It is finally a new era under Mark Pope now that Big Blue Madness has come and gone, as the real fun is about to begin for the Kentucky Wildcats.

With a whole new roster to learn, there are two players from the Bluegrass state that will be very familiar to the BBN. To make it even more intriguing, Pope singled out the two Kentucky boys, Travis Perry and Trent Noah, as the late surprises heading into the season.

Coach Pope recently joined Jack Pilgrim on the Sources Say podcast and praised the development of the two freshmen.

“Let’s talk about these two freshmen, Travis Perry and Trent Noah. They came in day one during the summer and were exactly what we expected them to be,” Pope said. “They were really talented young guys that were spinning around in circles and turning the ball over and missing shots. You know, they had a real issue with see man and ball, with defensive shell concepts and were late on the catch and couldn’t catch on the move, their gaps were wrong and they never were to the bottom — all the things. Heaven forbid they were ever trying to get to a first-pass position, right?”

He continued:

“And then they just have gotten better and better and better and better every day. Now, not only do they not mess up practice, but they’re also dangerous, right?”

As it turned out, Perry and Noah would go on to finish at the top two players in the Big Blue Madness 3-point shooting content, which saw Perry win with a final score of 27 compared to Noah’s 26.

It is sounding like Pope is expecting the two freshman to make an impact in Year 1. Who knows how many minutes that will be, but don’t be shocked to see the duo of Perry and Noah to go out and help push the Cats to a few wins this season.

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