If my head is spinning after just one day in Lexington on Saturday, I can’t imagine how Mark Pope, his staff and the players will feel going into the week, certainly with practice starting Monday. Kentucky Father/Son Camp began Friday before concluding Saturday at the Joe Craft Center. From there, the Wildcats headed to Alltech Arena at the Kentucky Horse Park for Club Blue’s NEW ERA event, the first-ever meet-and-greet with the subscriber-only team. Then everyone woke up on Sunday and returned to the Craft Center for the Father/Daughter Camp, which started in the morning and ended in the late afternoon of Father’s Day.
Needless to say, it was a lot.
KSR was able to briefly observe Saturday’s chaos, starting around 9 a.m. and leaving around 4:30 p.m. It was our first chance to see the players and coaches in action since Pope’s arrival, and there are plenty of things to learn now. that the dust has settled. That is the direction we will take this afternoon in the 4-Point Game.
Mark Pope is too nice for his own good
Let’s start with Father/Son Camp, where the Pope juggled starting the period of direct contact with rising youth at midnight on June 15, staying up until 3 a.m. talking to kids on the West Coast before showing up. early in the Joe Craft. Center for the second part of the camp. There, he actively engaged with attendees while making stops around the office for quick calls with recruits, followed by a brief speech to close the event while helping lead a CATS chant.
The contact period for 2026 recruits opens at midnight
Mark Pope spoke to someone who has everything he wants in a player at Kentucky. Any guesses? 👀 pic.twitter.com/Vt8ODdMU7w
– Jack Pilgrim (@JackPilgrimKSR) June 15, 2024
From there, he headed to the Club Blue event at the Kentucky Horse Park, where he spent more than four hours introducing the team to donors, participating in a question-and-answer session and taking approximately 37 million photos with fans. Event organizers had a hard time getting him from place to place and sticking to the itinerary because Pope just wouldn’t stop taking pictures and signing autographs.
He was a few minutes late here and there throughout the day, but there was always disinterest behind the tardiness. She wore his gratitude on her sleeve, thanking every person present and making sure they knew this team wouldn’t be possible without his support. Even after the event ended, Pope stayed another half hour to socialize and share stories, surrounded by fans waiting for the chance to meet Kentucky’s new head coach.
Whatever it took to brighten their day, he did it.
I spent the afternoon in @ClubBlueNIL Meet and greet with Mark Pope and the new Wildcats.
This was Pope long after it was all over, still hanging out with fans and taking pictures with everyone who wanted one. He was like that all day, infinitely grateful for the support. pic.twitter.com/YHfJqfXpJ7
– Jack Pilgrim (@JackPilgrimKSR) June 15, 2024
The crazy part? She continued her father-daughter camp on Father’s Day, another all-day event in which she enjoyed every minute with her own family by her side.
It was a non-stop weekend that saw Mark Pope wear a ridiculous amount of hats, and his kindness added even more to his plate by maximizing interactions with fans throughout.
Lamont Butler and Andrew Carr will be the leaders of the team
Choosing a team leader may not be so easy in a group with seven super seniors, but two early favorites have emerged based on nothing more than the eye test. As players, they have Butler with national title experience, someone who made one of the biggest shots in college basketball history. You also have someone in Carr who fits Pope’s system better than anyone: he once said the 6-10 transfer was “born to play for me,” both with four years of experience.
Talking to both of them and seeing how they interact with their teammates, coaches and fans, it’s hard to ignore their professionalism and leadership as smart veterans. They say and do the right things while clearly understanding the opportunity before them in their final season of eligibility.
The new fifth-year students may also have a coach in their future; just make sure you don’t give up offensive rebounds or turn the ball over while under his watch.
It’s a deep group with a lot of leadership, but Butler and Carr’s personalities have stood out from the beginning of the group. You can already trust what they brought to the table as players, but after seeing them up close and personal over the weekend, they are a safe bet.
Nick Robinson is the Pope’s most underrated signing
Pope’s staff is loaded with Alvin Brooks III, Cody Fueger, Jason Hart, Mark Fox and Mikhail McLean making up the five-man assistant group. It is a strong group with experience, recruiting success, Xs and Os and young people, the most complete you can find.
An under-the-radar addition that may be Kentucky’s most underrated of the offseason? Nick Robinson, who was hired as Kentucky’s chief operating officer on June 3. He arrived from BYU as Pope’s assistant from 2019-2024, someone the head coach describes as “incredibly intelligent” with “boundless energy and intensity” while also being “meticulously organized and extremely passionate about building a high-caliber program.” .
As far as first impressions go, Robinson couldn’t have checked those boxes better in my initial interactions with him.
Oh my god, the guy didn’t stop moving from the moment I walked in the door at Joe Craft Center early Saturday morning until I walked out of Alltech Arena later that afternoon. Jumping from gym to gym, room to room and workout to workout, Robinson efficiently kept things moving at Camp Father/Son while interacting with fans throughout the Club Blue event. I stopped him briefly in the middle of the chaos and asked him if he was going to hit a wall soon. Your response from him?
“We’re having fun, man!”
The job is more than youth camps and fan interactions, obviously, but Robinson arrived with a solid reputation. If you’re taking “inconsequential” non-basketball events as seriously as you do now, what does that mean for the real events to come? My money is on the 44-year-old from Missouri, one with two decades of coaching experience, including four as a D1 head coach.
A return to Big Blue Madness camp?
The Big Blue Madness camp is one of the best traditions Kentucky basketball has to offer. However, it was removed from 2020-21 due to COVID-19 precautions, then brought back in 2022 in a modified form, a one-night event with space restrictions, before disappearing again in 2023 due to Memorial Coliseum renovations. .
The point is, it hasn’t been the fan-favorite event as we knew it since 2019. Will that change with Pope? Those discussions are ongoing, but he would like them to return, if possible.
“Will the Big Blue Madness camp be repeated? I would love to get that back, we just have to get over some safety hurdles and stuff,” Pope told the crowd at the Club Blue event on Saturday. “But I have to tell you that I lived that and it was magical. “It’s like nothing else.”
Make it happen, UK Athletics. It is right.
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