“You go super direct, super fast,” Pope told The Cats’ Pause during a one-on-one interview.
“For me it’s a matter of showing guys my personality, showing guys exactly how I think about things,” he said. “I’m not actually trying to convince guys or trick guys or coerce guys to come. I’m saying, ‘Bro, here’s what we got. We’re gonna have like seven conversations on the phone and FaceTime and in person. And you got to decide if you can be inspired by who I am and what we’re selling here at the University of Kentucky. If you are, you’ll come.’
“We don’t have time for all the nuance, fun, happy-go-lucky conversations for six months,” Pope said. “We get into stuff from day one.”
Building long relationships is preferred, but Pope has discovered an unexpected advantage to this accelerated pace.
“I actually think it can be super successful,” he said. “What it does is from the very first conversation it’s like, ‘Hey, this is not us trying to sell you or recruit you. This is both of us as player and coach trying to figure out if this is the best fit for you and the best fit for us. It turns into not so much like an offer and an acceptance, it turns into a mutual agreement. It’s not perfect, but I think lends itself to us getting the guys that actually fit.”
Like a glove.
Nine months later, Pope reluctantly began to bid farewell to at least six of those transfers with Andrew Carr, Lamont Butler, Jaxson Robinson, Koby Brea, Ansley Almonor and Amari Williams all going through Senior Day celebrations.
The obvious emotions of the night begged another question. If a coach must “speed date” to get a player from the transfer portal, how do they then cram four years of coach-player relationship into just one season, particularly one like this 2025 Kentucky team that has blown by at warp speed.
“I have Lee Anne, Lee Anne actually can do that. She’s unbelievable at that,” Pope said, looking toward his wife. “If you ask them, they would be like, ‘I’m sad we are not going to be with Coach Pope and we are really sad we are not going to see Miss Lee Anne.'”
Perhaps its because Pope brought in a host of mature graduate students while UK fans spent more than a decade seeing true freshmen cycle in and out of Lexington, but this group has captured the heart of Big Blue Nation in a way few other teams have been unable to do, and that’s long before we see how this story ends in March Madness.
They’ve done the impossible, packing a career’s worth of memories into one short season.
“It’s these guys doing it with each other,” Pope said. “That’s what’s so special about this group. These seniors became so close. It was really fun.”
The highlight for Mark and Lee Anne was a special dinner on Monday night reserved for just the six players who have exhausted their eligibility and their families.
“We had a dinner last night that was so fantastic,” Pope said. “It was really special with just the seniors. To hear those guys talk about, it was fun to recount their experience recruiting, which all of them had interesting stories from their point of view to share with each other. And then just to hear them. All six of them stood up and kind of like took the mic and told stories last night for quite a long time and it was really wonderful.”
When it appeared Pope was going to share one of the stories, Lee Anne piped up and stopped him cold. That’s because before speaking the players insisted what is said in this room, stays in this room.
“I learned a lot of things that were going on behind the scenes that I’m not allowed to talk about,” Pope said. “But really beautiful things. That’s what special. They built relationships with each other. And to watch them just in that setting where the only focus was just taking them in, was actually really fun. Special guys.