Mark Pope praises Pat Kelsey, Louisville's potential: 'A terrific team with a massive upside.'

Mark Pope and Pat Kelsey are playing nice with each other in front of the media — for now.

Kelsey, in year one as Louisville head coach, continues to suck up to Pope, in year one as Kentucky head coach, whenever a microphone is sitting in front of his face. Pope did the same on Friday afternoon during his pre-Louisville press conference. There is clearly some mutual respect between these two energetic and firey (and sometimes a little over the top, in a good way) coaches, in part due to the fact that they’ve yet to face each other head-to-head.

That changes on Saturday though when the Cardinals come to Rupp Arena for the first Battle of the Bluegrass showdown of the new era. This rivalry brings out the competition in all of us. Pope is expecting a proper challenge from Kelsey’s bunch.

“Terrific team. They’ve had some huge wins,” Pope said of Kentucky’s next opponent. “They can be super disruptive. They’re really aggressive. Chucky (Hepburn) is playing at an elite level. He’s a veteran, veteran guy, and he causes so much chaos on the defensive end, and also causes a ton of chaos on the offensive end.

“It kind of feels like they’re 6(foot)6 across the front line, guys that can shoot it and drive it and make decisions and play and have some real physicality of the game. Then they’ve got some real length. I mean, you think about playing Noah (Waterman) at 6-11, at the three and the four and the five, and everything he can do.”

Louisville is 6-4 this season with notable wins over Indiana and West Virginia. The Cardinals have taken care of the teams they’re supposed to beat. But a 23-point loss to Ole Miss, a 22-point loss to Tennessee, an 11-point loss to Duke, and a close loss to Oklahoma show that there are some serious limitations right now. Some (a lot?) of that has to do with Louisville shooting threes at a top 10 mark in the country but making them at a bottom 10 clip.

You can see the potential though with this Louisville group. Hepburn is talented and he’s surrounded by a handful of legitimately good college basketball players. Remember that the Cardinals led Duke by four at halftime and beat a West Virginia team that knocked off Gonzaga. If the three-point shooting ever consistently comes around, Louisville’s ceiling will increase significantly.

All it takes is one extra hot shooting performance from the Cardinals to create a tense situation inside Rupp Arena on Saturday evening.

“They’re a terrific team with a massive upside. They’re really, really dangerous,” Pope continued. “I think that’s how they feel, is super dangerous. On any given night, when all the pieces come together, they can be a really, really dangerous team.

“And I think Pat does an unbelievable job. He’s a terrific coach. He is going to crush it there, and I like him as a person, and he’s insanely intense and competitive, but he’s doing things the right way and for the right reasons, and he’s gonna have great success there. So they’re a good team, and they’ve already proven that they can be really, really dangerous.”

The key word there is “can”. Louisville can give Kentucky issues. Both teams use similar playstyles, so Pope knows what the product looks like when it’s all clicking. As he mentioned, when everything comes together for UL, the results have been mostly positive. But this is also the first true road game of their season and Rupp will be overflowing out to High Street.

Louisville certainly has plenty of upside for the rest of the season. Pope’s goal is to make sure the path there doesn’t begin against his Wildcats.

Tipoff on Saturday against the Cardinals is set for 5:15 p.m. EST on ESPN.

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