Mark Pope, Kentucky assistant coin new term ahead of shorthanded road upset of Tennessee

Before Kentucky takes the court for a game, the Wildcats gather in prayer. That was again the case Tuesday night before a shorthanded UK team took on Tennessee – but Mark Pope said this one had a twist.

Assistant coach Alvin Brooks led the prayer as Kentucky got ready for a key SEC showdown on Rocky Top. Kentucky was preparing to go without Lamont Butler, and Andrew Carr only played two minutes as he tried to return.

As Brooks prayed, he dropped in a new term. It’s safe to say, his addition sat well with Pope, who pointed it out in the postgame press conference.

Coach Mark Pope was washed about the grit of this team and where this game ranks for him.

Check out this great answer

Coach Pope says Coach Brooks used a term he had never heard in the team prayer. Check it out. pic.twitter.com/H2AowxfjhJ

— Dylan Ballard (@DylanBallard_UK) January 29, 2025

“We obviously had a team prayer before we come out to play,” Pope said. “Coach Brooks – Alvin Brooks – gave the prayer. In his prayer, he prayed that we could have confidence, but even more importantly, that we could have ‘Godfidence.’ I had never heard ‘Godfidence’ before. But I love it.”

The tagline around Kentucky, made popular by CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein on X (formerly Twitter), became “Keep the Faith” after Pope took over for John Calipari. It’s safe to say, the Wildcats are as they improved to 15-5 overall and 4-3 in SEC play with Tuesday night’s 78-73 victory over Tennessee.

When asked about what the win means, Pope cited Brooks’ prayer and the newly created word. “Godfidence,” he said, was an important part of Kentucky’s ability to fend off Tennessee and stay in the mix in a jam-packed SEC.

“There’s a little bit of this team, for me – and we’re a pretty faithful team – there’s a little bit of us, we’re kind of, in some ways, performing for an audience of one the best we can,” Pope said. “And we’re trying to take all the other noise and just kind of set it aside a little bit.

“When you see a game like this where, for us, ‘Godfidence’ was a real factor in this, it ranks pretty high. It’s pretty special. … Like I said, there’s no place I would’ve rather been tonight. It was easy to double down on that. Really blessed.”

“Keeping the faith,” as it turns out, proved to be an appropriate tagline for Kentucky this season and not just a play on words for hiring the “Pope” as head coach. It sums up the Wildcats’ mentality as Pope took over at his alma mater and completely rebuilt through the transfer portal. At 15-5 with six Top-10 victories, UK continues to thrive to start his tenure.

Even with injuries, the ‘Cats continue to weather the storm. That’s the mindset Mark Pope saw early on after returning to Lexington, and he continues to see it as January comes to an end.

“This is a team that we believed – from the outset, from the first few months – we believed that we would have resilience,” Pope said. “That’s what we thought. We would have resilience, because these guys are loving each other enough. We’re a really good team.”