Coach Mark Pope’s goal for Kentucky basketball? Grabbing at least 100 rebounds in game
Kentucky coach Mark Pope on how team can find the joys in basketball
Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope discusses how players should care about something more than themselves to find the joys in basketball with their team.
LEXINGTON — Mark Pope is no stranger to setting outsized objectives. Some may go a step further, deeming said goals outlandish.
Pope, in his first season as Kentucky basketball‘s coach, wants the team to average 35 3-point attempts per game. He frequently states other aims that are more analytically driven, throwing out numbers and abbreviations familiar only to those well versed in advanced basketball statistics. But as he pointed out during his introductory news conference in April, it comes with the territory at college basketball’s winningest program.
“Every coach in America at every other job in America stands up at the press conference and they try and moderate expectations,” he said. “We don’t do that here at Kentucky.”
He discovered his newest sky-high aspiration after Saturday’s 100-72 win over Bucknell.
The Wildcats pulled down 57 rebounds.
Pope seeks more. Far more.
“We are trying to get to 100,” he said.
He assumed it’s a figure that had never been reached in a game by a college basketball team. He was shocked to find out UK did just that six decades ago.
In a 102-59 victory over Ole Miss in Lexington on Feb. 8, 1964, then-Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp‘s club collected an unfathomable 108 rebounds. More than 60 years later, it remains the single-game mark for any team in NCAA history — seemingly as unbreakable as any of the Wildcats’ numerous records.
“Oh, man. I’m usually really good at being hyperbolic,” Pope said. “Apparently, I wasn’t even close.
“Well, I was kind of being sarcastic about 100. But maybe that needs to be our goal.”
Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.
Related
Kentucky Native Malachi Moreno Signs Agreement with UK
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Malachi Moreno, a 6-foot-11 center from Georgetown, Kentucky, has officially signed an agreement to attend the University of Kentucky ne
No. 20 Kentucky beats Wofford 76-42
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Dazia Lawrence made all of her shots in the first quarter to score 15 points and finished with 19 as she ignited No. 20 Kentucky's 76-42 wi
8 thoughts on Kentucky’s breakthrough win over Duke and postgame…
Trailing by nine at halftime in the State Farm Champions Classic on Tuesday night, the Kentucky Wildcats came together in just their third game with Mark Pop
WATCH: Andrew Carr Opens the Postgame Press Conference from the…
Kentucky outscored Duke 40-26 in the second half to overcome a 9-point deficit and hand the talented Blue Devils a 77-72 loss. Few expected they could pull
