Step inside the Joe Craft Center this week, and the first thing to catch your eye is likely to be a sign of the lofty expectations Mark Pope is bringing to his first season as head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats.
A few feet inside the front door of the basketball practice facility — there to greet anyone who enters, positioned within plain sight of the UK coaches’ office suite — a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall features an image of Pope and his team huddled up on the court.
Across the top of that image, there’s a graphic of the eight national championship banners hanging in the Rupp Arena rafters. And right smack in the middle: the NCAA title trophy.
Two words complete the picture on the screen, displayed in all caps with black and blue lettering …
“BANNER CAMP.”
Pope didn’t shy away from the annual expectations surrounding the UK basketball team when he took the job in April, embracing the standard of hanging banners in Rupp Arena, which hasn’t welcomed a new one since the 2015 Final Four.
It’s been more than 12 years since the Wildcats’ last NCAA title — the lone national championship during their 15 seasons under John Calipari — and that was the only prize referenced on the TV screen in the Craft Center as official practice for the 2024-25 season tipped off this week.
“Banner Camp” began at 6 a.m. Monday, with Pope’s 12 scholarship players and five assistant coaches — all of them newcomers to Kentucky basketball — hitting the court bright and early.
This wasn’t their first time sharing the floor together, of course.
The team was permitted to practice for eight weeks over the summer, but those sessions were limited to four hours per week — typically divided into four one-hour practices per week — and the same rules applied when the fall semester began.
Starting this week, the schedule is dramatically different.
The Cats are allowed to practice for 20 hours per week over the six weeks leading up to their season opener — the first game of the Pope era — against Wright State in Rupp Arena on Nov. 4. With some exceptions, the plan in the early going is for UK to hold two-a-days on Mondays and Thursdays, while taking Wednesdays and Sundays off, with regular practice sessions slated for the other three days of the week.
Early takeaways?
“Well, we’ve been practicing since June, so now we’re just going longer,” assistant coach Jason Hart told the Herald-Leader following practice No. 4. “What we saw in June — you know, we know what we have.”
And that’s an endorsement of what these Wildcats could become.
Kentucky’s first practices
Perhaps the biggest surprise of that summer practice window that started in June was that there were no real surprises . Pope and his coaching staff thought they had put together a talented roster filled with players who fit the style that Kentucky wanted to play, but — with 12 guys who had never played together — you don’t know what you have until you see it on the court.
Hart said the first few practices of the fall have been a continuation of the summer.
“The energy has been good,” he said.
Hart spent the past three years as the head coach of G League Ignite, the squad that featured star recruits who jumped straight from high school to the NBA developmental league, 10 of whom were drafted over Hart’s three seasons.
He knows there was some outside attention on the start time — 6 a.m. — for UK’s first preseason practice, but the veteran NBA point guard downplayed that aspect, indirectly talking up the Wildcats’ maturity level as a result.
“These guys, it’s … you know you have practice at 6 a.m., you go to bed. It’s not hard,” Hart said. “I mean, they get up and go work out. Because these are the kids who have NBA aspirations. So the training that these kids go through — these elite-level ones — he’s doing 5 a.m. workouts before school. You’re trying to be the 0.9% to make the NBA, so you do different things. They just don’t stumble and get good. That doesn’t happen. … These dudes have been working way before they got to us.”
And that’s part of the reason that Pope and his staff wanted them in the first place.
The UK roster features six “super seniors” — players using their fifth year of NCAA eligibility — Koby Brea , Lamont Butler , Andrew Carr , Kerr Kriisa , Amari Williams and Jaxson Robinson , who was BYU’s leading scorer last season and the only Wildcat who’s been coached by Pope in the past. Ansley Almonor is a traditional senior in his fourth year of eligibility.
Junior guard Otega Oweh and sophomore center Brandon Garrison were both starters in the Big 12 last season. Freshmen Collin Chandler , Trent Noah and Travis Perry round out the scholarship players.
UK also held open tryouts for walk-on spots last month, with coaches observing about 25 hopefuls at the Craft Center during an early morning session. Grant Darbyshire and Walker Horn — walk-ons the past two seasons under Calipari — participated in those tryouts and have been on the court with the Cats this week, though no official announcement has been made on a finalized roster.
The first few practices of the fall have brought excitement for the future.
“I want to see us play against somebody else,” said UK assistant coach Mikhail McLean . “Because sometimes it almost feels — I don’t want to say, ‘too good to be true’ — but we do a lot of things really well. And the things that we’re not great at yet, we’ll have fixed within the next week or two. … I think if we stay healthy, we’ll have a chance to make a deep run this year.”
McLean, who spent the past three seasons as an assistant at Lamar University, played college ball for the Houston Cougars and spent several seasons on staff there with head coach Kelvin Sampson, first as a graduate assistant then in a player development role. He was with the program for its 2021 Final Four run.
McLean also spoke highly of this team’s collective energy.
“We don’t have bad days,” he said of the Cats. “We’ve had 6 a.m. practices and 5 p.m. practices. I’m going to say we’ve had maybe one day that you can maybe consider ‘bad’ — if we’re just going off like a championship standard.
“But our guys have so much joy in the gym every single day. And they have fun. And they compete. It’s not like, ‘Oh, hey, best friend.’ They love each other, but they’re still going after one another. When you go consecutive weeks without bad days, every team that I’ve been a part of — as a player or a coach — you have a lot of success.”
UK players take the lead
The dynamic new UK offense was a hot topic during the offseason.
Other practice observers who spoke to the Herald-Leader this week talked up the system, saying the “fast” and “fun” aspects have been as advertised, predicting that Kentucky fans would love the pace at which the Wildcats will play.
The Cats scored plenty last season. It was defense that was the downfall of Calipari’s final UK team, which finished 109th nationally in defensive efficiency — according to the KenPom ratings — a Calipari-era low by a wide margin.
A different level of defensive talent and intensity has apparently been on display in the Craft Center over the past few days. While it remains to be seen exactly how good Pope’s first team will defend, those who watched last season’s group say this squad is already far better at stopping the ball.
Practice-goers have been impressed with Williams’ rim-protecting skills. Carr — a 6-11 power forward — has been draining corner 3-pointers at a high rate. Perry, the state’s all-time leading scorer and reigning Mr. Basketball — generally considered to be the 11th man on this veteran squad — might already be earning himself some real minutes with his early play.
Pope himself is taking a true “players first” approach to these sessions. When mistakes are made or whistles are blown, he lets the players on the court talk out what they saw before jumping in with his own thoughts and guidance.
Hart said fans can expect to see that in timeout huddles once the real games begin. Players talk first, coaches second. That applies to Pope, too.
“That’s his style,” Hart said. “... You see college teams huddle at the free throw line during games? They’re talking about what went wrong. So that’s promoted, so guys can be on the same page all the time. …
“It’s about our guys communicating. So that’s really good. It’s great. I think all coaches should do that.”
Timing will probably be an issue.
Getting 12 new teammates on the same page at game speed is going to be a challenge, not just for Pope’s high-tempo offense predicated on connectivity, but defensively, as well. Even with those summer sessions, these players are still getting to know one another on the court.
But there will be plenty of opportunities to do that.
On Oct. 7, the Cats will play in front of NBA scouts in Memorial Coliseum for the school’s annual Pro Day event, which will stream on SEC Network+ starting at 6 p.m.
Big Blue Madness is set for Oct. 11, with the Blue/White Preseason Event on Oct. 18 and exhibition games against Kentucky Wesleyan (Oct. 23) and Minnesota State (Oct. 29) after that.
“Banner Camp” just started. The real season will be here soon enough.
“They’re connected,” Hart said. “They’re buying in, and they’re not fighting it. That’s a big thing. And, shoot, this is Coach Pope’s first year. So I think they’re taking that as a challenge. They don’t want to be looked at as …”
Here, Hart let out a grunt of disappointment. These Cats have lofty goals.
“So they’re gonna give it their all. And when you do that, you’re always gonna have success.”
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