Milwaukee holds a special place in Mark Pope's heart: 'I have so many memories.'

Mark Pope is quite familiar with Milwaukee, WI.

Following his college playing days at the University of Kentucky, he spent a couple of seasons in the Cream City for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks under Hall of Fame head coach George Karl. It was easily the best two-year stretch of Pope’s short-lived professional career, where he started 57 out of 108 games played.

During his first season with the Bucks in 2000-01, Pope averaged 2.4 points and 2.3 rebounds in 15 minutes per outing. A 6-foot-10 center, he started 45 of 63 games played. He appeared in six playoff contests as well before the Bucks fell short in seven games during the Eastern Conference Finals to the Philadelphia 76ers.

In his late 20s at the time, Milwaukee was a place where the Kentucky head coach started his family alongside his wife, Lee Anne. Nearly 25 years later, he’ll return to the same city, again for basketball reasons. In his first year coaching his alma mater, Pope and Kentucky will begin the 2025 NCAA Tournament in Milwaukee against the Troy Trojans on Friday at 7:10 p.m. ET.

While this will certainly be a business trip, Milwaukee is a city Pope holds near and dear to his heart.

“I have so many memories. It’s a really special place to me,” Pope told reporters Sunday about Milwaukee. “George Karl was the only coach — sorry, George — but dumb enough to actually start me in the NBA. He started me most of his season there on a great team. We made an epic run all the way through the Eastern Conference Finals to a Game 7. My first daughter, Ella, was born in Milwaukee. I would drive home every day, we lived right off Blue Mound Road, and drive right by the Kopp’s Custard and on the placard they’d have what the custard of the day was, and I’d call Lee Anne and be like, are we getting it or not?”

“We have great friends there,” Pope added. “Milwaukee is a special place to us.”

He’ll be hoping for an extended stay in Milwaukee once he and his team arrive for the Big Dance. A win on Friday would push the 3-seeded Wildcats to the second round on Sunday. A couple of wins would also allow assistant coach Cody Fueger, who was born in Milwaukee and has been on Pope’s staff for nine years now, to revisit his old stomping grounds.

“He’s a die-hard Wisconsinite,” Pope said of his longtime assistant.

The top priority right now is to win basketball games, so why not do it in a city that played a part in Pope getting to this point in his life?

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