Kentucky Basketball Coaches Strike Positive Chord at Media Day
The unofficial tip-off to the 2024-25 Kentucky basketball seasons happened on Tuesday, when new UK head coaches Mark Pope and Kenny Brooks met the media for UK’s annual media day.
Both Pope and Brooks were forced to build their rosters in very narrow windows in the spring. The UK men’s team returns zero scholarship players, while the women’s team returns just two (Cassidy Rowe and Saniah Tyler).
On the men’s side, Pope hit the transfer portal, bringing in a number of players with a ton of college playing experience. He likes how his veterans, as well as his young players, have adapted.
“I think our guys are loving it, actually,” Pope said. “I think they’re enjoying every moment of it. I think we have a bunch of veteran guys. We have some really young guys and we have some veteran guys that are teaching young guys a little bit about what this is. And we’re all exploring the whole process together.”
Pope can directly relate to exactly what his players are experiencing right now. After playing his first two years of college basketball at Washington, Pope transferred to Kentucky.
“One of the gifts of me, I was a transfer also, and I played two years at another school and then transferred here,” Pope said. “And the gift that I got was I got to recognize that Kentucky really is different than anywhere else in the country.”
Pope believes that having mature players makes transferring, especially to Kentucky, a bit easier.
“Our guys came here as eyes wide open as you can be,” Pope said. “When you have guys that have played at one or two other schools and have played three or four years of college basketball, you can’t come to Kentucky more prepared than that unless you’ve been at Kentucky before.”
Pope loves how his players are embracing everything that goes with being a Kentucky basketball player.
“I think they’re appreciating it and loving it,” Pope said. “I think they’re very humble, understanding that it’s a massive, massive beast that they’ve jumped into. So, I think our guys are pretty focused and excited to take it on.”
As for Brooks, he came from Virginia Tech to Kentucky and he was able to bring All-American guard Georgia Amoore with him. That helped Brooks get off to a fast start in his roster build. Brooks is happy with how the roster came together.
“I’m very proud of what we’ve done in six months,” Brooks said. “Put together a roster. In this day and age, freedom of movement, sometimes you’ve got to start all over, and we went out and we went in the portal, and we didn’t want to always just get the best players, we wanted to get the right players, players that could come in and represent this university, our program, help us start something special, and I thought we did a really good job assembling a really good roster.”
Now that he’s been able to work with his team, Brooks has been able to see what he has, and he likes his team.
“It’s a group of great kids who just work,” Brooks said. “I don’t know how good they are. I don’t know how good they’re going to be. I do know right now as we speak I am undefeated, so that’s a good thing. But I really am excited about their progress and their potential. They go out and they work hard every day, and what they don’t know, they ask questions, and they want to continue to get better.”
The Cats continue to get to know each other and to learn how their new teammates play. Brooks knows that hard work is the only way to get through that process.
“It’s been a really good couple weeks to begin the season,” Brooks said. “A lot of new faces. I think with the exception of Georgia and Clara Strack, no one knows anything about anyone, but they’re working hard to get to that point. The camaraderie is tremendous. They’ve been working hard. I think we’re going to put a product out there that’s going to excite Big Blue Nation.”
While there remain some unknowns with Brooks’ first UK team, he is sure about one thing.
“I don’t know how good we’ll be in the beginning, but I do know that we’ll make everyone proud because we’re going to work really, really hard,” Brooks said. “And we’re going to progress into something that I think is going to be very special.”
Both programs will feature many new faces as the 2024-25 season begins, but there is plenty of optimism for both the men’s and women’s teams this year.
