Kentucky's Mark Pope started his coaching career at Rupp Arena with 11 straight wins. How does that start compare to other first-year UK coaches?

Mark Pope will be the first to tell you he would not be coaching at all had he not transferred from Washington to become a Wildcat in 1994. He nearly didn’t anyway, enrolling in medical school at Columbia University as a Rhodes Scholar candidate before he quit to ‘fold laundry and hand out water’ as ‘the assistant to the operations guy’ under Mark

While still building UK basketball's 2025 recruiting class, Mark Pope and his staff have kept tabs on 2026. These 10 players have offers from Kentucky

Pope's Wildcats have enjoyed a fast start this season. His success has reached a point where media pundits like ESPN's Jay Williams deemed him the favorite to earn national Coach of the Year honors. However, Kentucky's latest loss to Vanderbilt has effectively crushed the dream, and even the fans know it.

A Kentucky basketball jersey signed by both Popes?! It exists thanks to Father Jim Sichko of Lexington, who packed a jersey signed by Mark Pope on his latest trip to the Vatican to see Pope Francis. Father Jim has delivered several Kentucky-themed gifts to the Pope in the past–a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle and an unsigned Mark Pope jersey,

Acaden Lewis didn’t expect Mark Pope to keep following him. Pope, who flew up to Washington D.C. to recruit Lewis, a four-star guard in the high school class of 2025, had just finished eating lunch with Lewis. At that point, Lewis expected them to part ways as he headed for a haircut.

LEXINGTON — Normally jovial and verbose during postgame news conferences, Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope struck a different tone after last week's game against Alabama at Rupp Arena.

One of the best games of the college basketball season took place on Saturday as Nate Oats and No. 4 Alabama went on the road to Rupp Arena to take on Mark Pope and No. 8 Kentucky in Lexington. The two teams battled back and forth in a high-scoring affair before Alabama eventually made a few more plays to come out on top 102-97.

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.

LEXINGTON — No. 9 Kentucky basketball’s 81-69 win over No. 11 Texas A ... "I love winning a game where we never felt great," UK coach Mark Pope said. U of L's 'great basketball talk' under Kelsey helping fuel on-court success Christian Dawkins nearly ...

LEXINGTON — Jaxson Robinson had ... natives back making their mark on UK basketball program Mark Pope won his first 11 home games as Kentucky basketball coach. Where does that rank?

It was bound to happen sooner or later, but this Kentucky men's basketball team has hit a rough spot. — ©2025. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.