{"id":72163,"date":"2025-08-10T10:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T10:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/72163\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T10:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T10:56:09","slug":"when-was-mark-popes-best-season-ever-the-case-it-may-be-the-next-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/72163\/","title":{"rendered":"When was Mark Pope\u2019s best season ever? The case it may be the next one"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Pope has never won more than 25 games in a single season, is that going to change in 2025?<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"65\">When Kentucky hired Mark Pope, critics didn\u2019t hold back. His r\u00e9sum\u00e9 was solid but hardly elite: a 211\u2013120 career record, no prior NCAA Tournament wins, and stops at Utah Valley and BYU. Yet by the end of Year 1 in Lexington \u2014 a 24\u201312 season capped by a Sweet 16 run \u2014 those doubts had largely evaporated. Especially when you consider everything that Pope went through. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"68\">Lamont Butler, Kerr Kriisa, and Jaxson Robinson all missed significant time with injuries. Kerr never played after January, Butler played injured the second half of the season; and Robinson had to be shut down for the year due to a wrist injury. During that time Kentucky also had to play in the SEC which was the best conference in the history of the sport, and produced the National Champion. A team that Kentucky beat when mostly healthy. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/01k27ce7arc22emztdv5.jpg\" alt=\"Walter Clayton, Otega Oweh\" title=\"Walter Clayton, Otega Oweh\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"6h\"\/>Florida v Kentucky | Michael Hickey\/GettyImages<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6l\">Pope&#8217;s statistical high point though? Utah Valley\u2019s 2018\u201319 season: 25\u201310, 12\u20134 in conference play, and a second-place WAC finish. But context matters. That roster wasn\u2019t loaded with McDonald\u2019s All-Americans or five-star recruits. Pope built it from the ground up. He then moved on to BYU. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6o\">At BYU, he hit 24 wins in 2019\u201320 (no postseason due to COVID-19) and took the Cougars dancing in 2021. Then came the SEC leap \u2014 and a Kentucky debut season that produced big wins over elite opponents and the program&#8217;s first Sweet 16 since COVID. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6r\">Now, with a roster that could start the year inside the Top 15 and a <a href=\"https:\/\/wildcatbluenation.com\/kentucky-s-sec-path-revealed-with-brutal-opening-and-closing-weekends\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">schedule full of statement opportunities,<\/a> there\u2019s a real chance Pope\u2019s \u201cbest year\u201d is coming right now. If history is any indicator, he\u2019s always been at his most dangerous once he knows the roster inside and out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Pope has never won more than 25 games in a single season, is that going to change&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-72163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}