Mark Pope, Kentucky basketball draw championship declaration from Buzz Williams
Yesterday at 03:27 PM
The Kentucky basketball team put out another impressive performance on Tuesday night as they easily took care of business at home against Texas A&M. The Aggies played well in the first half and they had a seven-point lead at one point, but the Wildcats closed the half strong and controlled the second half to earn an 81-69 win. Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams is very impressed with what Mark Pope has done with this Kentucky squad in such a short amount of time.
Mark Pope is in his first year coaching the Kentucky basketball team, and he has a good squad on his hands. The Wildcats are 14-3 and 3-1 in the loaded SEC, and Buzz Williams believes that they have the tools to win it all.
“They’re good enough to win the national championship,” Williams said after the game, according to a post from Tristan Pharis. “I think they play with great spirit. I think their coach has a phenomenal spirit. I think how he leads is the appropriate way in 2025 and you can tell, you can tell how they compete, you can tell how they play. You can tell watching their huddles. You can tell how they’re in and out of substitutions. That that spirit, I know it’s not a stat. But I think the spirit is probably just as important as the stats, just from listening to coach, and learning from coach I think it’s – I think those things are correlated.”
It’s not easy to take over a college basketball program and immediately have the team firing on all cylinders. However, that is exactly what Mark Pope has done this season with the Kentucky basketball team. It is obviously very early in the season, but the Wildcats seem poised for success.
“I’ve really enjoyed studying it. I know that sounds condescending. I mean it in the most respectful way,” Williams said of this Kentucky team. “Really good players, a lot of variety to the skill as you know, but I think the utilization of the talent and the skill, considering the newness of the coach and his staff and the players, that’s really difficult to do, and so I have not seen any of their practices or their film sessions, but the teaching that’s going on, and the itinerary of the practices for them to have the execution that they have is remarkable.”
There were a lot of Kentucky fans that were skeptical of the Mark Pope hire when it happened, and early success doesn’t guarantee sustained success. However, it’s hard to imagine that there are many Wildcats fans out there that could have drawn up a better start to Pope’s first year.
Kentucky is off to a hot start, but they have had a lot of teams in recent years that have done well in the regular season. What Wildcats fans really want to see if a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. That’s what matters most.
Pope and Kentucky will look to pick up their 15th win of the season on Saturday, and it’s a big one. The Wildcats will be hosting #4 Alabama. The two teams will tip at noon ET from Rupp Arena in Lexington, and the game will be airing on ESPN.
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