[Old School Hound]

When I began teaching your kids and grandkids decades ago, Madonna topped the Billboard charts with "Papa Don't Preach." I've given out a lot of grades since Madonna and I'm ready to give out another one tonight for Coach Pope on his first season in Lexington.

I was prepared to elevate Pope from B/B+  to A-/ A with a win tonight. But his team looked outclassed, unprepared, and less determined than their opponent. We saw this several times this season. Marked appeared overmatched by one of the weaker March coaches in the history of basketball. Still, 24 wins is admirable. The number of top 15 wins is impressive. Still found a way to get some good wins, even with the injuries. Rebounding and defense was a problem all season. The defense got better late in the season, but was poor again tonight. Too many times Mark's team seemed unwilling or unable to match the physicality and toughness of an opponent. Don't know if this is a reflection of the coach. Overall, good season for Pope. More positives , than negatives. Still, 12 losses, tied for 6th in SEC and blown out by Rick Barnes in your finale isn't good enough for an exemplary grade for a supposed blue blood school.  Mark needs to entice better, tougher players to the Bluegrass. Every championship team needs a couple of guys who play angry and with a chip on their shoulders.  Nice guys finish tied for 6th. 

Overall Grade:  86  Solid B



Your grade ???

[Old School Hound]

[jetpilot]

A

[jetpilot]

Matt Jones
@KySportsRadio
·
11h
I still give Mark Pope a solid A on this season

He got a team together in a few weeks, had them play entertaining basketball in the hardest conference maybe ever

Lotta great wins and a Sweet 16…plus much optimism about the future

[jetpilot]

John Fanta
@John_Fanta
·
9h
One aside: Mark Pope deserves an A for his first year. He led Kentucky to eight top 15 wins. Wildcats played a fun, high scoring style of basketball that fits 2025. They had players who came off incredibly likable. And Pope showed he can handle the SEC gauntlet. Strong season.

[jetpilot]

Cats Coverage
@Cats_Coverage
·
9h
Koby Brea says coming to Kentucky to play for Mark Pope changed his life. His message to players in the portal is that it’s a “no brainer” to do the same.

“If this is what he can do in 1 year, imagine what he can do having some more time…”

[jetpilot]

CBS Sports College Basketball ?

@CBSSportsCBB
·
10h
"Mark Pope did an incredible job this season."

Despite the loss,
@GaryParrishCBS
says Kentucky made a lot of improvements this season.

[Old School Hound]

I think a good case can be made for grades anywhwhere from B- to A. I did see where some crackpot,probably one of those who beat his poor wife after the game last night, said Mark deserved no better than a C -minus. That's just crazy! Like I said, a win last night would have gotten my A.

[Old School Hound]

  Hilarious!!!  Someone(probably Jet) actually felt the need to rate the thread one-star because I gave Mark Pope a B instead of A.   LOL   I'm dying here!!!!

[4 Quarters]

A-, Pretty nice work.

[Old School Hound]

A-, Pretty nice work.

Yep, this group wasn't super-talented. Hodge podge of misfit toys that came together and overachieved. More top 15 wins than any team since the '90's. Very nice season. A third win over UT would have been a certain A grade for the KY head man. Good job by the UK coach.  Now, for some better players, please...

[-STAT-]

Considering what he had to do in a short time, basically revitalized the program with the opening press conference in front of 23,000, that moment would've been overwhelming for anyone else, but for someone like Pope who completely understands the expectations and this fanbase, that wasn't a surprise to him, and all of the praise/criticism wasn't a surprise to him either, that's the thing he knows what comes with this job, he is by far the most popular man in this state.

Combine all that with the great staff he put together, a mixture of young up & coming coaches and a veteran guy like Mark Fox, that was the key in putting together a staff around him, a coach is only as good as the staff he has, and he has a great one. Next was hitting the portal, and he truly did a great job of getting proven guys who were deemed outcasts so to speak by former teams, one player who followed him for BYU, and guys who no one had ever heard of come together and build a bond & brotherhood in just a few months' time, and that is exactly what they did.

Moving onto the season, we really didn't know what to expect with this team, just knew or hoped it would be an exciting style of play. We got that just the third game as we defeated Duke (which I happened to be at and it was awesome) and things went off from there. Knew it wasn't going to be a 40-0 type season, but all in all, can't complain of the results of this season, especially being in the SEC which was an absolute grind session every single game. Won some big-time games, beat 2 of the final 4 participants, even through all the injuries, Pope and the rest of the team navigated through it all the best they could. I said toward the end of the regular season, if we could just make it to either Friday/Saturday in the SEC Tournament, and then to the 2nd weekend in the NCAA Tournament, that would be huge for the program moving forward, making it to the Sweet 16 was great, came up 1 short of the elite 8 which would've just been added incentive to make it that far.

So all-in-all, I'd give his season 1 grade an A- considering everything that had to happen/what actually did happen.