LEXINGTON, Ky. — The first sign that Sunday afternoon at Rupp Arena was going to be an unexpected, all-time electric day in that building arrived around 8:30 a.m. Kevin Wynn, his wife and three children drove in from Tennessee the night before and slept in their car in the Wal-Mart parking lot to make sure they’d be at the front of the line when the doors opened for new Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope’s introductory news conference. Holding such an event in a 20,000-seat arena, when initial public reaction to the hire ranged from lukewarm to total disappointment, seemed at first like a major risk. What if nobody showed up? There was at least some worry internally about that, as UK only planned to open seven sections in the lower arena for fans to come watch.
“When I heard they were doing this,” Pope’s former teammate Jeff Sheppard said, “I was like, I wonder how they’re going to position Rupp Arena to make it look full.”
But then the line that formed behind Wynn and his family grew very quickly, wrapping around the building, and it did not stop growing, right up until the scheduled 4:30 p.m. introduction, which had to be delayed several minutes because fans were still streaming into Rupp. By the time a tour bus carrying Pope and filled with former Kentucky players finally rolled onto the floor of the arena, the place was packed. A capacity crowd, which was closer to 16,000 on Sunday with some of the lower end-zone bleachers retracted to make room for the ceremonial stuff, showed up just to get a glimpse of the new coach. When the parade of alumni players stepped off that bus, then Pope emerged last, holding aloft the 1996 national championship trophy he won as a player here, the explosion of sound was as loud as it’s ever been in that hallowed place.
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Wynn had waited outside the arena for seven hours to make sure his family was there to witness it, “and it was totally worth it,” he said. “This means the world to me. I grew up watching Mark Pope with my dad, and now I get to spend time with my kids watching him be our coach. It’s pretty amazing. It just feels like the connection is back. At the end of the Calipari era — and you gotta give him all the respect for what he did the first few years — the fan base started separating. But I believe this is going to bring the fan base back together.”
By the end of John Calipari’s 15-year run, particularly the last four seasons in which he won just one NCAA Tournament game, both the coach and fan base seemed annoyed by each other. Everyone was ready to move on, and in a surprise move last week, Calipari did, bolting for Arkansas. Sunday’s wild scene at Rupp Arena felt in so many ways like a rebuke of all the things that soured in those final years under Calipari. And a return to the way things were before Calipari. Athletic director Mitch Barnhart said he and his family tried to predict how big the crowd would be Sunday, but nobody got close. “It exceeded all the numbers,” he said.
“Mark brought the family together in a moment we probably needed to have that feeling again,” Barnhart continued. “We have to find our way back to that heartbeat, and I think he did that.”
Whatever reservations fans had about hiring Pope, who in nine years as a head coach does not have an NCAA Tournament win, they quickly set them aside and decided to go all-in on this Back to the Future plan for Kentucky basketball. Nostalgia is a powerful drug, and they were piping that stuff in through the air vents at Rupp on Sunday.
Pope scratched every single place that has been itching for the faithful these last few years. He asked for a do-over on the photo-op with Barnhart on stage after first posing with a newer replica Kentucky jersey with his name on it. He pulled out his actual college jersey from the 1990s and explained that it wasn’t just some prop, rather “it’s the jersey that has blood, sweat, tears and love.” He paused often to let deafening roars die down, which sometimes took several seconds.
“Nobody in the world has ever seen anything like this,” Pope said. “There is nowhere like the University of Kentucky. You guys are living proof of that. We had a little call to arms and you cannot fit all of the Kentucky faithful into the building this evening, right? There is nowhere like this, guys. And listen, don’t think you are not making a difference, because this video is going out to every recruit in America.”
Mark Pope exited a bus inside Rupp Arena holding the 1996 championship trophy on Sunday afternoon. (Clare Grant / USA Today)
In the official transcript of his remarks, there are 68 insertions of either (cheers) or (applause). There were a great many cheers and applause.
“Every coach in America stands up at the press conference and they try to moderate expectations,” Pope said. “We don’t do that here at Kentucky. I understand the assignment. We are here to win banners.”
(Cheers)
Calipari, after four Final Fours in his first six seasons, didn’t get back there again after 2015. Worse, he stopped winning in the SEC tournament, too, and had no qualms saying out loud that it didn’t even really matter to him.
“We’re here to win banners in Nashville,” at the SEC tournament, Pope said Sunday, “because you guys turn out in Nashville like nobody else, and that matters.”
(Applause)
And what about his scheduling philosophy? Well, for starters, maybe folks would like to get a game with St. John’s, bring his old coach, Rick Pitino home. And there’s this other event that, since 2010, Calipari has refused to play in, despite many fans’ pleas to do so.
Leaning in like he was telling the crowd a secret, Pope said, “Since we have a small group gathered together, let’s say sometime in the future we can find our way into this Maui (Invitational) tournament. Would anybody come?”
(Cheers)
What’s his stance on players who care more about the name on the back of the jersey than the one on the front?
“Entitlement leads to sorrow and depression. And gratitude leads to joy,” Pope said. “And I will tell you this: What all of the future players will learn really quick is that they are not doing those jerseys a favor by letting the jerseys clothe them. Our guys will know quickly that it will be one of the great honors of their life to put that jersey on.”
(Applause)
Under Calipari, the program had become an NBA finishing school, a pit stop for five-star recruits on their way to the pros. And even as fans began to grumble that they were tired of hearing about how many NBA All-Stars he coached when all that talent had delivered just one national championship, Calipari couldn’t help himself bragging about it. Sunday, Pope told a plainly pointed story about when he played in the NBA.
“You know what we did in the locker room?” Pope said. “We didn’t talk about the NBA teams we played for. We sat in the locker room and talked about our college basketball teams. Nobody is going home to their NBA team; they are coming home to here.”
(Cheers)
How will Pope build a roster? Calipari, even in the oldest era of modern college basketball, said after his latest first-round upset loss that he wasn’t sure he could quit his addiction to hoarding blue-chip freshmen.
“We’re talking to all the guys on the current team, all those recruited and every player in the portal right now,” Pope said. “We are going to find the guys that fit here, the way we play, and the guys that will come here and understand what a gift it is to play here. Those guys that fit here sometimes will be one-and-done burger boys for sure, and sometimes they will be guys that come here and play four years and grow in your hearts and minds and become Kentucky legends, and everything in between. That is what Kentucky deserves.”
(Applause)
Pope got a question about how important in-state recruiting is to him (very), and tickled all the sweet spots for the assembled masses.
“From Richie Farmer … to Reed (Sheppard) last year … to Travis Perry next year,” Pope said, locating Perry in the crowd and imploring him to stand up. The place erupted. “There’s a good chance he will not jump into the portal, guys,” Pope joked.
(Cheers)
At one point, describing his approach to coaching, Pope said “We get to be shepherds.” The crowd knew what he was doing, in part because of the sly grin that crept across his face as he said it. Jeff Sheppard, his college roommate, was just off stage. Reed Sheppard, the national freshman of the year, is still weighing whether to turn pro or come back and play for his dad’s lifelong friend. The crowd started chanting, “Reed! Reed! Reed!” until it morphed into, “One more year! One more year!”
“I owe him one,” Jeff said afterward, shaking his head. He added that Reed is still working through that decision. But Pope? “He’s going to connect with the state. He did today. He understands the heartbeat.”
Pope also understands how to build a staff in this ever-evolving landscape of college basketball, where name, image and likeness, the transfer portal and players still getting an extra year of eligibility have shaken up everything about team management. His staff won’t just be made up of recruiters, X-and-O guys and skill developers.
“You’re considering GM positions that navigate a roster,” he said. “You’re considering NIL positions. I am not smart enough to figure it all out, so we will get help in here to do it.”
(Applause)
Former Kentucky star Rex Chapman was among the many alumni, across multiple generations, who filed off that tour bus with Pope on Sunday. He grinned when asked about those who panned the hire and quickly pivoted to all-in support once they learned just a little bit about the Cats’ new coach. He laughed thinking about the way Pope cast a spell on everyone in the building for his official introduction.
“You can see why he does so well when he sits down with young men in their living room, with their parents,” Chapman said.
When all the cheers and applause were finished Sunday, as Pope posed for pictures with a fan wearing a full Catholic pope costume, as people in “We’ve got hope with Pope” and “Pope is dope” T-shirts shuffled out with dazed and delighted looks on their faces, Barnhart stood nearby and smiled.
“Everybody wants to go in the Wayback Machine. This gives you a little bit of a taste of what it felt like in those days everybody is talking about,” Barnhart said. “I thought he knocked it out of the park. He was great. He’s exactly who I thought he’d be, and he did exactly what I thought he would do. He was in love with them before he walked in the room, and I think they’re now in love with him.”
Now all he has to do is actually win — big, and quickly.
“Because that’s what Kentucky deserves,” Pope told the crowd. “If we don’t do it, we don’t belong here. That is the job. That is the assignment.”
(Cheers)
(Top photo: James Crisp / AP)
