KENTUCKY BASKETBALL - LIVE BREATHE BLUE - Reality Check: Mark Pope Serves Up Humble Pie

I’ve spent the entire summer shouting from the rooftops about how good this Kentucky basketball team was going to be on the defensive end of the court. All that length! All the athleticism! Surely that was bound to result in deflections, rim protection, and good old-fashioned, elbows-out, in-your-face defense—the smothering kind you tell your grandkids about. 

Throughout the summer player interviews, everyone—to a man—seemed locked in on how defense was going to be a key to a championship.

Well, Mark Pope is making us all look bad.

Because according to the head coach himself, his team is currently about as far from defensive excellence as Lexington is from Mars—and that’s not me paraphrasing (well, maybe embellishing a bit). But that’s essentially what Pope hinted himself after UK’s lackluster performance in the most recent TBT scrimmage.

“I thought after the first quarter of the TBT game, I was going to crash out,” Pope lamented. “It was brutal. We didn’t guard anybody. We are a million miles away from being the team that we think we can be.”

Oof. Not exactly the steel-curtain lockdown I was envisioning and promoting.

Now to be fair, this is not Pope hitting the panic button. If anything, this is just Pope being Pope. He’s pulling out a set of blueprints, donning a hard hat, and digging in deep on the foundation. Like the man in Scripture building his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house—but it did not fall because it had its foundations on the rock.

“We’re spending a massive amount of time and energy and focus on the foundation,” Pope explained. “Making it the best, deepest, most sure foundation that we possibly can. And we’re trusting that the next steps are going to go faster and that we’re going to get a better product.”

Translation: Don't expect a move-in ready mansion at the start of the regular season. There’s no hardwood floors or custom cabinets to admire—not yet at least. Just a lot of trench work and brick laying, with the hope that—eventually—the framing goes up fast and the open house wows the neighbors.

Of course, it all sounds very noble in theory. But in the meantime, the reality is that the defense is still evidently giving up more wide-open threes and blow-bys than all those free samples at Costco.

“Poor coaching so far,” Pope joked (or at least I was hoping he was kidding) when asked about the surprisingly slow start. “There’s so much to do. There’re so many things to do.”

Here’s what gives me hope that the team will ultimately come around. If there’s one coach who can accomplish a lot in a given amount of time, it’s an innovator, encourager, and motivator like Mark Pope. I mean, sure—maybe his players aren’t closing out like they should or communicating on switches. Maybe there’s more confusion on the perimeter than at the DMV. But if humility is the first step toward improvement, then let the record show: this team is already lacing up its sneakers.

“I think this group has a chance to be beautifully coachable…” Pope said. “I think we have a conglomeration of guys here who understand what Kentucky is, who understand our desperate desire to get better and have the humility to do it.”

“Beautifully coachable.” That’s poetic Pope speak right there, but it means the players listen. They care. They’re not rolling their eyes during film sessions or checking Instagram during timeouts. Instead, they’re living in what Pope calls “a humble space”—a phrase I plan on bringing up at the next press conference or two.

“The humility is always a sliding scale, but I think we’re living in a humble space right now, where guys are able to actually take in new information to get better…One of our key ideas this year—one of our hundred percents—is living to a standard every single possession.”

Every. Single. Possession.

That means no plays off. No moment to relax. No “Oops, my bad” after your guy scores. It's an all-in commitment, a constant pursuit of defensive excellence, the kind of focus that gives basketball coaches early gray hair and fans mild heart palpitations.

And if the goal is to build this program into a defensive powerhouse sooner rather than later, Pope isn’t afraid to slow things down now to speed them up later.

“We are going to blow up practice more often than we did last year. We’ll get stuck because we’re not going to move on until we live up to the standard we have.”

It’s a bold plan, especially when you realize this isn't a team full of grizzled four-year vets. These are talented young players with high ceilings, Instagram followers, and the occasional TikTok dance. But Pope’s betting that between the humility and the hunger, this team has what it takes to flip the switch.

“I thought this team had a terrific chance to grow into a great defensive team. We have a long way to go on that, but I think we can get there.”

That’s the key right there. We can get there. The path may be long, bumpy, and full of defensive lapses, but it’s a road worth taking. Especially if, at the end, we’re looking at a team that makes opposing offenses question their life choices.

So, I’ll own it. My summer megaphone of defensive optimism was a bit premature. The reality is messier, slower, and far more foundational than I let on. But if Pope’s calculations are right, and if this team buys in the way he believes they will, then we’ll look back on these early struggles as the necessary groundwork for something truly elite.

And if Pope’s final shot to the media is true—that he hopes this is the last time he talks about “the defense being porous,” well—consider me back on that rooftop, shouting louder than ever.

If Pope’s right—and I think he is—this team won’t just build a house. They’ll build a fortress.

Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. Currently serving as a columnist for Nolan Group Media, he invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. Explore his newest book just released—“Whining for Posterity: Lessons in Life, Sports, and Other Things Worth Complaining about”—and all his books at https://www.Amazon.com/stores/Dr.-John-Huang/author/B092RKJBRD