Rick Pitino states Mark Pope has 'incredible humility'

Thursday morning, former Kentucky basketball coach and current St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino joined Kentucky Sports Radio, where he showered new Wildcat leader Mark Pope with praise.

Barstool Sports’ Big Cat and PFT Commenter of the Pardon My Take podcast hosted KSR Thursday morning with normal host Matt Jones on vacation, and had a bit of fun by bringing on none other than Pitino as a star guest. Of course, with a former player of his taking the Kentucky gig, he had nothing but love for Pope.

“Obviously I’m extremely biased because he was my captain of a national championship team, and was a great captain, a tireless worker. I absolutely love him and what he did for our program,” Pitino said when asked about the new hire.

He added that Pope was captain back in ’96 because of those intangible leadership traits and notes that he’s a rare kind of bird in a certain sense.

“He has a quality that very few of us have. He has incredible humility,” added Pitino. “For somebody who, at a very young age, just was a tireless worker and was accomplishing things, he’s always maintained his same humility he had back when he was a player.”

Speaking to Pope’s exploits as a coach, Rick Pitino has tracked his teams going all the way back to his early days before he even got the BYU job.

“When I was not working, I traveled out to see him coach a small school, Division I school (Utah Valley), and I was blown away by how good a teacher he was,” said Pitino. “Then, I watched every game I could at BYU and loved their offense. It was great ball movement, great player movement.”

Although, Pitino notes that Pope’s ability to relate to his players is another facet of what makes him an excellent coach.

“I just think Mark does a fabulous job communicating with his players, he has a great way about it.”

Rick Pitino is all-in on the Kentucky sports scene at the moment. He obviously has a ton of love for Mark Pope, but he’s got connections to other sports as well. During the KSR interview, Pitino noted he reached out to baseball coach Nick Mingione following their inspiring 2024 run, and also said he’d be willing to “cut a check” for Kentucky basketball or Kentucky football, since he apparently has a relationship with Mark Stoops and Eddie Gran on that staff.

It’s 2024 and Rick Pitino is once again winning hearts and minds in the Kentucky fanbase.