Mark Pope singles out Travis Perry and Trent Noah as late surprises: "They're dangerous"

Big Blue Nation loves to obsess over standouts and surprises during early summer workouts at Kentucky. It’s a way to pass the time until basketball season — certainly of interest this go-round thanks to the start of a new era under Mark Pope. The first-year coach was quick to dismiss those potential rumblings during his first sit-down with the media in June, making it clear he didn’t want any surprises in practice.

He wanted the Wildcats to look exactly the way they did on film out of the transfer portal or coming out of high school — with typical year-to-year development, obviously. You want the pieces to fit the system as planned, not stray too far away from the vision you had in mind when constructing the 12-man roster back in the spring.

They were everything they hoped, and that was a great thing in Pope’s mind.

“There have been very few surprises in terms of what we thought we were getting, which is exciting,” Pope said. “The pieces fit. … That’s one of the things about working the portal is that you have such a clear — guys have a resume you can see over and over again what they do in college. Our guys have certainly lived up to that billing.”

Does he feel the same way four months later with the summer behind him and the season set to begin? Certainly in terms of fit — he still feels great about that — but he is pleased with the development of two newcomers who came in looking like newcomers and are now ready to contribute.

Pope already talked about Trent Noah‘s “consummate rookie experience moving into this jersey and this joint” where he “could not make a shot” during his first month at Kentucky. “His head was spinning,” he told KSR at the time. From there, though, the former Harlan County star proved he belonged to the point “now I feel like this kid can’t miss a shot.”

The first-year coach doubled down on the Noah hype in an appearance on KSR’s Sources Say Podcast while praising fellow in-state freshman Travis Perry for having a similar breakthrough following a rough start in blue and white.

“Let’s talk about these two freshmen, Travis Perry and Trent Noah,” Pope said. “They came in day one during the summer and were exactly what we expected them to be. They were really talented young guys that were spinning around in circles and turning the ball over and missing shots. You know, they had a real issue with see man and ball, with defensive shell concepts and were late on the catch and couldn’t catch on the move, their gaps were wrong and they never were to the bottom — all the things. Heaven forbid they were ever trying to get to a first-pass position, right?

“And then they just have gotten better and better and better and better every day. Now not only do they not mess up practice, they’re dangerous, right?”

That early version of the Kentucky natives would not have played in year one for Pope. They were figuring themselves out, trying not to drown as SEC basketball players.

Now, they’re not only surviving, they’re swimming circles around the players they were before — and the competition overall. It’s gotten to the point he’s now absolutely comfortable throwing them in with the sharks this season.

“In an eight-week period and then a four-week period, then a week-and-a-half Banner Camp, those guys have grown so much to the point where you’re just like, ‘I totally trust those guys to be on the floor,'” Pope told KSR. “And that’s saying something. That’s really hard to do as a freshman.”