Mark Pope leans into ‘mucked up' basketball as St. John’s showdown looms

Mark Pope didn’t spend his radio show selling threes and pace. He spent it selling survival.

Yes, Kentucky still wants to be a high-octane, modern offense. Yes, Pope still believes in the long-term vision. But right now? He’s leaning into something a lot more rugged.

“The game is a little more mucked up, which I don’t love aesthetically,” Pope admitted. “But I love it in a very spiritual way. It’s really physical, and intense, and combative. And I think we can exist in that type of game too.”

That’s the pivot: from spread-and-spray to “gross, beautiful basketball,” winning in the mud while this roster fights through confidence issues and injuries.

Why Mark Pope is embracing ‘gross, beautiful basketball’ — for now

Pope hasn’t abandoned the shooting identity. He’s just realistic about where this team is in December.

“We are just making some adjustments to try and find the space where our guys are most comfortable right now,” he said. He pointed to their NOAH shooting data in practice as proof that the touch is real, even if the in-game results haven’t caught up yet.

“I’ve never been on a team where the NOAH numbers don’t actually eventually transport their way into games,” Pope said. “Our expectation is this team will be really dangerous.”

For now, though, Kentucky is searching for continuity, courage and a little bit of joy. Pope keeps coming back to one theme: have a little success, and everything loosens.

“As we have a little bit of success, I think the game will loosen up a little bit for us and guys will feel more confident and safe moving forward,” he said.

Why St. John’s and Pitino are the perfect test

If you want to know whether this new version of Kentucky is real, St. John’s under Rick Pitino is a pretty brutal measuring stick.

“This St. John’s team is a great team, they are incredibly big and physical and skilled and of course they guard and press and they are one of the top defensive teams in the country,” Pope said. “They might be a little more potent shooting the ball this year.”

That’s coach-speak for: they are going to get into Kentucky’s chest for 40 minutes.

“So we are playing against a great team, that is the most exciting thing,” Pope added. “And getting to do it against Coach (Rick Pitino) is awesome. I love him and I am excited about the contest.”

Kentucky doesn’t just have to shoot better to beat St. John’s. They have to match that physicality again, and prove Indiana wasn’t a one-off.

The Jayden Quaintance update fans needed

The other big headline from the show was about the most tantalizing missing piece on the roster: Jayden Quaintance.

“We will continue to proceed with the utmost caution, but we are getting close… we are down to days and hours and maybe a week or so, not weeks and months, and that’s pretty exciting,” Pope said.

That’s as optimistic as he’s been publicly. Getting a physically dominant, switchable big into this “mucked up” style could be a game-changer on both ends.

And yes, the man has to stop yelling

One more window into how hard Pope has been going: he’s literally on a vocal minutes restriction.

He said he’s been ordered not to speak above a conversational tone for the next couple of weeks after straining his voice with all the yelling during the last month. It’s a very on-brand problem for a coach trying to drag a tight, nervous group back into itself.

The message of the whole show was simple: the threes will eventually come back. The spacing will return. But if Kentucky can keep stacking ugly, physical, defensive wins in the meantime, this season might still turn into exactly what Pope promised in April, just with a few more bruises along the way.