Kentucky MBB takes over Kroger Field: "Everything is a little easier when Coach Pope comes in wearing a football helmet"

Imagine being told you’re going to Kroger Field for some conditioning work led by new S&C coach Randy Towner — a common summer activity for Kentucky basketball over the years. You lace ’em up, line up and get rolling with the wind sprints. Nothing out of the ordinary.

And then your 6-10 head coach jogs out of the tunnel wearing a helmet with a football in his right arm, looking ready for a tryout with Mark Stoops.

Scrimmage time, go long.

“It was fun, I actually didn’t know we were playing,” junior wing Otega Oweh told KSR. “We thought we were doing conditioning, then Coach Pope comes out in the helmet with a football, so I said, ‘Alright, let’s get to it!’ It was cool.”

“Coach came out with some footballs and was like, ‘We’re gonna play football now!'” fifth-year senior Ansley Almonor added. “So we played football [laughs].”

Mark Pope started by tossing the pigskin around with his squad before things transitioned into a full-on scrimmage resembling some combination of ultimate frisbee and football. Lamont Butler, Brandon Garrison, Collin Chandler, Kerr Kriisa and Ansley Almonor made up the winning team against Oweh, Amari Williams, Travis Perry, Trent Noah and Walker Horn — as best as we can tell from the video shared by the school.

“Team of the year,” Butler said. “Light work, you see what we just did. Easy.”

Conditioning with a little @UKFootball twist pic.twitter.com/OTPg0iCmHu

— Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) July 11, 2024

Some of the clear standouts at Kroger Field? There was a consensus in the locker room one day later.

“Brandon Garrison had the best catch, and I’d say Collin Chandler had some good throws,” Andrew Carr said. “I’d probably say either of those (were the standouts), they were both really good.”

“I think Collin was pretty good for sure. He was pretty good, he’s got a nice little arm on him,” Almonor added. “BG (Brandon Garrison) has some hands. We have some good athletes out there, it was definitely nice.”

Almonor himself had a few solid grabs, as did Williams. Kriisa had a pretty smooth behind-the-back toss to Garrison while Chandler showed off his leg, drilling a 20-yard kick down the middle of the uprights. No play was more impressive, though, than Chandler’s dart to Garrison for the one-handed snag in the end zone.

All of the touchdown dances were solid, as well — but let’s not talk about Pope evading invisible pass-rushers in the end zone before finding Jaxson Robinson on the sideline.

Could these Wildcats have been football stars had basketball not taken over their lives? Highly, highly unlikely.

“I never played, my mom was really scared,” Carr told KSR. “She said, ‘If you want me to run screaming like a made woman and you won’t get embarrassed, then you can do it.’ I made the decision that I would probably be embarrassed if I got hurt or something and my mom started screaming and running on the field. That’s when I made the decision I wasn’t going to play.”

“I actually never played football growing up,” Almonor added. “I did school football with my friends and stuff like that, but I never did real padded football — nothing crazy.”

Had they gone after it, what positions would they have played?

“When I was younger I played and I was a running back, but if I were to play in college or high school, I probably would’ve been a safety or something like that,” Oweh said. “On offense, they get hit too much, so I don’t know about that one.”

“I would have probably have to play tight end,” Carr added before thinking out loud about the possibility of being a 6-10 quarterback, effortlessly looking over the offensive line to find open receivers. He did play QB in backyard football, after all.

Almonor went with tight end, as well — but don’t expect Josh Kattus and Jordan Dingle to worry about job security.

“I don’t even know, maybe tight end or something?” he said. “I don’t even know [laughs].”

Fortunately for us, they’re all more comfortable on the hardwood, no matter how much of a blast they had trading it out for turf on a random Wednesday in July.

“That was a lot of fun,” Carr said. “… When you’re out there in the hot sun on the field and everything, it always brings a good smile. Everything is a little easier when Coach Pope comes in wearing a football helmet.”