just the beginning. If their dreams are realized, the Wildcats will be back in the Final Four for the first time since 2015.
The journey begins Nov. 4, when UK welcomes Nicholls to Rupp Arena.
To guarantee the upcoming season is better than the one that concluded in March, here are three keys for the 2025-26 Kentucky basketball team with the opener barely a month away:
These keys aren’t ranked in order of importance. But if they were, this one would earn pole position. That’s because injuries decimated UK last season. Of its 36 games in 2024-25, it had its full complement of scholarship players available for only seven games. Guard Kerr Kriisa topped that list, missing 27 contests with a foot injury and not playing again after the team’s overtime win against Gonzaga in December. Fellow guard Jaxson Robinson sat out 12 games and saw his season meet a premature end March 1 because of a wrist injury. Lamont Butler only was sidelined nine games because of a shoulder…
..
