Coach Mark Pope's goal for Kentucky basketball? Grabbing at least 100 rebounds in game

Coach Mark Pope’s goal for Kentucky basketball? Grabbing at least 100 rebounds in game

Posted by author November 10, 2024 Basketball

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.