Brown: Kentucky's Mark Pope, Louisville's Pat Kelsey on same page when it comes to fans

Brown: Kentucky’s Mark Pope, Louisville’s Pat Kelsey on same page when it comes to fans

Posted by author February 11, 2025 Basketball

Pat Kelsey ventured into the U of L student section after the Cards’ win over Miami to thank the crowd. Mark Pope once paid for ice cream for hundreds of fans at Rupp Arena.
Both coaches come from humble backgrounds and have made efforts to be available and engage with fans.

Louisville basketball coach Pat Kelsey paraded through the student section Saturday after the Cards’ win over Miami, giving high-fives and giving thanks to the fans at the KFC Yum! Center.

Kentucky coach Mark Pope bought ice cream for hundreds of fans who stayed to hear his postgame radio show at Rupp Arena in November after the Wildcats’ win over Georgia State because he had to leave before signing autographs.

U of L and UK’s twin hirings last year will keep the comparisons coming between Kelsey and Pope. But here’s one way they’re the same: They connect to their respective fan bases in ways that their predecessors, both immediate and past, never could.

Humble coaching upbringings helped shape Pope and Kelsey and formed how they connect with fans.

Of course, UK and U of L are too big as programs with too big of a following to do all the things Pope and Kelsey used to do at their previous stops.

“It’s different at Louisville than it was at Winthrop and Charleston,” said Kelsey, referring to his previous two coaching stops. “I’ve kind of figured out just through experience of what I can do and I can’t do versus what I used to do.”

Kelsey used to be able to inconspicuously blend into a crowd and go about his business either without being noticed or simply just not being bothered. That hasn’t ever been the case in Louisville, and it’s only going to get worse — in a good way.

With the Cardinals poised for their first NCAA Tournament bid since 2019 in his first year of coaching, Kelsey’s star is rising fast.

The same can be said of Pope.

He has the Wildcats ranked No. 18, but his popularity is off the charts. On the court, wins over four teams that were ranked in the top 10 erased any doubts if he could do the job at a high level. Off the court, he’s won over the masses of UK fans because he gets it.

Pope joked during his introductory pep rally before a packed house at Rupp last April about how he used to have some open practices at Utah Valley and BYU, but at UK it “could be really problematic.”

But he hasn’t used that as an excuse to not be available, to not allow the fans to feel like they know him.

Kelsey is media savvy and that could have helped former U of L coaches Kenny Payne and Chris Mack during their tenures. Kelsey has actively pursued ways to get people invested back in basketball after a lot of apathy toward the program took over.

Search social media and it all adds up, from Kelsey decked in helmet and shoulder pads during football’s spring drills catching long passes from the JUGS machine or him walking through campus drumming up support before the Cardinals played Tennessee in November.

It’s even happened organically with a video that went viral after a passenger in a car Kelsey passed by recorded him throwing up the “L” and engaging fans as he drove past.

“This is the greatest college basketball program in the country, my opinion, with the greatest fan base; it still blows my mind a little bit that people actually think it’s pretty cool to see me in public,” Kelsey said. “I don’t think I’m that interesting, but it’s just how much Louisville basketball means to this city.”

Pope isn’t as quick to hop on video, but he’s been just as eager to establish a real connection. It’s been as simple as signing autographs and stopping for pictures. He’s already taken thousands of them.

Although former UK coach John Calipari started off giving sneak peeks and updates on his early teams with video posts on social media, that soon faded to the point of his final seasons in which he frequently sent assistant coaches out to do news conferences and even occasionally his radio show.

That disconnect is part of what made Calipari’s situation at UK untenable.

Kentucky and Louisville are two unique jobs in college basketball. It’s not mandatory that Kelsey and Pope make community outreach a priority, but it sure makes it better that they do.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.