Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope learned from last season. Here’s what he’s changing
More than midway through the eight weeks of summer workouts permitted by the NCAA, Mark Pope admitted he was “a little twisted up” with the way he’d gone about structuring the allocated time. Now entering his second season as Kentucky basketball’s coach, Pope learned from his first year on the job.It starts at practice.
Last year, when UK and its crew of 12 newcomers convened for its summer sessions, Pope’s staff was intentional in how it taught offensive and defensive concepts. Put another way, the Wildcats of last year were more “game ready” than the 2025-26 version at the same juncture of the summer.
“We had a better feeling (last year) of what to get to — (options) A, B, C and D — and how to make those decisions,” Pope said July 21.
Where this season’s team lacks intricate knowledge of, say, reads and progressions in Pope’s transition offense strategies, it’s well ahead in defensive fundamentals and tenacity — areas that posed problems for the 2024-25 club much of the season.
“One of the things we have to do is our defensive field-goal percentage has got to be better next year,” Pope said. “And so we’re dedicated to having a legal contest on every single field-goal attempt — every single one.
