{"id":235247,"date":"2025-09-18T01:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T01:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/235247\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T01:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T01:55:09","slug":"mark-popes-recruiting-strategy-we-are-going-out-to-find-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/235247\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Pope’s recruiting strategy? “We are going out to find winners.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you see Mark Pope<\/a><\/strong> and the Kentucky<\/a> coaching staff bouncing around from city to city, flying or driving anywhere with talent, they\u2019re not looking for the best athlete or measurables. It\u2019s not about finding the best shooter, passer or defender. Those things are important, obviously, but a lot of players in the transfer portal, high school and international ranks have those physical traits. <\/p>\n

They don\u2019t guarantee winners. And the Wildcats will pass on a gifted player if they don\u2019t have the mental trait that matters most.<\/p>\n

Pope was asked about building one of the most loaded rosters in college basketball in 2025-26, combining both talent and depth to push the program into the preseason top 10. How did he talk so many players deserving of a spot in the rotation into competing for roles?<\/p>\n

Winners are willing to sacrifice for the greater good of the team. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe guys we recruit \u2014 we recruit winners. We are going out to find winners,\u201d Pope told The Field of 68. <\/a>\u201cWhen you come in with a DNA that your first priority is to go win, that\u2019s who you want to coach in college and it\u2019s actually who you want to coach in the league, also, right? So you start there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then you have to do something with it all, putting the puzzle pieces together to make a cohesive product with real chemistry. They need to build it with each other, but the coaches have to create an atmosphere of trust in both them and the process in general.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how you get the buy-in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen it\u2019s every day. All of us are dealing with all the emotions and stresses and worries and anxieties that we have. It\u2019s an everyday connection,\u201d he continued. \u201cOur guys, we have a massive focus here on, like \u2014 I want my guys to leave this program as different human beings than when they came.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope\u2019s own 1996 national championship team in Lexington was the perfect example of that. Nine players on that squad went on to play in the NBA with seven of them drafted. There were All-Americans and members of the All-SEC and All-SEC Freshman Teams, plus All-NCAA Regional Team and All-NCAA Final Four Team members.<\/p>\n

No. 41 will be the first to tell you he didn\u2019t hang around in the NBA because he averaged 7.6 points per game at Kentucky. It was his unselfishness that translated to six years in the league.<\/p>\n

Winner, just like the guys he is recruiting today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was blessed that way. I was actually blessed to leave here a different human being than when I came, courtesy of Coach (Rick) Pitino and Kentucky,\u201d Pope said. \u201cWe\u2019re here to hang banners. We\u2019re here to send everybody to the league, and we\u2019re actually here for guys to walk out of this place different than when they came. A big part of that is understanding something bigger than just yourself. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing is, the only way you\u2019re going to become a great player is when you understand there are things bigger than yourself. It\u2019s not either or, it\u2019s this and the other. That\u2019s really the truth, guys, I\u2019m telling you it\u2019s the truth. We have the right guys to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Play for something bigger than yourself and trust the process; you just might hang a banner in Lexington. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an everyday journey to love each other, care about each other, believe in each other. Trust the process, and it can take you to special places.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you see Mark Pope and the Kentucky coaching staff bouncing around from city to city, flying or…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":235248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-235247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115222815585843478","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}