Kentucky Coach Prioritizes Getting the "Right People" when Building a Roster

Kentucky basketball head coach Mark Pope built a roster essentially from scratch when he took over the Kentucky job this offseason. One of the big things he is prioritizing when building a roster, is making sure he's getting the "right people" on the roster, which essentially means finding the right people for the job, and in this case, that job is basketball.

Pope expanded on his philosophy behind finding the "right people" at a luncheon in Louisville on Saturday. "First, I'll emphasize the importance of putting together the right people," Pope said. "Like, we're all in the people business. I don't know what you're in, but there are very few places where you're not in the people business, but this is the people business, certainly. ...It's about people. I have a really good friend who owns several professional franchises and when he was growing his company, they were at about twelve hundred employees. They were growing at supersonic speed, and so, I was asking him, like, how does he manage his time? He's like 'I spend eighty percent of my time hiring.' ....That's a visual of how important it is to get the right people."

The Kentucky head coach knows that finding the right people is very important when putting together a team. "That's where we spend our time. It's really important." Then, Mark Pope singled out one player on the current Kentucky roster that has displayed the type of person he means when he says to "find the right people," and it was Lamont Butler. "People talk about me as an offensive-minded coach because we shoot a lot, score a lot of points, and run a lot, and do a lot of things. I think Big Blue Nation was a little surprised for my first marquee signee of the portal season I signed the best defensive point guard in the country. What we saw in him is we try to evaluate as people, like, in his heart he is a winners winner. He is a winner, and that's proven to bare itself out, as he's taken our team in his arms. I can tell you anecdote after anecdote of really personal ways where he's reached out to each of the guys on our team to lift them up."

Pope then talked about the team as a whole, and how they understand what it means to play at Kentucky. "We talked about starting with people. We have tremendous people," Pope said. "We had an eight-week training camp this summer, where we got together. We don't have a single player on our roster that's played at the University of Kentucky before, and we only have one player that's played for me before. We try to squeeze a whole season into eight weeks, and my guys responded brilliantly. The things they learned on the court I was excited about, but their interactions off the court is what really has me inspired. I see guys go out of their way to intentionally, as a verb, love each other, and lift each other, and care about each other. I'm also watching my guys learn very quickly what this great state is, and what it means to have a chance to wear Kentucky across their chest."

Sounds like Mark Pope is making sure they understand everything that comes with playing at Kentucky very early on.