Mark Pope Full Interview 5/22/25

00:00:00
Speaker 1: All right here with Mark Pope. This is exciting for me. It's our first chance to really sit down and have a longer conversation because you've been on a whirlwind since you got hired year one. Mark, thank you for coming on KSR.

00:00:13
Speaker 2: I'm so happy, man, Come on, you ready to rock?

00:00:16
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's start with this. Last time we talked was around this time one year ago. How has year one been better, worse, different than you expected? How would you sort of judge your first year at Kentucky?

00:00:31
Speaker 2: Jeez, I don't. It's so hard to say. I mean, it's it's so much, right, it is. Uh, I mean it's I say this all the time. It's the greatest job in the world. And it's in the greatest community, in the best fan base, and and I get to work with the best administration, and I love this stuff so much. And this season I got to work with the greatest kids ever and and so and it's just a NonStop It's like it's every it's every day.

00:01:02
Speaker 1: And do you like that? You like love it?

00:01:05
Speaker 2: I mean that's part of what makes it the best job ever. And so, uh, I mean, it's it's there's so much. Actually, I was talking about this with Leanne Uh yesterday. It's just like it's hard to it's hard to. Everything comes so fast, and there's so many incredible, incredible, meaningful moments that you kind of think about. You want to find a break in it. So you're like, well if you just think about to like to two months ago, and then trace trace just the last two months, but then you cut out something right before that point that was monumental, right, And so it's I love it. I love being here, and I love that we get to have this opportunity and I love Uh, there's just not enough time. That's the thing that I feel over and over. There's just not enough time. We need more time. But but but the whole thing is zhilarating and it's wonderful, and we have a very clear cut mission and a job to do that no, we haven't even come close to completing, and so we're just hungry, chasing every day and enjoying everything along the way.

00:02:12
Speaker 1: I want to kind of go back to last year then talk about Now you think.

00:02:15
Speaker 2: About last year when we were when we sat down and talked, Yeah, everything we didn't know, like everything was a hypothetical.

00:02:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when I talked to you there. I think I said to you in that conversation where you and I were just sitting in your office, and I said, this is gonna be interesting for Kentucky fans because.

00:02:31
Speaker 2: They don't know any guys.

00:02:32
Speaker 1: You're gonna have a team where they don't know anybody. And I do remember wondering. Everybody loves Mark, but how they gonna feel about these guys they don't know. And it ended up becoming one of the more beloved teams that I can remember. You knew the guys, but I was surprised how much people just embraced that group.

00:02:48
Speaker 2: Could you could they feel it? Yeah, our guys could for sure. And I think is as much as I was happy about that, I was happy that our guys didn't miss it. Because the craziest thing is, like, and this is almost incomprehensible to me, you could actually come here for a year as a player and miss it, Like you could miss the whole thing if you if you came here and we talked to our to our recruitis about this all the time. If you came here and you were just only dialed into yourself, you could actually miss the great uniqueness and like the monstrosity that this experience can be. You could actually miss the whole thing, Like you might take it in in a minute here, in a minute there in a crowd here and whatever, but you could miss it. And I felt like our guys, I felt like one of the reasons why there was such a great relationship between BBN and our players was because our players also were really engaged in growing the relationship, like they meant something to them from from our guys coming in. You know, our guys logged almost four hundred hours of community service, which is just a very separate, little standalone niche. But their interest in like in in in embracing the magnitude of this opportunity was pretty special.

00:04:05
Speaker 1: I thought part of it for the fans was the fact that these they seemed to really appreciate the moment to be here, the fact that they had played at schools like Drexel and Dayton and all that made it to where I felt like they were as grateful as the fans want them to be grateful. Does that make sense? And I think they love that.

00:04:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's what I'm saying about not missing it. You know, I was I was at uh just yesterday, I was in Brooklyn with No No in the Bronx Sorry with with with Modiabat's mom, and you think about MO. He's coming from Alabama. Alabama was in a final four, and then the lad aid it's a pretty good program, and just being we actually walked and he came down and met us outside the building and walked in and security was right there, and the kind of lead security guard was losing his Mind's like, he's like coach Bolp. He's like, I'm a diar Kentucky, you know, the whole thing. And and then he knew he knew MO, but he didn't know about the change. And so I was like, no, you're gonna be watching MO. We're coming here to play Michigan State this year and he was like wait what Yeah, And and then spending you know, spending some time with MOA's family. They get it too. And it's not just the guys that were coming from a mid major. I mean, he's coming from a from a really good program. But but is already so ingrained to him how different this is at Kentucky than anywhere else. And he's going to come here with he's a beautiful man. He's a beautiful human being. But he's going to come here and he's not going to miss it either, Like he's going to take it all into And so I think we, I think we have the makings of a of another group. Hopefully it's a staple for us forever, of guys that really understand what this is.

00:05:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is gonna be pretty well to be a little bit of a different group. But let's get to that in a second. Before I leave. Last year, I want to go back to UH in Milwaukee. You beat Troy in the first round, your your first NCAA tournament win, and I I really there are certain things I always am gonna remember when my career is over, and I'm gonna remember watching you when that game was over, your embrace of your wife, your embrace of your your family. And then also the same thing after the Illinois game. Those it felt like and maybe it'll feel like this for you in all the future game tournament games you win, But it felt like that was a moment you really wanted to soak in. Am I right about that?

00:06:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's kind of the same thing we started out talking About's just say, everything comes so fast that you could miss all the moments. Yeah, and and and all of us are driving so hard and it's so relentless that you could miss the moments. And so you know, I didn't want to miss it with my guys. I didn't want to miss it with my family. I didn't want to miss with the fans. You know. I I it's just too good to miss. And so you only get a few seconds. But but taking those few seconds really, yeah.

00:06:54
Speaker 1: That was that was a that was a really cool moment, just even for me to be a part of. All Right, so when you came here, we were all trying to figure out, right, what is Mark Pope basketball? And now we have a year of it. And I'll just take on a personal level some things that surprised me. Maybe we're a little different, And get your your take. I watched you, b yu felt like you got shot zillion threes, ended up not shooting as many as maybe we would have have thought. Why do you think that was?

00:07:22
Speaker 2: It's poor coaching.

00:07:24
Speaker 1: Well I think you won plenty, but I was.

00:07:25
Speaker 2: Really disappointed with that. This year. It still eats me a little bit. I'm like, oh, I just couldn't we couldn't quite get there. I was really proud of the product our guys put on the floor last year, and I thought, with all things considered, I saw, I was really proud of it. And we have so much room to grow, Like we have so much more to do, Like we left so much on the table that that we weren't quite the team that I envisioned us being when we're great. Injury though, right, part of an injury, part of a coaching part of it, all the things, part of newness, part of it, you know, part of it, roster construction part it was all little pieces of it. And like I said, I'm super proud of what the guys did. I think it's incredible. It was. It was a really amazing journey. But you know, you go to that and you're like, man, we weren't even close to what we're supposed to be, like what we're aiming to be, And I think that gives you great hope for what we can actually be.

00:08:22
Speaker 1: I mean, you had look you lo this car right at the beginning of the year, Jackson Robinson's hurt on and off, Lamont Butler's hurt on and off you, I mean Andrew Carr's hurt on and off. I mean you all had to deal with a lot of stuff. You had guys playing roles you probably didn't think they were going to play immediately, but you just kept fighting. And I felt like outside of I thought Alabama was a tough matchup for you, for you all, But besides that, I felt like you were matched up and in all those games you had to feel good about it. Yeah.

00:08:50
Speaker 2: You know how I know that Alabama was a tough matchup because I was just on the road this weekend and went said and Natoates came a sady. I mean, he was so happy, was he was so happy to talk to me. He was like my best friend in the whole world. That's what happens when you go zero and three.

00:09:03
Speaker 1: Ah, But but that was I think it was just tough when with the rosters you had to go in those games.

00:09:08
Speaker 2: It was complicated. But you know it's it's yeah, but that's all part of it. It's all built into it. You know. We think we have some answers for when when some things go wrong this coming season, Like you learn and you grow and you get better, right, and and that's what we're gonna do. Uh. With all that said, you know, we we had you know we talked about all the continuity issues and everything else, but you know, I did. I do think we we learned a lot last year. I think we grew a lot last year as a staff. I think we grew as a team. But dealing with the changes, what was what what we also learned was just how massively important our guys getting to know each other and love each other and trying. You know, as a basketball player, you're the only reason you're here is because you're completely obsessed with your own personal development and growth. You can't get to Kentucky without being like crazy, selfishly obsessed with yourself and how you grow, because that's what it demands. Like this personal sacrifice scat is so huge, and so we're not living in laala land where guys are gonna completely divorce themselves from their own ambitions. But what we're trying to do is build a place where you're gonna go achieve your own ambitions by by by becoming the greatest teammate ever and loving your guys more than you can possibly imagine, because this actually is by definition here and in the NBA, it is a team sport and it's about a team. And I thought that was what helped you know, our guys being so good at doing that last year was what helped us survive all the stuff that that kind of went into the season.

00:10:46
Speaker 1: All right, some basketball nerd stuff a little bit. You you were very big on that. Fans wondered about the first substitution substitution pattern. They had a lot of games where we go out, we get a lead, then you'd make a sub and people, ah, what's he doing? What's your philosophy on that on that early in the first and second half bringing in some subs? What why do you do that? Well?

00:11:08
Speaker 2: In the games where I brought in substitutions and it went bad, it was just bad substitution, right. But sometimes you know, when you're thinking about the whole nature of the game, you you you so these are thoughts that go into it, and it's it's pretty much artistic. You lose the science of it really quick because there's such a small sample size. But but it's it's you know, a couple a couple of things going so, uh, when we thought about our roster alignment, about guys that actually function well together, or who we could have on the court, who we felt you know, sometimes there's there's a young guy that you're trying to put on the court where you need to have them kind of protected, right, and so sometimes it's hard to take a bunch of young guys or less experienced guys and put them on the court at the same time, and so sometimes you have to grab someone out of the line up early to get someone in so that you can start the rotation early so you don't have a bunch of guys fatiguing all at the same time, and then you're then you're doing more wholesale or maybe a guy when he's fresh, he's actually to be able to be more supportive than when he s are. So you think about things like that. You think about running through the roster to kind of see who's got a good vibe that night, because there's game to game differentiating. There es game for me you do I think one hundred percent, and then the other thing, you're trying to explore his matchups, because the vibe sometime is really determined by the matchup about like what does it look like? And sometimes you're thinking, man, I could really function smaller in this game. Maybe maybe I could get to smaller in this game against a particular lineup, and so you're reactive to those things. Sometimes sometimes it's just a matter of like, hey, I'm going to take the hit now so I can be more fresh than the second half, which was really effective for.

00:12:44
Speaker 1: Us this year. You did have a lot of games where it felt like at the end you guys had some energy that the other the other team didn't. In just looking at your roster for next year, and granted I have not seen these guys play nearly as much as you have most of them, but it does look to me as an outside like you intently went to get more athletic, and it was that? Was that true?

00:13:05
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think I think that we have. Positionally in some positions, I think we're way more athletic, and I think positionally in some places were way more physical, And I think both those things matter.

00:13:16
Speaker 1: Was that a going through the SEC and seeing I always say about the SEC, especially last year, even the worst teams in the SEC had great athletes. Was it like, Okay, I gotta ramp the athleticism up a little bit? Yeah?

00:13:28
Speaker 2: I think it was. It's again, it's always like a stew of of ideas, right. One of the things that is functional for us is like positionally if you could, you know, like a like a low hanging fruit, example would be just the ability to switch one through four defensively or one through five defensively. So can you get more either more size or more quickness or more of a steal percentage in your back court? And you can you get you know, a four for example that's more coultiple or actually could be a dominant defensive figure against any matchup. Right, So you're kind of thinking about a bunch of different pieces, Man, can we fit together? And you're not gonna have your whole roster be able to do that, but can we put together a lineup where that's super functional? And how do we add pieces?

00:14:15
Speaker 1: Do that?

00:14:16
Speaker 2: You know, like you do that a thousand different models of your rosha works together in terms of how you want to scheme different things on the floor, as well as just kind of looking individually at ones, two, three, source fives and the standalone about how they function.

00:14:30
Speaker 1: So I see, again as an outsider with your system that to me watching your one, the two positions that seem like to me are the most important for you are the point guard in the big, especially the big that's at the top with amar a maris a very unique ability. So you have I assume Brandon Garrison is what you're thinking at that role. He had some great moments, also had some inconsistent moments. I remember when you all lost him, you saying something to him like all right, this obvio and you know, here you go. You think Brandon's ready to take that step up because it'll be big shoes to fill with the mark.

00:15:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, first, you know, traditionally in my roster, probably for most of my you know, most of my tenure as a head coach, it's probably been the four that's been a more unique piece. We slid into this five roll kind of of necessity last year and and to be a personnel group I had before I got to get that kind of led me to the five a little bit. It kind of changes, but a lot of time it's been a four where I'm playing a four that's an elite level ball handler, decision maker where where it gives us some space and we can protect a five a little bit. So those two pieces are interchangeable. All of that leading to Brandon Garrison. So Brandon Garrison showed me some signs in the last month and certainly this summer where he is just like he is growing up man, And it's so cool to see. It's the best thing to see as a coach. But uh, he's talking about what he wants to be. It's no longer kind of what he is and who he is and how he expect it's what he wants to become. You know, he's he's he's done this publicly where he's talked about Amar, that he was that that beg was blessed to have this big brother Amary, that the kind of mentored him and took care of him. Yeah, and that he kind of wants to be that guy. And it's a change now when you start to have guys talk about what they would like to become, then you're like, oh, we got something here, and he's definitely there.

00:16:36
Speaker 1: Man.

00:16:37
Speaker 2: So much of his space is that and we need him to be great. Next Year's can be really important because he's he's one of the few guys that are coming back with a ton of experience and he's going to teach everybody on the roster.

00:16:47
Speaker 1: Jalen Lowe I watched play a couple of times. Uh. I watched him a lot when they played Louisville and I remember thinking, boy, this guy's got some talent. He's got some scoot. He can get by people, which something I thought sometimes we had a hard time doing last year, beating people off the dribble. He's also though he can be all over the place. How do you take that talent, which is immns and then make it work in a system like yours?

00:17:12
Speaker 2: So super fun stand on him and you've probably seen this, but so and it's I still haven't found the right way to say this in short words. To give me a minute here. So, Jalen Lowe was an elite levels in terms of the raw stats, points, assist, everything else he did in the game was really good. But he wasn't a super efficient player last year. Yeah, part of it was because he had to do a lot. It's not a It's no takeaway from Pitt. Pitt's a great program to do a great job was just a situation that he was in. And so so one of the things he did, he was in the ninetieth percentile in the country, in the top ten percent of taking the highest percentage of shots that were are in the bottom twenty percent of shot quality. Oh that's a that's a long analytical way of saying he took he made the game so hard, or the game that was delivered him was so harder. However, that happened like he was taking some of them trying to make the hardest plays in the game of basketball and make him over and over and over again. Not incredibly dissimilar in some ways from Lamont Butler. So Lamont Butler shot quality usage wasn't quite a low shot bottom twenty percent. Shot quality usage wasn't quite as significant when he came, but it was still a little bit of that trend. He had never been forty eight percent from two, he'd never been really above thirty three percent from three. He comes here, he shoots thirty nine point one percent from three on the season, suffering half the season with a debilitating shoulder injury, and was at fifty six percent from two at eight percentage point jump in a super senior. And so much of that was because he was humble enough and willing enough to, like, let me rethink this game a little bit, so I don't spend all my time trying to get better at making impossible shots, but I actually manipulate this game and work enough to earn myself great stuff. So now instead of being instead of being in the top ten percent of taking of usage of bottom twenty percent quality shots, now I mean like the top ten percent of usage of like twenty to eighty percent quality shots, right, And that shift without improving your raw skill set can transform your entire game. And so what we love is I love seeing guys where I'm like, wow, with a little bit of study and a little bit of humility and curiosity, like, we can transform your So that's a really interesting crazy because I was gonna ask you, that's a moneyball game.

00:19:40
Speaker 1: When the season is over, you have this porridge of players to choose from. They're all over the place, and you could choose, especially at Kentucky, you could choose a lot of them. You got a lot of choices. How do you sit there and say Cam Williams at Tulane that's the kid I want? Like, how do you even how do you come to the point of saying that? Are you looking for things like that? Little inefficiencies you can take advantage?

00:20:05
Speaker 2: Yes, Like, so you're always ask yourself what are you good at coaching? Like what part of coaching are you good at? Right? And it changes, So it changes based on a guy's talent and based on it, but like it's a it's a it's very much all sliding scales, like you have one hundred sliding scales. But you're kind of like, okay, this is this is what happened out Jayalen Lowe had a terrific season last year, I mean put up really incredible numbers. So that's that was the number one reason why I came out on the radar. But as you dig deeper into it, you're like, ooh, you know what, like we could actually take credit for him getting way better when it's really not. It's really not that complicend. And and when you when you think about Cam, I mean Cam was pretty easy for us. I think about that three kind of four spot guy that can really shoot it, really stretch the floor.

00:20:53
Speaker 1: But when you say it's easy for you, like I remember when he committed, I had somebody close to you today, here's the case for him, here's why he's awesome. But if I hadn't talked to that person, I would have seen the stats and gone, that's odd to me. So how is it comes to you.

00:21:08
Speaker 2: To Well, it's it's a little bit like so because we know what fits in our system. We know what works. You know. To me, it's just to give you like it was, you know, and things don't always work out the way that you think they're going to, right. But when we signed Ansley Almanor, there was a lot of kind of questions and I was just like, ah, guys, just wait, just wait and see. And now I didn't I wasn't saying that he was gonna have the greatest shooting season in the history of Kentucky basketball. That's not. But what I was saying is like, no, you don't understand the way he fits into our system. The way we played was is very much an NBA style, Like we've had players like him that come in here and they are winning you games and you didn't anticipate it because of the skill set he brings because it's a piece that fits so well to what we do.

00:21:59
Speaker 1: I had learn about him because to Mario and now we're at your pro deck. Yeah, and I like, I give him a hard time about it because he was I was like, I looked at Antsy Almanor, I'm guilty of this and I went, I don't know about that dude, Like I trust smart, but I don't know and I and I used to joke, hey, Mario, this is your favorite player, and then I saw it once the game starting, I saw what you were. So that's what you're looking for our pieces.

00:22:24
Speaker 2: And and and listen, this is Cam Williams.

00:22:26
Speaker 1: Now is he's an NBA.

00:22:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the NBA piece, Like he's the NBA loves him. So it's not like we have some genius insight into like reading these guys, but like we I think we have a pretty clear sense of how we'd like to do things and how we like to function, and then finding the guys that that suit that really well. And Cam is one of these guys that he's gonna be great wherever he goes and plays, but coming here where we're really really gonna dig in and use the skills, he's gonna be special. So it's all different.

00:22:57
Speaker 1: But so how do you find the dude from Croatia? I mean, you know he played for by the way he played the team. I don't you probably know this when when Kentucky played in the Bahamas that we played them and beat him by like night we played that team. How did you end up with him?

00:23:11
Speaker 2: In fact, I'm gonna throw meets go under the bus. So Misco is one of the top agents in all of all of Europe, and so Misko, uh, you know, had kind of been a party to setting up that game. And then I guess when they got to the game, there were a bunch of stipulations like you guys aren't allowed to play so and so is so.

00:23:32
Speaker 1: He's not allowed to play zone.

00:23:34
Speaker 2: He's still bitter about losing by fifty of that game.

00:23:37
Speaker 1: Uh but we I remember they not allowed to play zone. No. Yeah, but but I mean you look and you go now that we follow this guy, like, wow, how did you hit? You got on your radar?

00:23:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, our staff does an unbelievable job scouring everywhere and and and he's the guy that kind of you know when you So he's in a developmental team, megas a development mental team, So they play in a professional league, but they're all developmental guys. So they bring in really young guys and just raise them up playing them against legitimate guys. And his length was super attractive to us once we got on film, and his skill set, his ability to push the ball in transition and kind of make a decision on the floor, and then talking to him was was really great. So you know, one of the interesting things is we go through this portal season is we talk to everybody. And the reason we talk to everybody is because we actually don't know who fits Kentucky. So we actually have to have multiple conversations not just with the player, but with the team around them to understand if they fit here. There's so many guys that don't fit Kentucky this place.

00:24:43
Speaker 1: Is do you sometimes have to go meet them to know.

00:24:45
Speaker 2: That sometimes, but we don't always have that. You know, I'm a FaceTime zoom guy, so I want to be even with that.

00:24:51
Speaker 1: Though. Have you had meetings where you had the FaceTime and went, yeah, I just don't think.

00:24:55
Speaker 2: This work for one hundred percent. Yes, So that happens. This is a special so special place. So it happens more often than not that that we're a little bit in and we're like, ah, like, you know, I might love his time and be like, oh, he's not gonna survive here, or I might I might love you know him as a kid, but think, ah, his agenda is just different than our agenda. And so you know, that process is really important, and that was one of the one of the really important parts of the process with Andrea because I liked him. You know, you never know, like we'll see how some of the skills that translates, some of the physicality translates, some of some of those things translate. But as we were exploring all those things, which I was so excited about, all those pieces, when I started talking about on the phone and like it was one particular conversation on FaceTime where I'm talking to him and you could see him get emotional as he started to talk about the possibility of playing at the University of Kentucky, and I'm like, that's it. That's our guy, right, because he's gonna get it. He's not gonna miss it. As the head coach here running this program, I cannot bring guys in here that are gonna miss this. It would feel like I'm disrespecting this place that I love so much. And sometimes like uber talented guys could come here and miss this. But I think the guys are gonna serve us well as a community and a commonwealth. And is is that this this this incredible? You know, the pro the flagship program all college basketball, or the guys that have come here and not miss it, and those are the guys who actually hang banners forks.

00:26:28
Speaker 1: You know, you having played here, you know what it means to people to have dudes from Kentucky. And you are going to have three on this year's team, which has gotta be one of the most. Ryan sitting over there, I mean, there are not many times we've had more than three.

00:26:43
Speaker 2: I'm so, I'm so proud of Ryan for having his shirt on. Still this is I'm really proud of you. Man. That's actually super cool.

00:26:49
Speaker 1: A few minutes, but you from last year's team, you had Trent Noah, you had Travis Parry. Trent's coming back. Everybody's excited when the when the Travis thing doesn't work out and he ends up going what is your like, how's that play out? Because you know what dudes from Kentucky mean to the fan base.

00:27:07
Speaker 2: I know, so this is the thing, so you know, a bunch of things can be true at the same time. Travis Travis Perry is special, special, special like he had just is and he's a big time basketball player and he's gonna have a big time career. He's gonna be a terrific player and he's such a joy to coach. I mean, he just you know, took an information and just wanted to get better. And and he's got this seriousness about him that's pretty unflappable. And I just think he's got so many of the components of being a great basketball player. So and and I love coaching him, and that's all true. And so sometimes I get cautious about when he told me that he was leaving. We actually were having an ongoing conversation. I was trying to like help him see what I saw, and you know, we just just didn't get to the same place. I was super It was devastating. I mean, it's actually like it hurts my soul now just because.

00:28:04
Speaker 1: I so you really tried to convince him.

00:28:08
Speaker 2: Oh man, I just desperately want him to stay and and and and and Travis Perry loves Kentucky. So that that's when I say, I want to be sensitive, like he loves Kentucky. It's just he just you know, I would never want to put words his mouth, but I think probably he was just not feeling super confident about the path for him here at Kentucky being exactly what he wanted out of the game of basketball. Maybe I couldn't have disagreed with him more on that. But you know, at the end of the day, we're all just making our best. Guess. I just know and so and and listen, he's gonna go to Ole miss and he's gonna have a great career there, and he's gonna do it he's there, and yeah, he's a terrific player and and and all those things are true. I just know that being a Kentucky basketball player is so much bigger than being a basketball player. And and it's my job to help our guys see that and understand it and and feel it and and and and you know it sometimes as old people, it's so much easier for us to see ten years and twenty and thirty years down the road than it's just for young guys. And and so there's no so it just it just just all of that just man, it just it breaks my heart. But I'm also I love I love Travis and and he's gonna have a great run and all those things are all true.

00:29:36
Speaker 1: At the same time, I'm gonna read you what Ryan Lemon just texted me. All right, So now I got to give you the part where we give you a hard time. We have a little thing on the show where we talk about how much you say special and how much you say beautiful. Man and Ryan just said Pope throughout the trifecta special. Travis Perry is special, special, special. You love those words beautiful and special.

00:29:57
Speaker 2: Don't don't be don't be mad at me. I'm not mad at you because Leanne crushes me. She's like, well, you stop saying beautiful. At one point I was saying breathtaking. She's like, stop saying you say. She's like, could you please grow your lexicon so you can have some other works of sayers special and beautiful and.

00:30:15
Speaker 1: Beautiful is a big one. You're big. I'm beautiful.

00:30:17
Speaker 2: I'm actually gonna I'm actually gonna put a card down here with some some some synonyms for for for my hyperbology.

00:30:24
Speaker 1: You know, some people have a cuss jar. You need to have a beautiful and special jar, so they have to put a dollar in uh every time. Let me ask you some philosophy things about things I know Kentucky fans care. Well, let's talk about scheduling real quick. You have made and we don't even know all the schedule yet, but like it's gonna be a hard schedule here. I mean, you know, when you we start the Indiana series back, we got the Saint John's game where they're replacing in the Champions Classic, there'll be an ACC team come here. I'm rooting for Duke, although I hear it's gonna be something else, which disappoints me, but that's not your control. And now you got these two preseason games perdue and today was announced Georgetown. You really believe in Let's go play the best, right? I mean?

00:31:04
Speaker 2: This is this? Yeah, you guys are hear me say this, until as long as I get to be here. You know, if you're coming to Kentucky, you don't come here and hide. It doesn't make sense to come here and hide. Like we're gonna grow. We have some by games where we're gonna have a chance to grow and and do whatever. But like this is you know, if you'll let me. I spent the entire weekend and then I'm going to the SEC meetings next week and all I can talk about is we got to expand this over thirty one games.

00:31:32
Speaker 1: I agree, like we have got to.

00:31:33
Speaker 2: Expand this season, guys, because what's happening is especially with the revenue share. Now, like the revenue share should change everything in terms of our opportunity to actually go share revenue. Right, let's get to you know, I keep saying forty and everyone's mad at me. I'm gonna keep pushing forty. But can we get to thirty five? Imagine if we had four extra games? Yea, then we can put on our schedule where we go play a big time neutral game and set up a home and home and and and do an in state game that people here really care about, and just give us a little more flexibility in this deal.

00:32:09
Speaker 1: I just think, well, what's the downside? I mean I used to say, like, well, you don't want to have games during Christmas break? But who cares? Now? I mean at this point, like why not?

00:32:20
Speaker 2: But this is the thing is those are the greatest games. And listen, if you know every kid is inspiring and go play in the league. Yeah, one year from now, they're gonna be playing a Christmas Day game and their whole family's gonna come. You know, with nil, Now you fly your family in for the Christmas Day game. You want to be a pro, let's be a pro. Right, And I even if you keep a three day window right now they have this three day window, It's fine. You know, people argue about that. People, you don't have to make the season longer. Give us an extra week in the season, that's fine.

00:32:51
Speaker 1: But to simper you all play, it's like once a week a lot of times, right.

00:32:55
Speaker 2: And we have six weeks of practice leading up to it. Anyway, Yeah, extend out a little, just to double down on this whole on this whole insanity. You know, we'll get our guys in the summer, and our guys every college basketball player is making more probably than their parents right now. Okay, And the incredible thing is that during the summer, these guys are getting paid a significant amount of money and they're only allowed to work four hours a week, and the guys are dying. They're like, can we please, you know, can we please get together and get some work done? Like the all the whole thing is starting ouside it but I'm getting.

00:33:35
Speaker 1: Them, know, actually think that it makes perfect sense.

00:33:38
Speaker 2: So all of that leads me back to, like, can we please extend this season because you know what, we get Purdue and Georgetown, which is awesome in the non conference, but come on, man, let us do a home a home with Kansas, Like yes, So, like, why am I not going to stores to play a game, like we should be up.

00:33:57
Speaker 1: Some more.

00:33:58
Speaker 2: We need some more flexibility this and also like we have to like let us get to Maui.

00:34:04
Speaker 1: Now.

00:34:05
Speaker 2: Part of the complication is is that we make so much revenue off our home games that I'm locked into this twenty game home slate. We have to do that to pay the bills for us and for the athletic department, which is good. That's a good thing. It's fine, it's great. Bring on some more flexibility so we play some more games that every school could actually bring in some more revenue that we can share with these student athletes, that we can share with the rest of athletic department.

00:34:29
Speaker 1: Let's go, well, they have some of those tournaments now where the players get revenue, and I would think that's probably helpful in recruiting if you can play in them.

00:34:36
Speaker 2: Right, and our guys do better academically. It's the time tested proven our guys do better academically during the season than they do out of season. So let's make the season the whole school year. Our guys will be four point those students, they're.

00:34:51
Speaker 1: All gonna be academic starts.

00:34:53
Speaker 2: I'm gonna brag about this. Our guys that we were three point five GPA team nice this year. I'm super proud of our guys academically. Out to Michael Stone. Does everybody it'd be another A lot of people do. Yeah, Michael Stone is a legend. If you take your mom and you multiplier by ten, that is Michael Stone. He is relentless. I mean this guy, he is the greatest to ever do this job.

00:35:18
Speaker 1: Man.

00:35:18
Speaker 2: I love him.

00:35:19
Speaker 1: So. The only downside I've seen about your tenure is and I hear this from Louisville fans too, so like I loved at times how much Kentucky and Louisville hated each other, Cal and your old coach wanted to stab each other and still do whether whether they say it or not. But you and Pat Kelsey are too nice. Like the Louisville fans don't hate you. We don't really hate Pat Kelsey. That's the only thing I got to get you to spice up the Louisville rivalry a little bit.

00:35:46
Speaker 2: I hate this Pat Kelsey and all of those Louisville fans.

00:35:52
Speaker 1: Hay, No, now here's the thing.

00:35:54
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you this. You know it's actually super cool?

00:35:56
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:35:57
Speaker 2: Is that I got a boatload respect for Pat Helle. Okay, I got so much. I think he's what he's what he did last year was incredible. Yes, And I mean two of my guys played for him last year, right, and and what they accomplished and and you know, I don't I don't have a ton of interaction with the little fanibies, but I'm sure they're great. But but here's the thing. I actually the one thing I would say is that that I actually think I think that this that this Kentucky Louislle thing is just gonna get heated and heated. You know, it's gonna get heated because it's gonna be back to being like one verse four in the contret.

00:36:32
Speaker 1: No, they're gonna be good and they and they have the nisle to participate, and I think that's gonna be Yes. Yeah, well you get you get to go in there next year. You'll get a sense of I think they're gonna be cussing at you like they used to cuss me.

00:36:44
Speaker 2: They would never, they would not do that.

00:36:50
Speaker 1: I've had some blank Matt Jones chance from the student section, so I think, uh, maybe you'll get that as well. Okay, So going into year two, you made a that was like we want to be the best in everything, and you basically said and then included we're gonna be the We're gonna pay the most, We're gonna do this, We're gonna do that. I thought that was a really interesting statement. A lot of coaches want to downplay the future and kind of go we want you're you're just embracing like we're gonna be the top and we're gonna have to do that.

00:37:18
Speaker 2: It's Kentucky, Like, you know what, Guys like, I'm not gonna be the guy that comes to Kentucky as the head coach and somehow lowers the expectations of this place. Man, we're trying to win this whole thing. Like we failed at our job last year. You know you believe that one hundred percent. Like we listen. If I know myself, for the last thirty years, I've been a diehard Kentucky fan. If we didn't went out, Like what is wrong with that coach? Man? He can't win to Kentucky. That's what all my guys are saying to me every single day. And so like I'm not unrealistic. I understand the reality. But we're supposed to listen, we are blessed. I'll tell you the one thing that nobody in the world will deny. Okay, you can't actually argue we have the great fan base in all of college basketball. There's no one any other fan base that would argue that. Nobody can argue that. And so that fan base deserves the best of everything. And so you go down the list, and we're trying to be the best at everything. And that's what Kentucky is supposed to be. That's what Kentucky has traditionally been.

00:38:19
Speaker 1: That's what you know.

00:38:20
Speaker 2: I was just with I was just with Karl Anthony Towns yesterday in New York. And that's what he expects out of this joint and and and that's what Antons cars yesterday. Yeah, I mean it's what that's what all our foreigner players, former coaches, you know what you know, that's what Cal expects. I mean, Cal is that Arcis. He's like, don't you ruin my program?

00:38:39
Speaker 1: Man?

00:38:39
Speaker 2: That's the best song I wanted to all of basketball.

00:38:41
Speaker 1: I wondered when you got here? Here was here was a worry I had not about you as a coach. But you know, Kentucky fans, I think we're ready for a different thing. But they do love that. We have twenty six guys in the NBA and they love those guys and they watch them. They still feel very connected. And there was a part of me that goes, well, those guys still, you'll embrace this new coach, this new era. And then I saw Andrew Harrison, who's not in the pros, but said he watched more UK games this year than he had in years past. And I've seen you, you know, talking, and Devin Booker gave you a compliment and all these was that important to you to keep that bond with all those NBA guys and all those guys that played for Cal.

00:39:20
Speaker 2: Well, it's listen. I mean guys played for Cal and they played for Tubby and played for Jobie and and and so those relationship Listen. You develop a really special relationship with your head coach, like every player does. That should never go away. Like I mean, I played for coach Patino. Coach Patino is is is is coaching at Saint John's. I'm not gonna wear Saint John's T shirt, but but I love Coach Patino. I say that from the rooftops. I'll shot it from the rooftops, if you know, I was out a little quieter when he was coaching at Louisville, but otherwise, like so that relationship is always gonna exist. But but here's the thing, just like we were talking about with TP right, I am thirty years down the road, and I know what it feels like to walk back into Rupp Arena with your family and to let your children see this place that changed the trajectory of your life forever, and it means something. It was actually super you know, I don't know if Carls gonna get mad at me, but I was with him yesterday and he talked that's what he talked about. He's actually so forward thinking that he's already thinking about legacy. And so he was talking about one day when he brings his children back to Kentucky and that they get to see because the truth is that we all stop playing and then the next guy's become way cooler to our kids. Yeah, and then you get to walk back into the gym and you get to see this relationship that our thirty year old, you know, thirty years ago played and played in Kentucky, Jersey. You still feel see how people embrace them and you get to walk in with your children and they get to feel that and they get to see you on a light that they never actually saw you cool. And that's a real thing.

00:41:08
Speaker 1: And I know that.

00:41:09
Speaker 2: I mean, I got to play in the league as a bad player for a long time. I know what it's like. And so I want every single coach, every single one, and every single player that ever played here to feel like this is their building because they built it, like we get to enjoy it right now. I get to be the head coach at Kentucky enjoying this because of what Kat and what Antoine and what Tony and what Kyle Macy and what Joby, what all those guys built. That's what I get to enjoy right now. And so it's really important to me that every single person that ever wore this jersey or walked the East sidelines always feels like this is home, because that's what BBN does. That's how BBN is.

00:41:51
Speaker 1: Man.

00:41:51
Speaker 2: There's no fan base like it. You know, you finished, you put on this jersey, and thirty years from now, whether you were the best player on the team or you're coming off the bench for two seconds at the end of the last game of the conference season, they will remember you and cherish you because you shared an experience together.

00:42:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, John Wall, who It's crazy to me, but it almost gets me emotional to hear John Wall talk about how excited he is about you. Like, that's a great sort of melding of time. Dev's giving me the look. So I got one more question. So let me do this quickly. You went to London on Sunday. You saw that devastation down there, which I also saw on Saturday, and then we took the show on Monday. It is very hard to describe pictures in video. Don't do it justice. You were there. I know that had to have had an effect on you.

00:42:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so I mean, man, I had so many you know, I was only there for six hours. On Saturday, I was in Omaha and Memphis recruiting, and I called I heard heard about reports, and so I called Shep and I was just like, you know what what you know? And everything's happened in real time on the ground. So she was like, I don't know, man, We're still racing around trying to find out what's what and who's who and how we can help and who needs help? And so he texted me. I got back late that ninety he text me and said, Hey, there's a place where I'm going to go tomorrow with a few people, and we're just going to try and actually just try and help one house, right, to help one family. And so he gave me an address and we actually we actually got there early that morning. I took a couple of daughters and then a couple of their friends and we ended up parking a few hours away because there was so much stuff, and we got out of the car and we actually never made it to the house we were supposed to go to because we got out of the car. And I'm gonna just say that first days, but a senior couple maybe or late seventies, early eighties, Catherine and Jerry, were outside their house. There was a bunch of trees that had fallen on their roof, a huge trailer that I think had blown from the airport and flipped over right pushed against the side of ours. It was just absolute chaos, and they were outside kind of like trying to pick up stuff, and so we just stopped right there and we just started helping them. And then he grabbed a little chainsaw and he started cutting off a little branches these trees. We started taking it down and then you know what was really miraculous. Just to give you all emphasized the hopeful side of this was it seemed like every half an hour, a new group a couple people showed up. And by the time we finished, you know, six hours later, we removed all these trees from off their house. We had probably four chains. I was working. The big guns came in and we had a big h you know kind of uh forklift that came in. It was helping to lift trees and and uh. And there was a family that was really special to me from Paduca that that had just they had just come and parked and walked into the front yard after us, and I was like, do you guys know the family where He was like, no, we were in Paduca when things were really tough four or five years. People came helped us. So when we heard about we got in the car and we drove out here and we're like we're gonna like, we're gonna go pay it, pay it, pay it forward right kind of thing. And he was just like and then when we we when we left, we're trying to drive out and I kid you not. There was a like a it was a it was a parking lot for like a mile with people coming into town. And we drove by a gas station. There's two people out there with signs that are like they just had science scribbled the magic mark er free food. So you know, you just inviting people to come stop buying and if they if they need some food. And the point is like, there's so much work to be done, and it's like, you know, all of us that go in the you know, like we went in the first day, and so that's all great, but they're gonna be fighting us for the next years, right, and so the continuity of help and care for this community really is really important. But it was I'm telling you, it's it's Kentucky. It's Kentucky, man, the same vibe that we have in BBN, where there's this it's just this connection point like people in the state. From my vantage point, like we are great at loving our neighbor like people love their neighbors man. And that's to me, that's a gospel principle that's so important. But it's something that we see lived out in the lives of people here and and Kentucky's had way more than his fair share of natural disaster over the last couple of years. But it was as Biancy and I saw you guys down there, and I and and uh, you know what, I'll give you a little sid of hair because I think it's so cool. So you know, I know you guys, I think you were on air live there. But I saw some social media stories that you guys did where people were telling their story and I want to expand this just as this connection point. So I had some guys coming to my office like a month ago. I haven't had a chance to tell you this, and they this gentleman, incredible artist, just an amateur artists. He got a real job, but he's just he's just and so he did this incredible painting from the from the press conference a year ago, and he brought the office and this was what was super cool. So it was him and he brought his four buddies and there but my age there fifty right, and and and kind of gave me this gift. So we're sitting down talking in the office and so we got to this point where they're like, ah, man, we just you know, when I get up in the morning. The first thing I do is be like, what's you know, what's going on new? And then then I'm listening to KSR, you know, while I'm working, and then you know, I get home and after dinner, I'll go check and see, you know, what else is happened with the cats and the whole thing. And it's this connection point, the same thing we're talking about that you guys do an incredible job providing is is. And I say this all the time. It's like, it doesn't really matter if you say something bad about me or good about me, or bad about the cats or good about the cats. What matters is that there's all these people coming to the well. So I got to I've been. I had a chance to go to Africa so many times and do some service trips there and in these communities though, well, in these villages, the well is where you always find people because everybody is constantly throughout the day. You have to go, you have to leave your hut and you walk across the village and you go to the well to collect waters happening all throughout the day. And so the well is a special place because it's where everybody gathers and everybody interacts, and you guys do an unbelievable job. And I thought it was so special that you guys went down there and and just like brought the well there too where everybody can see. That's super cool, man. I appreciate you doing that. Well.

00:48:30
Speaker 1: I want to thank you. I'll let you go, but I want to say this set with you a year ago, and I told you that before you had gotten hired. I was kind of like, you know what, I might be done with this, and you said to me, And at that point I decided to stay. But you said to me, you begged me to do I was I was like, you don't have to beg me. I'm going to do it. But you have. This is the fan Matt talking, not the radio host. You have rejuvenated the love of this People always loved the basketball, people always wanted to win all that, but you have rejuvenated the thing where there's a pride, there's a self esteem that comes with being a part of it, and there's that collectiveness. In a state that's had a lot of difficulties historically, but especially in the last few years, this is that center point. And I've watched people who had kind of gone you know, I don't know if college sports are for me anymore. And you brought all that back, and these those players brought that back, and that is a really special thing. So just as somebody who talks to the fan base, thank you for that, because there's a lot of people who said to me, last year was one of my favorite years being a Kentucky fan. And I think we'll look back at last year the way we look back at some of those early Rick teams, the John Waldon, Marcus Cousins cal team, like the you got everybody back, and I think that's awesome.

00:49:55
Speaker 2: So let's say let's run back this year. I think I think we got a chance.

00:49:58
Speaker 1: Man.

00:49:58
Speaker 2: I think I think we're gonna fall and love with this team. And I think these guys, you know, the the the DNA of this team. By definition, we have a crew of guys that are like hungry to compete. We don't have anybody that's running away from it. Like everybody that's on this roster is hungry to come compete. I think they all get Kentucky and they're excited embrace it. I think there's gonna be a fun ride, man. I can't wait.

00:50:22
Speaker 1: Take it with your appreciate.

00:50:24
Speaker 2: Okay, let's go.