Mark Pope must find his inner Ben McCollum in crucial Kentucky offseason

Mark Pope is staring down the barrel of a massive, unavoidable rebuild of a team that just didn't gel and couldn't get it done. Now Pope has to channel his inner Ben McCollum.

The Kentucky coaching staff is completely turning over. Jason Hart has officially left for SMU, and associate head coach Alvin Brooks III is not expected to walk back through the doors of the Joe Craft Center. Behind the scenes, the returning players are in stay-or-go meetings to determine who is actually welcomed back and who even wants to be here after a disappointing 22-14 season.

Nobody in Lexington was happy with the way the season abruptly ended, and they shouldn't have been. It was statistically one of the 10 worst seasons in Kentucky basketball history.

Pope might end up losing a few players he initially thought would stay, and honestly, that is absolutely okay. The on-court results last season were unacceptable.

To fix the broken culture, Mark Pope must turn to the wise words of a 4-time Division II National Champion.

The ultimate blueprint for first-place culture

If you want to know how a winning culture is built, look no further than Ben McCollum.

After winning four Division II national titles at Northwest Missouri State, McCollum jumped to the Division I level and immediately led Drake to a 31-4 record and a second-round NCAA Tournament appearance. Then, he took the Iowa job. Now, he has the Hawkeyes playing in the Elite Eight against 3-seed Illinois.

On the Watts Happening Podcast, McCollum pointed back to his playing days under Steve Tappmeyer to let everyone know how to build a program.

"My first practice with Steve Tappmeyer—best coach I've ever been around—I sat there, and I'm like, 'This is what first place feels like. This is what a first-place culture feels like. This is what first-place people feel like," McCollum explained.

That was his ultimate wake-up call. He realized that "first-place people" share very specific traits that you can not teach. They either have it or they don't. It starts with an extreme work ethic; they have a competitive spirit in how they go about their practice and play. Most importantly, they have an undeniable edge to the way they play and practice.

You cannot resurrect a competitive corpse

When building a roster, you can teach a player how to shoot. You can teach players how to slide their feet on defense. You can even take the time to teach how to execute a complex offensive set. But you absolutely cannot coach competitive spirit.

McCollum perfectly summarized this philosophy by referencing a legendary quote from former Georgetown coach John Thompson.

"You can tame a fool a lot quicker than you can resurrect a corpse," McCollum noted. "We want guys with a little edge to 'em."

If a coach has to consistently beg a player for effort and attitude, the battle is already lost. You have zero time to actually teach and get them to improve. McCollum specifically searches for "energy givers" and aggressively weeds out the emotional vampires like Collin Robinson (ifykyk).

Over the years, he discovered that players who are moody or have low energy simply do not survive in a winning program. If a player sucks the life out of the building, it does not matter how talented they are. They are gone.

That's how you build a program, and not a roster. Kentucky had a roster last year.

A do-or-die third year in Lexington

When you read McCollum's philosophy, it is impossible not to think about the glaring flaws of last year's Kentucky team.

Far too often, the Wildcats had incredibly low energy. They got moody on the court, and sometimes they played with their hair on fire. Other times, they looked like they were sleepwalking. When adversity hit, they got entirely into their own heads. Sometimes they could come back as they did against Tennessee. Other times, they crumbled like in the season's last game against Iowa State.

Mark Pope is a brilliant offensive mind who favors a highly cerebral approach to the game of basketball. He talks about controlling what you can control and not worrying about anything else. But when Iowa State punched Kentucky in the mouth, that cerebral approach completely fell apart because the roster lacked that innate, unteachable edge.

Iowa State refused to quit. Kentucky folded. And Iowa State's players knew it.

As Pope navigates the Transfer Portal to build his Year 3 roster, he has to prioritize competitive spirit over raw, 5-star talent. Not that he can get very many of the 5-star players out of high school. He has to find the energy givers in this year's portal. He found a recruit in Mason Williams who does it, but that is just one.

He has to find more guys with an edge who refuse to lay down when the lights get bright. They can't crumble under pressure.

It is officially a "prove it" year in Lexington. It is time to find some first-place people.