It took Mark Pope‘s first Kentucky team longer than hoped to reach the point where defense was no longer an issue. It wasn’t until midway through SEC play that the Wildcats began to hit a groove on that end of the floor.
“Last year, if you remember, we finally found our footing defensively after the game at Ole Miss and we made incredible strides in the last six weeks, eight weeks of the season,” Pope told reporters Monday. “We’re hoping to not wait quite that deep into the season before we improve.”
Once sitting outside of the top 100 nationally in overall defense last season, Kentucky ranked among the top 35 the rest of the way after that blowout road loss to the Rebels. In the offseason, Pope retooled his roster with defense and athleticism at the front of his mind. The likes of Jayden Quaintance, Mo Dioubate, Denzel Aberdeen, and Kam Williams were all added through the transfer portal as impact players on defense.
Since arriving on campus, many of those players have talked about Kentucky being among the nation’s best defenses going into 2025-26. But a little over halfway through summer practices, Pope is pushing back on that narrative.
“We’re a million miles away from being the team that we think we can be,” Pope said about his team’s defense. “It’s all fun and games to say what we think we can be [one of the best defensive teams in the country], but I do think that the potential is there. We just have a long way to go to get there.”
Pope wasn’t a huge fan of what he saw defensively during Kentucky’s scrimmage last week against La Familia, UK’s alumni team in The Basketball Tournament, which was eliminated in the Sweet 16 on Tuesday night. The current Wildcats still came out with the win, according to KSR’s Jack Pilgrim, but the defense left something to be desired in Pope’s eyes.
Why, you might ask?
“Poor coaching so far, actually,” Pope said half-jokingly. “Poor coaching so far.”
During his time as a player, Pope said most of his teams — whether that be in college or the NBA — entered the offseason with the defense ahead of its offense. He admitted that hasn’t always been the case since becoming a head coach, though, “because I’m twisted and warped and I love the offensive side of the floor.”
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