After diagnosing his team's problem as "distracted effort" and "distracted focus," Mark Pope offered a glimpse into his plan to fix it.
It starts with tuning out the world and focusing on just yourself. Pope's philosophy is that after a tough night, the only answers are "internal."
“It's really really important... that you spend more time looking for internal answers and validation rather than external,” Pope said. “I think it's really really important. Again, not just in sports, in life also... within your own locker room... everybody looks inward.”
He said he told his players to stop "taking in all the external information" because it tricks them into believing they aren't the experts on their own situation after a tough loss.
Pope's "strenuous" suggestion
Then, he revealed the one specific piece of advice he gave his team, advice he immediately admitted he knows they probably can't follow.
“I strenuously suggested to my guys that they put down their phones for a couple days. I don't think that's actually humanly possible for that younger generation,” Pope said. Of course it is not, if it's not Instagram, it is Tik Tok with all the dances and fans.
“But the less burden they take in from from from external sources and the more they can stay focused on like the reality that we create in our own locker room... because we're actually the world's experts at what we do and sometimes you get tricked that you're not.” That is an interesting line, but one that makes sense. You are at one of the top basketball programs in the nation, and you are playing, you are an expert at that.
It's a clear message: Pope believes the loss was mental, not physical. He's trying to get his team to "rush through" the "five stages of grief" and "get to constructive really fast."
In his mind, the first step to "rewrite the story" is to block out the noise, get off social media, and focus on the internal solutions, even if it's "not humanly possible."
Drew Holbrook is an avid Kentucky fan who has been covering the Cats for over 10 years. In his free time he enjoys downtime with his family and Premier League soccer. You can find him on X here. Micah 7:7. #UptheAlbion