Mark Pope has the utmost respect for his players and that is why he is honest with them. After the Wildcats’ 82-69 loss to Georgia on Tuesday, Pope was honest about his team’s rebounding effort and he was not pleased, to say the least.

“That’s a bell we got to ring,” Pope said after the game. “It’s unacceptable for us. It’s a sign of distraction. There were so many uncharacteristic plays on the court tonight. For us as a decision-making team, those are manifestations of some distraction.”

To fix that problem, Pope says the team has to get better at rooting out that distraction and building better habits. This is something he highlighted after Kentucky’s loss to Ohio State as well.

Highlighting the glass as a “major issue”, it’s not for lack of effort.

“Sometimes, when you start on a project you take ten steps backward before you start to make progress,” Pope said. “It feels like that is what’ve done. It feels like the more that we talk about it, the more we drill it, the more of a challenge it is.”

Find his full press conference below.

On Wednesday during his pre-Ohio State press conference, Coach Pope provided a brief update on the injury status of Lamont Butler who suffered an ankle injury against Clemson.

Even though Butler was able to play against Louisville, playing 32 minutes on a recently injured ankle could possibly lead to a setback. When discussing Butler’s injury on Wednesday, Coach Pope jokingly said: “Lamont’s ankle is an interesting thing because there’s part of me that wants to get it 100% healthy, and then there’s a part of me that, I don’t know if I want to get it 100% healthy. He was pretty good in that Louisville game.” Pope was smiling as he said that, referring to Butler scoring 33 points, grabbing 6 rebounds, and shooting perfectly from the field. 

Pope went on to explain that the UK coaching staff is being careful with Butler and currently holding him “out of contact” in practice. This means he’s doing the individual drills, offensive breakdown concepts, but when it comes to live action, Butler is not participating. 

The good news for BBN, Pope ended his update on Butler by saying, “I think he’s over it, I think we’ve moved on, hopefully”. This is a good update on Butler and certainly infers that he should have no limitations for Saturday’s game against Ohio State.

No one knew how close Kentucky was to missing its prized point guard in the 2025 class. According to a recent interview with Larry Vaught, he was ready to commit to Dan Hurley and the Connecticut Huskies. Yet, Mark Pope was still able to get his prized recruit.

Lewis is a top 40 recruit from the D.C. area who was a late riser in the recruiting rankings. The six-foot-two-inch guard had a tremendous junior campaign for Sidwell and Friends School. Lewis went from a fringe top 80 prospect to a consensus top 35 prospect wanted by every blueblood program.

“In the spring he was in a space where he was trying to shop himself,” Pope said. “Then by midsummer, he was trying to tell people to stop bothering me, ‘I can’t talk to every single school in the country.’”

So how did the self-made top 35 prospect, near UConn commit end up at Kentucky?

In the summer, Mark Pope was on the verge of losing his featured point guard to Dan Hurley and the UConn Huskies.

“He was on the verge of cutting Kentucky,” Acaden’s father Jarett Lewis said. “His choice was going to be UConn.”

When Pope received this information, he immediately made the trip to D.C. with his full staff, determined to change the momentum. That trip was essentially to “hangout” with and understand Acaden, as the staff immersed themselves in the point guard’s daily life, which ultimately resonated with those closest to the recruitment process. They watched Lewis work out in his neighborhood of Trinidad, then spent time with him at his local barbershop and home.

“We live in the hood but they (Pope and Acaden) come down and hang out in the barbershop. There is no gimmick with Pope. He cares about where you are from, who you spend time with. If he likes you and wants you, he wants to understand you.”

That visit left a lasting impression, but Pope then continued traveling to D.C. weekly for a month to see Acaden, all kept under wraps. Jarett Lewis felt like his son was being recruited by Mark Pope as if he was another DC legend, Allen Iverson.

“I am floored because Mark and Jason had recruited him the hardest of any blue blood. Regardless of his ranking, Pope recruited him like he was Allen Iverson in his prime.”

The effort did not go unnoticed as Jarett wanted his son to take an official visit to Kentucky, and give them a chance.

“I don’t care if you cut Kentucky but the thing we won’t do is not give Mark Pope a chance to address any concerns you have. The thing you do better than anybody in the country is communicate and whatever fears and concerns you have, now is the time for you to hold Pope accountable,” Jarett Lewis told his son.

From the edge of being cut, Acaden had a “home-run” official visit in Lexington for Big Blue Madness.

“He didn’t care about seeing campus. He wanted this visit to be about basketball. It was the most basketball-oriented visit we had and what we wanted. He loved it all and decided Kentucky was for him.”

“If I had not stepped in and said to let Pope visit, I guarantee you now he would be going to UConn. I basically forced him to take that visit but now he’s glad I did.”

Next season, Lewis is set to pair in a Kentucky backcourt with Jasper Johnson, also joining five-star big Malachi Moreno. A great start to Mark Pope’s first recruiting class.