Kentucky Mark Pope is giving the Wildcats a couple of days to decompress before conducting individual meetings to help determine a path forward.
The roster construction for next year will begin with the current Wildcats to formulate a retention plan.
“We'll start those conversations in earnest (this week) and see where we end up,” Pope said on his radio show Monday night. “In this time of college basketball, everyone's got to make a decision about what's going to work best for them and how they want to do it and where they want to do it. It is an important piece of this retention. But with cap management now, it all falls under that window. Everything is dependent on how it fits into a cap.”
In his second season with the Wildcats, Kentucky finished 22-14 and lost to No. 2 seed Iowa State in the NCAA Tournament. Pope said the season didn’t meet expectations, but was pleased with the way his team performed with a makeshift roster that was depleted with injuries at point guard. In two seasons, Pope and his squad have played a full roster in just 10 of 72 games.
"We all know the standard that we are chasing here in Kentucky, but you get there by making progress,” Pope said. “There are some really good markers for the people who want to cheer. It's not going to serve the people that want to hate, but the people that want to cheer, and the people that really care about the program and are living and dying to see these guys be successful and win.”
Moving onward to the recruiting trail, through both the high school and portal ranks, Pope knows what he wants on his future roster.
"We are desperate to bring creators here to Kentucky,” he said. “Creators are people who earn shots for teammates and can go earn shots for themselves. There are a bunch of other metrics that go into it. The best teams are creator-rich, and unfortunately for us, do a large part of the changes that (at) the point guard spot.”
Pope said Kentucky lacked a solid creator when Jaland Lowe went down with a shoulder injury.
“That was a place where we struggled all year long. Creators deal with pressure. Creators earn guys better shots. Creators make shots for themselves, and that's a space where we're going to have a high, high focus as we build this roster for next year."
Although the roster is yet to be determined for next season, Pope offered a message for the team’s fan base.
“We're really excited about where we are,” Pope said. “Just hang in there guys. Hang in there with us. I think recruiting is going to work out just great.”
POPE ADDRESSES RUMOR
Pope addressed a rumor by Michigan standout Yaxel Lendeborg that he was offered $7-9 million to sign with the Wildcats last summer before inking a deal with the Wolverines.
Pope said the number was incorrect.
“I don't want to spend all my time chasing out, chasing all the false stories and correcting him,” Pope said. “I actually don't want to be a fact check, but like stories like that, for example, that story is 100 percent categorically false with no truth to it whatsoever. I'm hesitant to begin the process of grabbing every single thing that's false, because there's so much false narrative out there, and just chasing everyone. I’m hesitant to jump in there but stories like that just aren't true. There's no truth whatsoever to things like that."
“They started the number with $7 to $9 (million),” Lendeborg told the Associated Press. “They were pretty much going off on the route like, we’ll pay him anything to get here.”
MAKING A POINT
Pope said Kentucky adjusted its scheme to fit left-hander Lowe’s style and that created an issue when Lowe suffered a shoulder injury. It also created a shift within the roster.
“We changed the orientation of everything we did on the offense. We got all the way to the Blue-White scrimmage, we lost J-Lo, but we said, 'Hey, we're going to keep it this way, because we're going to get him back.' We did get him back. But then he finally decided to have surgery.”
Pope added that the change also affected Denzel Aberdeen and freshman guard Jasper Johnson, who had to play out of position this season.
Kentucky coach Mark Pope watches open practice last Thursday at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis. (Keith Taylor/Kentucky Today)
