The two main messages from Kentucky\u2019s preseason so far have been that this team is 1) deep and 2) fiercely competitive, not necessarily in that order. We got two more examples of the latter at SEC Media Day. <\/p>\n
During a segment on SEC Now, Mark Pope revealed that the team has a \u201cwinner\u2019s board\u201d that the staff updates daily to reflect who performed best in practice. When the team got a look at the fresh winner\u2019s board earlier this week, chaos ensued.<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple of days ago, we finished a film session, and we put the winner\u2019s board up \u2014 we update it after every practice \u2014 we put the winner\u2019s board up, and we couldn\u2019t even get out to the practice court. These guys were arguing; they were crushing our guys recording the wins. They\u2019re fighting about who\u2019s on top of the winner\u2019s board in the film room.\u201d <\/p>\n
There are other examples. When Braydon Hawthorne<\/a><\/strong> knocked the ball away from Mo Dioubate<\/a><\/strong> in practice, Dioubate went after it so hard that he accidentally hit Hawthorne in the mouth and knocked a tooth out of place<\/a>, sending him to the hospital. When Pope gave the team a week off after summer practice, several stayed on campus and practically lived in the gym, including Denzel Aberdeen<\/a><\/strong>, whom Pope regularly mentions as one of the most competitive guys on the team. Pope raved about the Florida transfer again on Tuesday. <\/p>\n \u201cDenzel Aberdeen, everybody at Florida knows this, too, is beautiful, just a pure competitive spirit, which kind of our whole team feels like they\u2019re embodying right now. This love of competition, a fearlessness about the way he competes, that he\u2019s willing to step on the floor, and he\u2019s not scared of taking an L, but he is going to fight you to the death to win everything. If we put him out there and play Tiddlywinks or do a game of Uno, I think our guys would lose their minds.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, the guys did lose their minds over Bank, a dice game, at Pope\u2019s house, resulting in a broken dining room chair courtesy of assistant coach Mikhail McLean.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a bunch of guys over to the house, playing Bank, a nonsensical dice game, where you decide when you\u2019re going to save your numbers. It got so competitive that one of my assistant coaches broke my dining room chair. I still haven\u2019t forgiven him for that. Mikhail McLean. I\u2019m coming for you.\u201d<\/p>\n I think Lee Anne is the Pope that Coach McLean probably needs to worry about the most regarding the chair, but it\u2019s further proof that this team is relentlessly competitive, which will serve them well this season.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just the competitive juice that these guys bring every day,\u201d Pope said. \u201cThey\u2019re about winning, and it\u2019s what drives them. It\u2019s what wakes them up in the morning. So, when you get to coach a group of guys like that, it\u2019s pretty incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n