After Kentucky's upset of Duke, one name is echoing across the basketball world

Mark Pope. Everyone is talking about Kentucky basketball's new head coach, Mark Pope. He's shocked the world in only his third game of the season with an entirely rebuilt roster. Not many pundits expected a coach to follow John Calipari at a historic program like Kentucky and actually get it flying up the rankings in year one, much less in month one, and yet here we are.

Mark Pope took over a basketball roster with zero scholarship players on it. Zero. Less than a year later, he has a top-10 win under his belt over #6 Duke in the State Farm Champions Classic. Everyone is talking about this historic rise in such a short amount of time. Mark Pope arrived and was impressed.

This could go on for so long. Literally, go on X and search "Mark Pope," and it's insane. Everyone is talking about him, and it's not just Big Blue Nation; it's the entire nation. Yet, Pope doesn't want it to be about him. In his post-game comments, before he even left the floor, he said, "This is actually not about me at all ... it's about these boys, it's about BBN ... that's what makes it special."

In some ways, it is about you, Coach; you rebuilt a roster, taught them to play together, and did it as fast as humanly possible. And you know what was also amazing? You had a team trailing by 9 at the half and looking out of sorts. It started to feel like Duke would win by 20, yet you coached a few half-time adjustments, and the script flipped. Duke was scrambling, and Kentucky was attacking. Duke was running out of gas, and Kentucky kept reloading. This is coaching, this is the power of good coaching, this is Mark Pope.