Kentucky head coach Mark Pope played for one of the most intense coaches in the history of college basketball in Rick Pitino. Pope credits Pitino with showing him the ropes and Pope definitely takes some of his philosophies from Pitino.
However, one of those philosophies has changed in recent years.
“Throughout my whole basketball career as a player and then the first half of my coaching career, I was about ‘how long can you sustain a level 10 intensity and focus’,” Pope said. “I would spend 24 hours a day pacing and criticizing and yelling and being in game mode. Full on intensity. I wonder where I got that from.”
Then, Pope change the way he approached his work. It started at Brigham Young University, where he was the head coach.
“I started working with this group at BYU, four clinical psychology faculty members who just changed everything I knew about coaching,” Pope said. “It just changed the whole way that I actually approach this. Instead of being laser-focused every second emotionally and mentally on the game, we flipped to a totally different philosophy and it’s been brilliant. It fits us better now.”
Pope’s Kentucky team has already had team-building experiences, beginning over the summer and carrying into the regular season. The Cats have had experiences in both Atlanta and Seattle, and will have another opportunity this weekend, as they travel to New York to face Ohio State in the CBS Sports Classic. Pope truly believes these moments build team chemistry.
“The upside is massive,” Pope said. “One of the upsides is that this connective tissue that you build on a team, it happens when you get to put guys in different scenarios and different environments with new experiences where they get to share it together. It builds this cohesiveness that I actually think wins in a brilliantly unique way. And it’s important. It’s super intentional and it’s really important to building a team for us. And that’s been new for us.”
Sometimes, the UK head coach still can’t believe that he has changed.
“The fact that we’re going on a trip to go play a game at Madison Square Garden and we’re going to do anything that’s not only grit your teeth, full sweat basketball, was really foreign to me three or four years ago,” Pope said. “But our guys respond to it great.”
Pope and his Cats are ranked No. 4 in the country and bring a 10-1 record into Saturday’s game against the Buckeyes. Ohio State is 7-4 on the season and is coming off a 95-73 win over Valparaiso on Tuesday.
For Kentucky, it’s another chance to face a formidable opponent on the court. But it’s also another opportunity for team bonding, which has become very important to Pope’s coaching philosophy.
