Collin Chandler's biggest takeaway from Mark Pope's first year? "He's very willing to change."

Mark Pope isn’t one to get stuck in his ways.

One thing that won’t change is his upbeat personality and positive attitude towards life, but that isn’t always the case when it comes to basketball — a sport that requires constant innovation, or it will quickly leave you in the dust. About to enter year 11 as a college head coach, his second at Kentucky, Pope has already shown this offseason how willing he is to adapt to his new surroundings.

Pope’s first Kentucky team was pieced together at the last minute. He was immediately behind the eight ball when UK hired him in April 2024. Pope elected to lean on outside shooting and veteran presences from mid-majors for his debut roster. The formula worked well, resulting in more Quad 1 wins than any Kentucky team in history and the program’s first Sweet 16 since 2019.

But going into year two, Pope altered his roster-building approach. In the transfer portal, he mostly recruited players with multiple years of eligibility left from high-major schools. There was still an emphasis on shooting, but an even greater focus on defense and physicality. Kentucky drastically improved in those two areas this offseason by bringing in the likes of Mo Dioubate (Alabama), Jayden Quaintance (Arizona State), Denzel Aberdeen (Florida), and Kam Williams (Tulane).

Pope’s offensive philosophy will likely be similar to what it was last season, but he’ll have to modify the approach a bit based on his new personnel. In his first season, he learned that — especially in the Southeastern Conference — you need dudes who can push the opponents around instead of having dudes who get pushed. So he changed the type of players he recruited. Having a year of success under his belt at this level certainly didn’t hurt his pitch, either.

Being willing to adjust his approach as a head coach is something that even stood out to his players throughout the 2024-25 season. Granted, nonstop injuries necessitated that more than expected. But at the same time, despite losing players left and right, Pope managed to turn a borderline top 100 defense during the middle of the season into one ranked among the best in the country by the end. If a large enough sample size of data points indicates he might need to move things around, he’s more than willing to listen and make a change.

“One thing I’ll say about Coach Pope is he’s very humble to learning,” Rising sophomore guard Collin Chandler said Monday. “He’s not very prideful in his ways. I think he knows that there’s always ways to get better, and he’s always wanting to learn.

“And just from observing him, he’s taking a lot from his assistant coaches. He’s always talking about things that they bring up, things that they’re teaching him as well. And so he has, I think, the same hunger as us, to get better every day, to learn from the people around him. And so that’s one thing I noticed about Coach Pope, is he’s very willing to change.”

After a successful first season as head coach at Kentucky, what new changes will Pope make to take a leap in year two?

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