Kentucky turns away 5,000 people as fans show out in droves for Mark Pope press conference

Fans showed up in masses on Sunday as Kentucky introduced men’s basketball coach Mark Pope at Rupp Arena, but not everyone got in. According to Kentucky Sports Radio, the Wildcats had to turn away roughly 5,000 fans who arrived hoping to watch Pope speak.

Rupp Arena has a capacity of 20,500, though an estimated 1,000-ish seats were closed off. That’s still a lot of people who showed up on a day where no basketball was being played.

The press conference ended up being slightly delayed to allow the fans a chance to find their seats. Even Pope seemed surprised at the number of people in attendance as he walked up to the podium.

“We’ve seen these introductory press conferences, now, nobody in the world has ever seen anything like this,” he said.

Before he could get another word out, the UK crowd burst out into a chant of “Go Big Blue.” It was a warm welcome home for Pope, who played in Lexington and was a captain on the 1996 national championship team coached by Rick Pitino.

After becoming a second-round pick in the NBA Draft and playing professionally for nine years, he turned to coaching as an assistant at Georgia in 2006. Pope went on to become the head coach at Utah Valley and later BYU, where he spent the past five seasons.

BYU is coming off a 23-11 overall record this past season, including a 10-8 mark in its first Big 12 season. The Cougars amassed a 110-52 record since Pope took over the program in 2019. Now, Pope will hope to find similar success at Kentucky.

Mark Pope explains the impact Rick Pitino had on his career

Kentucky‘s 1996 National Championship was a big theme of newly named Wildcats head coach Mark Pope‘s introductory press conference on Sunday. A team that Pope was a captain of as he hoisted the 1996 title and his game-worn championship jersey in front of a sold-out crowd in Rupp Arena with some of his former teammates in attendance as well.

St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino was the head coach of Kentucky’s ’96 National Title team, helping deliver the Wildcats their sixth national championship and the first in 18 years for the program at the time. And when Pope was asked about non-conference scheduling on Sunday, he couldn’t help but throw out the possibility of facing off with his former head coach.

“So anybody here down with a game vs. St. Johns?” Pope asked as fans erupted in Lexington.

“You know I neglected, and I’m actually so embarrassed, somehow I missed my notes,” Pope admitted. “I neglected to pay homage to Coach Rick Pitino. Every coach that has coached here has done amazing things, everybody’s contributed to Big Blue Nation. But Coach Pitino, he changed me.”