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Mark Pope: Kentucky is 'nowhere near hanging a banner right now'

Barkley-Truaxby: Barkley Truax03/24/26BarkleyTruax

When Mark Pope arrived at Kentucky ahead of the 2024-25 season, he emphasized to Big Blue Nation that his ultimate goal in Lexington is to hang banners. After a second-round exit from the NCAA Tournament this season and a Sweet 16 defeat the year before, Pope is feeling the urgency.

“We’re nowhere near hanging a banner right now in terms of what we’ve accomplished in the first two years,” Pope said. “But we’re working our way there and we got to go fast.”

In two seasons, Pope has compiled a 46–26 (.639) record at UK, including 10-8 records against the SEC in both years. It was a promising start for Pope in Lexington after an appearance in the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

Many expected a deeper run for Kentucky before the season started, as Pope’s Wildcats were the No. 9 team in the AP preseason Top 25. That wasn’t the case, and UK finished 22-14 overall and begins its offseason early after the second-round NCAA Tournament exit.

As it stands, however, Pope doesn’t have any incoming recruits signed to the 2026 recruiting class. The NCAA transfer portal opens up on April 7, and Kentucky fans expect the Wildcats to be active.

“We are desperate to bring creators here to Kentucky,” Pope said. “Creators are people that earn shots for teammates and can go earn shots for themselves.”

That’s not to say Kentucky didn’t have any of Pope’s “creators” this past season. He pointed to the fact that point guard Jaland Lowe and big man Jayden Quaintance all missed almost the entire year with respective injuries while Kam Williams missed a dozen games with a broken foot. Pope said this affected their ability to have that this season.

Though, Pope did say that roster retention is a major point of emphasis this offseason after losing to Iowa State on Sunday. It remains to be seen which players will be retained — players like Denzel Aberdeen and Otega Oweh are out of eligibility. Everyone else who played for UK this past season are eligible to return.