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Mark Pope calls 41-point victory 'Kentucky magic' matching his college jersey number

Matt Connollyby:Matt Connolly•11/05/24•

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Mark Pope
(© Jordan Prather-Imagn Images)

The opening game of the Mark Pope era at Kentucky couldn’t have gone much better. The Wildcats blasted Wright State 103-62 on Monday for a 41-point victory.

The number 41 is special to Pope as it’s the number he wore during his time playing at Kentucky. The fact that Kentucky won by 41 in its opener made the victory even better for the former Kentucky star.

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“Man, I’m telling you – these guys, our guys, I’m pretty sure they cooked that up,” Mark Pope said. “We talked about that after the game, 41, really special to me. So that is really sweet. Kentucky magic. Nothing like it.”

Mark Pope started his playing career at Washington before transferring to Kentucky. He eventually helped the Wildcats to a national championship.

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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.

He eventually worked his way up to being the head coach ay BYU, before being hired at Kentucky this past offseason.

Mark Pope not focusing on emotions of first win at Kentucky

Monday will be a day that Kentucky head basketball coach Mark Pope remembers forever as it was his first game at the helm for his alma mater. He led the Wildcats to a 103-62 win over Wright State to start off his tenure in Lexington the right way.

Pope’s passion for leading a program that he once helped lead to a national title as a player has been evident throughout the offseason since he was hired for the job back in April. But following his first career win for the Wildcats, Pope put the emotions and magnitude of the moment aside.

“They asked me this on TV postgame and I’m just going to give you bad answers, because we’re just lost in the game,” Pope said after Monday’s win.

“At some point, Lee Anne and I are going to find some quiet moment to sit back and drink a soda sometime in the next month, or two, or nine months, or some time. And I just look forward to that moment because we’ll really take it in then. And it’s so deeply special to me, but right now, we got work to do and so we’re pretty, pretty locked in on the game.”