Mark Pope builds his ideal defense at Kentucky

Mark Pope‘s offense has been a thing of beauty at Kentucky, ranked No. 2 in overall efficiency and No. 3 in scoring while sitting inside the top 25 in effective field goal percentage (No. 14), three-point efficiency (No. 22) and three-pointers made per game (No. 23) with six players averaging double figures. The defense? Well, that’s been a different story. The Wildcats currently rank No. 90 overall in defensive efficiency, No. 103 in defensive field goal percentage, No. 300 in scoring defense, No. 351 in defensive turnover rate, and No. 364 in non-steal defensive turnover rate — dead last by a wide margin.

He’s proud of the former category, not so happy with the latter — although Kentucky’s team effort on that end of the floor against South Carolina was by far the best of the season, allowing just 57 total points on 32.8 percent shooting and 18.2 percent from three.

How do we get more of that moving forward? You probably won’t be able to shove the toothpaste back in the tube this season on that end of the floor — no real path to becoming elite as a unit overall with eight games to go before postseason play, only small individual wins like that one. This season has been a learning opportunity, though, for how Pope would like to build his teams in Lexington moving forward from a defensive standpoint.

He’ll be the first to tell you there have been some surprises, especially with the physicality and what officials continue to allow.

“Man, on the defensive side of the ball, just in a really raw sense, you’d like to have length and athleticism, for sure,” Pope said during his call-in radio show Monday night. “What’s been really interesting for us is — I was actually just today speaking with a couple of national media members and I think all of us are paying close attention to the ever-increasing physicality of the game.

“That’s actually taken a lot of us by surprise about where the whistle lands. I’m actually surprised about how I’m able to coach our guys right now. I’m actually surprised at what I can coach our guys to do.”

Pope was in the NBA when the league took away hand checks, thinking at the time that was where the game was going at all levels. That’s no longer the case in college with players using hands and forearms to defend just as much as their bodies. Even when teams live at the free throw line in the SEC, there are hundreds of other instances throughout the game where the contact could probably justify a foul — they just can’t call it every single time.

The handsy teams who earn reputations for being the most physical groups in the league are considered the best defenses. That’s something Pope will keep in mind as he builds his rosters.

“I talked about length and mobility, but this physicality part of the game, starting on the glass, but also in the sense of being able to kind of body guys up this year. I was in the NBA when they took away hand checks. It was a really monumental change in the way the NBA was called,” Pope said. “Now if I have the ball in my hands on the wing, the defender can actually put two hands right into my chest and there’s no call. They can just kind of leave them there.

“The physical part of this game is actually starting to become an increasingly important component of being a great defensive team, just increased brute strength and physicality and ability to move bodies with your hips and with your forearm.”

It’s not just about the physical tools or approach, either. Part of it — something this team has actually had from time to time, especially when healthy — is the overall connection. It doesn’t matter how good the individual defenders are if the communication stinks and they don’t work well together.

That will always be a top priority when piecing together teams through the high school ranks and the transfer portal.

“The final piece that is probably equally as important once you get through all those raw skills is just the connectedness of the team as a unit. Everybody is going to struggle in isolation guarding, but if you can make complicated plays into one on five plays, you’ll have a lot of success,” Pope said. “That goes through every scheme, through every approach in terms of pressure, like an all-out pressure vibe that you might feel with some teams in our league, to a Virginia style, a Tony Bennett style, defense where it’s very much like a containment and nothing easy and show the same thing every single time defense. Through all the genres of defense, a team’s connectedness is crucial.”

Undoubtedly a top priority entering the 2025-26 cycle in the next couple of months.