The unbelievably talented people with the UK Sports Video team have blessed us once again with an awesome montage of Mark Pope‘s first-ever Big Blue Madness.

The Big Blue Nation’s first introduction to this new era of Kentucky basketball did not disappoint. Last Friday’s BBM featured a packed Rupp Arena played on a first-of-its-kind glass basketball floor. Travis Perry torched the nets in the 3-Point Contest while Collin Chandler jumped over Pope (and his wife, Lee Anne) to win the Dunk Contest. Players from all eras of Kentucky basketball were brought back, including former head coach Rick Pitino.

“We’re here with 22,000 family members and it’s really special,” Pope says in the video below. “There’s only one set of players and one coaching staff in the entire country that gets to do this and we get to be those people and we’re really blessed to do it.”

You couldn’t have asked for a better way to kick off the Pope era in Lexington. Luckily for us, we can relive it again thanks to this awesome five-minute highlight package put together by UK.

In the words of Pope, now let’s go get No. 9.

Join KSR Plus! With a KSR Plus membership, you get access to bonus content and KSBoard, KSR’s message board, to chat with fellow Cats fans and get exclusive scoop.