Mark Pope embraces Rick Pitino's return to Lexington: "I love him. ... He changed my DNA as a human being."

Rick Pitino not only led the charge in his support of Mark Pope landing the Kentucky job back in April, but more importantly, he helped put out the fire after the fact. When uncertainty overwhelmed a fanbase desperate to land the biggest names in college basketball, the Hall of Fame coach became an unlikely source of relief and reason.

“A lot of people out there talk about Jay Wright, Danny Hurley, Billy Donovan. They all had their trials and tribulations as well early on,” Pitino said the day Pope was hired. “…  What you don’t realize is, it took Jay Wright 11 years to finally get an NCAA win. Billy Donovan was at Marshall for two years, didn’t have an NCAA appearance. He went on to greatness. Mark Pope will go on to greatness. You can put it down.

“… You have one of the premier young coaches in the game. … I couldn’t be any more proud than to see Mark Pope lead to Kentucky Wildcats to another championship.”

That message went a long way, Big Blue Nation tossing out the torches and pitchforks and exchanging them for ‘Hope in Pope’ t-shirts, selling out Rupp Arena for his introductory press conference just 48 hours later.

Quite the swing of emotions.

Pitino’s return to Lexington

Fast forward six months and Pitino’s full-circle moment from hero to villain to hero once again is here, the St. John’s head coach making his return to Lexington as a supporter of the University of Kentucky this weekend.

“I will be flying in for the UK/Vandy game on (Saturday). I’ll be on the sidelines helping Coach Stoops,” Pitino tweeted with a winking emoji.

That comes after Mark Pope hinted at the former Kentucky coach’s return on KSR’s Sources Say Podcast last week, non-committal about a Big Blue Madness appearance, but back in some form beyond the 30th anniversary of the 1996 championship during the 2025-26 season.

“I don’t think Coach could show his face here — I mean, he could. People would go nuts,” Pope told KSR. “I just don’t know how it’d work with St. John’s if Coach rolled in here for Big Blue Madness, although it’d be awesome. There’s a chance rolls in here relatively soon. We’ll see.”

A full-circle moment for both coaches

Relatively soon wound up being a matter of days, Pitino’s homecoming now on the books for this week. And it’s one Pope embraces with open arms, just as the Hall of Fame coach did for him back in the spring after landing the Kentucky job.

They get to experience their full-circle moments together.

“I’m excited. Coach hit me a week ago. And he kind of asked me but he really told me that he was coming to practice (laughter),” Pope said at UK Media Day on Tuesday. “So, believe it or not, I said that to the staff. I said, guys, you’ll have to carry the day because this is my guy coming in here, Coach P.

“I’m really — listen, anytime I get to spend time with Coach is time incredibly well spent for me. I love him.”

Pope kept it short and sweet about Pitino at Media Day, but he dug into their history together and the impact he made on his life as a person and as a basketball coach on Sources Say.

Nobody like Coach P

To put it simply, there will never be another coach like Rick Pitino, the Hall of Famer changing the game in ways Pope feels he never could.

“Coach can coach a way that nobody in basketball can coach,” he told KSR. “He’s so tenured, he’s been so successful. He wins everywhere. He is built — talk about being one of one. He’s just built in a different way. I’m not Coach P and I never will be. It’s not my DNA, it’s not where I am.”

That’s in terms of current accolades and impact on the game — Pope just isn’t there yet, but he’s pushing to be. And he’s using everything he’s learned from Pitino as a player and then watching him during his own coaching journey to get there.

That’s where the obvious and eerie overlaps enter the conversation.

“In terms of who I am, it’s a whole lot of Coach Pitino, right? I say all the time that he changed my DNA as a human being,” Pope told KSR. “He changed how I walk into a room, he changed how I think about the world. He changed all of those things. What’s interesting is here I am, finding myself in a different way. Coach came into college basketball right when the 3-point line was introduced and he changed the way the game was played by how he tried to take advantage of that, right? He was so aggressive. …

“Know what else is interesting? Everybody is in love with the five-out offense where you have five men that are decision makers. It’s so interesting because when I was playing for coach, the very second action of almost all of our motion offense, we ended up with our bigs lifted kind of manipulating the space on the floor. It was very different stylistically, but it ended up, oddly enough, with familiar spacing. That’s just talking about basketball strategy stuff that’s come around.

“It’s even — that’s not where I was living in eight years ago as a basketball coach, but it’s where I’m living now. There are some eerie similarities in that sense.”

Learning from the Hall of Famer

More than anything, Pope wants to emulate Pitino’s approach and drive for success, particularly at Kentucky. He wants to be the same motivator for his players as Pitino was for him as a team captain and national champion in Lexington.

The Hall of Famer let nothing get in his way during his pursuit of greatness — no distractions or negativity slowing him down. Everything was about forward progress.

“I hope that I’ve taken absolute fatigueless energy from coach because coach is non-stop and he refuses to stop. He won’t. Listen, even what he’s doing today is insane. I hope I’ve adopted that,” Pope said. “I hope I’ve grown into his — it doesn’t matter whether things are going good or bad or sideways or whatever, he’s driving forward. He’s actually the narrator. I don’t do it the same way, but I hope I have the resilience to be like that where when things are going good, I’m not distracted, I’m driving forward. When things are going bad, I’m not distracted, I’m driving forward.

“He gave us a gift as players where he had so much gravity with where he was going with the program that we’d hear all the outside stuff, of course, but you’re just trying to keep up. You couldn’t live in that space of the noise outside.”

Pitino made a once-in-a-lifetime impact on Pope’s life. You better believe he’s going to keep his door open for him whenever he wants to stop by.

“Clearly I’ve thought about him a lot, but I love him,” he told KSR. “You’re blessed in life to be able to be around people every once in a while, sometimes once in your lifetime, sometimes sadly never that can redefine who you are. Certainly Coach P had a part in doing that for me.”