Mark Pope may have snuck in a friendly, subtle jab on Reed Sheppard

It was easy to miss, but Mark Pope may have gotten in a clever ribbing on Reed Sheppard in his interview with Matt Jones this week. When talking about making connections with Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Harrison, and other former Wildcats under John Calipari, Pope expounded on the relationship between player and coach:

“Listen, you develop a really special relationship with your head coach. Every player does. That should never go away. I mean, I played for Coach Pitino. Coach Pitino is coaching at St. John’s. I’m not going to wear a St. John’s t-shirt, but I love Coach Pitino. I say that from the rooftops.”

Mark Pope | Kentucky Sports Radio

The way Pope emphasized, “I’m not going to wear a St. John’s t-shirt,” it was almost certainly an intentional, subtle, and playful dig at Reed Sheppard, who famously wore an Arkansas shirt (with Kentucky shorts) on the night the ‘Cats played the Razorbacks in John Calipari’s return to Rupp Arena.

Even though Sheppard said, “I thought it would be funny,” most Kentucky fans didn’t laugh, especially after losing that game. Now, three months later, Pope is poking Sheppard back for wearing that Hogs shirt, with a line that actually was hilarious.

Yes, Mark Pope was joking

If the comments under my X post highlighting this callout are any indication, some of you are going to either disagree that Pope was referencing Reed or take this way too seriously. Sure, it is possible Pope wasn’t thinking about Reed’s Hog shirt when he said, “I’m not going to wear a St. John’s t-shirt,” but that would be an extremely coincidental choice of words if not. Assuming it was intentional, Pope was definitely joking.

You have to remember that Pope’s perpetual positivity doesn’t always manifest in beautiful, special, hyperbolic, super-serious descriptions of things and people he likes. It also comes out in his sense of humor. After listening a couple of times, this seems like an obvious reference to Reed, and it is awesome.

Some of Big Blue Nation consider Sheppard’s silly attempt at a joke back in February as an affront to everything holy in this world. While I wouldn’t have done it, I’m also not 20 years old anymore. When I was 20, however, I made my fair share of bone-headed decisions that my best friends still give me crap about today. Why? Because guys making fun of their buddies for doing dumb stuff is a tradition as old as time…especially between extremely close old college roommates and their kids.

Pope spent the last few days alongside both Reed and Jeff Sheppard cleaning up tornado debris in London. This barb was said with love. Pope probably even gave Reed a hard time over it in person, too.

Reed’s stunt may have stung in the moment, but if Mark Pope can joke about it, we all can.