Mark Pope doesn't care about his NCAA Tournament history: "I didn't come to Kentucky to make this about me."

Early gripes about Kentucky‘s coaching hire came down to two simple facts: Mark Pope had never recruited a five-star recruit and he’s never won a game in the NCAA Tournament. How could he lead the greatest tradition in the history of college basketball back to greatness with no prior March Madness success or the experience to bring in players good enough to get him there?

Pope quickly proved those early skeptics wrong by building a competitive roster through the portal in weeks, then signing a top-five recruiting class in 2025 featuring three top-35 prospects. He shared a vision for his system using old BYU tape, then used the new stuff once the team got rolling in Lexington for future recruits — every game played added to the list of film opportunities.

He’s got the roster-building concerns under control, but one thing that has been physically impossible for him to disprove is that winless record in the NCAA Tournament, sitting at 0-2 in nine seasons as a head coach at Utah Valley and BYU. The Cougars were one-and-dones in 2021 with a first-round loss to UCLA, followed by another in 2024 with a first-round loss to Duquesne.

For the first time at Kentucky, he’s got an opportunity to get that monkey off his back, starting with a matchup vs. No. 14 seed Troy to open March Madness on Friday with tip-off scheduled for 7:10 PM ET.

How is he handling that pressure?

“This is — it’s so much bigger than that. This is about Kentucky and it’s about everybody’s chance to jump in this tournament,” Pope said. “What I’m really excited about is to see if we can take — this team has been through it in an amazing way. Their resilience has been incredible. When you look at the analytics with the whole season wrapped up, we were 355th in the country in minutes continuity this season. That’s an insane number, and to do it in this league, in the SEC, as a brand-new group that’s never functioned together?

“What these guys have accomplished already is really incredible. Hopefully — what I’m excited about is seeing how much we can take these lessons into the NCAA Tournament and what the dividends will be. It’s gonna be really exciting.”

When asked about Pope’s tournament resume and the possibility of getting that first win for his head coach, Lamont Butler said the team has added motivation going into the matchup vs. Troy this week.

“For sure,” he said. “We want to make sure that he starts off his Kentucky career with a bang.”

For Pope, it’s not even on his radar — because, again, that’d be putting his own personal accolades before the team. And that’s just not how he rolls.

Instead, he’s focused on adding to the long list of program accolades, namely the eight national championship banners hanging up inside Rupp Arena. Clearly frustrated by the narrative, he made it abundantly clear he wants to win these games for his players, coaches and fans — not himself.

“It just doesn’t really matter. Like, that doesn’t even register for me,” Pope said. “Guys, if this is about me, then it’s just dumb. I didn’t come to Kentucky to make this about me. Like, I actually have no interest in me. I have interest in our team, I have interest in this program, I have interest in this tradition. I have interest in these guys who made this bold and brazen decision to come here with nothing proven to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to go make our mark on this game’ — which they’ve done so incredibly well this season.”

He can’t control the narratives, obviously, but he doesn’t want the spotlight taken away from his players in their moment to make names for themselves on the national stage, just as he did as the captain of Kentucky’s 1996 championship team. Pope got to walk in their shoes three decades ago, now it’s their turn to leave their mark.

“I would hate for this ever to be about me,” he continued. “I mean, people are going to talk about what they’re going to talk about, but this is just so much bigger than any one individual here. If, in my mind, I make this about me or make it about one person, we’re missing out on the greatness of what Kentucky is because this is the biggest community in sports. It’s way bigger than that.

“I’m not trying to be dismissive, I’m just — like, of all the things that matter, that doesn’t matter.”