Mark Pope has already authored plenty of memorable moments in his first season at the helm of Kentucky. The comeback win over Duke. The overtime thriller in a hostile environment against Gonzaga. Drawing first blood against Pat Kelsey and Louisville. A sweep of Tennessee, plus six more wins over teams that were ranked in the AP top 15 at the time. Considering the state of the program when John Calipari left last spring, Pope's debut has been a success by almost any measure.
Other than, of course, the only one that actually matters. Because this is Kentucky, after all, and at Kentucky, you're judged by what you do over three weeks in late March and early April. No matter what Pope did over the last few months, his first year in Lexington was always going to be defined by what, if anything, he did in the NCAA Tournament.
Bow out early, and the questions would start to swell. Was Pope really a big-game coach, considering that he failed to win a single tournament game during his time at BYU? And how was this really any different from the later years of Calipari's tenure, whose many memorable upset losses eventually drove him to leave for Arkansas?
Luckily, Pope and Kentucky don't have to worry about any of that. Because the Wildcats delivered in exactly the way fans hoped in their first-round matchup against Troy on Friday night, a win that will reverberate far beyond this tournament run.
Mark Pope easily succeeded where John Calipari couldn't before leaving Kentucky
Okay, so it's a win over a No. 14 seed; obviously the bar at Kentucky is and should be far higher than beating Troy. But that hasn't stopped the Wildcats from stubbing their toe against exactly this kind of opponent in the very recent past, as Big Blue Nation well knows.
This time, though, Kentucky wasn't messing around. It was a bit of a slow start, but Pope pushed the right buttons at halftime and the Wildcats eventually pulled away for a convincing 76-57 victory to advance to the second round. Otega Oweh mauled people on the inside all night, and the final 20 minutes saw a crisp style of basketball that this team plays when it's composed and at its best.
It was, in short, very business-like, which is not an adjective that you could ascribe to Calipari in March. For Pope to really silence the doubters and win hearts and minds, he needed to prove that he knew how to put his foot down this time of year, especially against a team that was beneath his own (and that, not for nothing, Coach Cal and Arkansas already beat earlier this season).
There are still plenty more boxes to check; Kentucky hasn't been to the Sweet 16 since 2019, for starters. But if Pope is trying to prove to Wildcat fans that he can succeed where Calipari hadn't in recent years, he's off to a great start.