The Hoops HQ Show: Mark Pope on $22 Million NIL Rumors and More

Q: Give us a sense of the state of Kentucky basketball heading into the 2026-27 season.

Mark Pope: We couldn’t be more excited. We have a roster that I think really fits us. I think we’re going to be really dynamic. We have a roster that’s going to grow every single day. We have guys with really high ceilings, and it’s going to be a race to see how fast we can get there. I think our pieces fit together really well. We have some guys that can be showstoppers at any given moment. This is going to be an incredibly fun team to coach.

I talked about this at SEC Media Day. As a coach, you go through practice — practice is the best part of the day because you’re teaching and learning and growing, challenging, confronting. And then at some point, either immediately after practice or late that night, you go do a full film breakdown. And traditionally, as coaches, we see all the things that go wrong, that we’re not doing right, and you end the film breakdown with a ton of frustration.

It’s been such a joy with this group because I’m constantly yelling down the hall or making a phone call to one of my assistants, like, “Did you see this? This is awesome. There’s been so much growth here. That was a spectacular play. I love how the guys are communicating. Our connection is growing.” This is going to be a team that is just an absolute joy to watch — not just perform every day, but watch them grow. Because they’ve taught us that they can learn and that they’re fast learners, which you love as a coach.

Andy Katz: Mark, I’m curious about your own personal recruiting adjustment from BYU, where guys would take their mission. I mean, there could be players in the program for a total of seven years. There was a lot of stability in knowing who you were recruiting and how long they were going to be with you, to now at Kentucky in this new era, where it’s a new roster and you’ve got to be on your toes. You’ve got to wait till after the draft, all these things. It’s kind of NBA-like or G League-like.

Q: What was it like for you to make that kind of adjustment from BYU to Kentucky?

Pope: Well, in some ways it’s exactly the same. Franck (Kepnang) is in his seventh year, and he’s been just a tremendous leader for us. I love him. He’s going to be really good for us.

But listen, there’s no coach in the sport that’s been through what we’re all going through the last couple of years, which makes it so dynamic and so interesting. Now it’s roster building, full speed. I think one of the things that I’m really proud of is I felt like we were incredibly disciplined. 

There’s all kinds of factors that come into play as you’re recruiting now. You could actually come to a mutual agreement about where a player wants to go and the fact that you want them, and then you start on the money, and there’s times when the money gets too high and you’ve got to walk. You just got to say no, right? That happens surprisingly often as you’re trying to be disciplined about how you’re going to manage your cap.

Over the course of weeks, the market actually shifts dramatically with key things that happen during this portal period. So you need the patience and the foresight to hang in there sometimes. Sometimes you’ve got to go super early. It’s a fascinating process right now. And I thought we were really disciplined. We walked at the right time on several guys. We hung in there with some guys, maybe a little longer than other people did, to stay with them. And we were patient, anticipating that there were going to be some openings late. And I actually love what we put together.

Andy: So there are certain guys you want back, certain guys maybe you can’t afford to have back, while also thinking, okay, what are we going to have left in that pool when the portal and the NBA Draft come at us?

How did you manage the retention piece of those conversations, obviously with Malachi Moreno as an example?

Pope: Well, Malachi was — we’ve talked about this publicly — Malachi was priority number one. Not only is his growth potential elite, but right now you’re seeing the biggest payoff. We do all of our deep dives analytically and roster construction-wise — Keegan Brown’s done a tremendous job digging into the data — and it’s these bookends, man. It’s these lead guards and the bigs. They’re the most expensive players. They’re the players that actually have the most payoff.

So we knew we had one in house that has a huge future ahead of him in Malachi Moreno. We just didn’t know if it was going to be the right thing for him, staying in the draft or coming back. It turned out that it was right for him to come back. And so he’s been a fixture of everything we built around here.

And then we went really heavy to these creators, and we’ve been blessed. We have three guys in that lead guard position that I think have a chance to all make massive contributions this year. And then we found some creators at other positions. Justin McBride was an elite-level creator on the creator metric. He actually scores out really high. He’s got a chance to be that guy from a four/three position. And Malachi Moreno is going to probably be under a 2.0 in terms of creators. He’s probably going to be in the ones because of how we use our fives. We use our fives differently than everybody else, and he fits in that space.

So you start there with the retention. I love the guys we retained. The fact that Kam Williams is back is a huge deal, that Trent (Noah) is back. Our whole crew — Braydon Hawthorne, we think he has a huge, huge future ahead of him. He’s just a bundle of potential that’s growing every single day. And then we started to build around bookends and then fill in in the middle with length. And shooting was a huge focus for us. So we’re excited about the result we’ve got.

Seth: So Mark, I don’t usually ask a question that I know my guest is not going to answer directly, but I want to ask it anyway. As the team was going through the ups and downs of last season, injuries were a huge part of the difficulties that you guys had. You never really said that too much, but anybody watching understands — when you had Jaland Lowe and Jayden Quaintance for basically one half, you beat St. John’s. 

But everybody kept saying, “Well, they got a $22 million roster. This is what you got for $22 million? Kentucky should be better than this.”

Is it true that you spent $22 million? I don’t think you’re going to answer that directly, but there is this notion that basically you have the biggest payroll in the sport, almost bottomless resources. How can you best answer the question: 

Is it true that you had $22 million? Is it true that you probably have, if not the highest payroll in college basketball, at least one of the top five?

Pope: Well, I think certainly our roster is going to be competitive in the market. Here’s the thing: You just don’t know. Nothing’s public, right? So it’s all speculation. I can tell you this: There was a massive amount of reporting about our roster, individual offers, contracts, everything else, that was far from where it was.

The same thing goes this year. I’m anticipating that we’re a relatively modest roster among the top tier of college basketball this year, but I can’t say that for sure. I don’t know exactly where everybody lands. I kind of hear the same floating information. The reason that I’m very uncertain about where we stand is because so much of the information that I read about us can be, at times, wildly inflated.

But listen, we’re Kentucky. We’re always going to be really, really competitive. What we tell recruits is we are rarely going to live in a place where we offer the most money, because that’s actually not how we want to do this, but we’re always going to be competitive. I need to bring in kids that want to be here for more than just the dollar value. Because if that’s the only reason they’re here, this microscope is too big. You’re going to have a hard time surviving.

So I think we found a really nice niche. There’s only two teams that have had top-five portal classes for three straight years, and we’re one of them. We’ve been incredibly successful in the portal. I think we’ve managed that really, really well, and I think we’ll continue to do it.

Andy: Mark, I love what you’ve done with your staff, and you made even more additions in the offseason. I’m curious about your mindset. We all have egos. But you’ve really brought in people that have great experience, great name recognition, that clearly you’re okay with. Obviously Mark Fox — he’s been a head coach in this league. Mo Williams, great success in this league as a player and he’s been a head coach. Nick Robinson, from way back in the Stanford days. And then you just added John Pelphrey, obviously a big-time name in Kentucky and the SEC, and Alfred Aboya, another big name in this space.

What were you thinking in adding these significant names to your coaching roster?

Pope: Well, I think one of the keys to leadership is if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. One-hundred percent. What we’ve done is we’ve put together, I think, the best staff in the country. I love this group. You went through them as head coaches. You didn’t mention Mikhail McLean, who’s the head coach of the Bahamas national team. That’s a team of NBA superstars. Aboya comes to us as the head coach of the Cameroon national team. He’s got head coaching experience. He was the head coach of the NBA Academy team in Senegal. Basically almost every single coach. And John Pelphrey has had a prolific career as a head coach at Arkansas and was one of the top assistants in the country for a long time at Florida.

You have a staff that is diverse, and we have unbelievable conversations and arguments in our offices, which is exactly the way that I want to build it. I don’t want to be right all the time. I want to get it right. And that’s what we’re looking for as a staff. That’s what Kentucky deserves. I think that’s what we built.

Most importantly for me, I was very, very cautious and slow to finish out the staff, because what I recognized early in the spring is that we had a synergy on our staff that was really special. Bringing in Mo has been such a huge addition. You think about Mo Williams: first of all, a longtime head coach in Division I basketball. He had two of the toughest jobs, and assistant coach at the third-toughest job in the country. His durability is incredible, and his humility is really special. He’s been an incredible addition to our staff. He came in and made everybody that was on the staff closer together.

And then Keegan Brown has been a huge addition. Stephanie Campbell, who we brought into our office, has been great. And then with John and Aboya, I think we’ve just added two guys that have very specific niche responsibilities here to make our staff better. Couldn’t be happier with it. I will continue to bring in the smartest, brightest, most experienced veteran coaches I can, because that’s what Kentucky deserves.

“There was a massive amount of reporting about our roster, individual offers, contracts, everything else, that was far from where it was.“

Mark Pope on rumors of a $22 million NIL budget

Andy: Mark, I’ve had the pleasure and the honor to meet your beautiful family: Lee Anne, and you have four daughters, Ella, Avery, Layla and Shay. My kids joke with me and say that I’m not a helicopter parent; I fly a little lower. I’m more like a drone. I loved the moment last year when you reunited with Avery after her mission. You raced to greet her at the airport. 

How do you handle it when she’s not there and you can’t talk to her all the time? How do you deal with that?

Pope: Yeah, it’s brutal. It really is. It’s a unique thing. So Avery was on a service mission, teaching people about her faith in El Salvador. It’s remarkable. And my older daughter, Ella, also served a church mission. That was just an incredible experience for these girls, and the service they rendered is incredible.

The most special part of it wasn’t actually during the mission. It was after she finished her mission. She came home, and we got to go back and visit El Salvador for two days with her. And Andy, I’m telling you, you talk about proud moments as a father. My daughter walked away from her sport, from her college career, from everything for a year and a half — for 18 months — to go serve people she had never met and share a message of hope that she just believes is like none other.

And so we got to go visit these families in — I’ve been around the world — some of the most modest circumstances, beyond what you can possibly conceive. To see her walk into the room, or the hut, or the grove, literally, that was serving as a home to some people, and to see them light up and tears stream out of their eyes because of the relationship that my daughter had built with them through her opportunity to serve them. There’s incredible things happening in this world that we don’t see all the time and talk about, and I got to see one of them in my own daughter. There’s really no words. I wish I could say it more eloquently, but to see the goodness and the greatness and the service and the love that flowed out of these people, in terms of their relationship with Avery — it was like nothing else. Proud, proud, proud moment for a dad, for sure.

Seth: That’s awesome. Andy, thank you for that question. Andy mentioned Lee Anne. I’ve often said there’s a special place in heaven for coaches’ wives, and we all know the reasons for that. Mark, you were in your second year at Columbia medical school. You were headed to an unbelievable career in medicine in some form or fashion, and you got on pretty well through the program, as I recall. You decided it wasn’t for you. You weren’t going to bring the passion for that. You wanted to be a basketball coach.

Get your tissue ready!

Mark Popes daughter, Avery, who was gone on a 15-month mission trip posts a video sharing the moment she reunited with Pope, Mrs. Lee Anne, and her two sisters. #BBN #kentuckybasketball @FOX56News pic.twitter.com/zX3rOaJimZ

— Colby Ridgeway (@colbyyridgeway) February 7, 2026

Andy mentioned Mark Fox, who’s now on your staff. At the time, he was the coach at Georgia. You called him and asked if you could join the staff, and he brought you down there. You went to camp, and you’re basically washing the underwear of the campers at the Georgia basketball summer camp.

Why in the world would somebody who’s headed for a Columbia medical degree give that up to wash underwear? And why would your wife give her blessing to that?

Pope: One of the beautiful things about getting old, especially being blessed with a partner like I am with Lee Anne, is that you get to look back on your life, and we both say, “What were we thinking? What were we thinking?” It’s so hard to take ourselves back there. But you guys are asking about my family, so I’ll tell you the truth. You get a lot of things in life, but in terms of the gift of marrying Leanne, I killed that. I crushed it. I see her every day and I’m like, this is the greatest decision slash gift of my entire life.

And I bring that up because when you’re partnered with somebody like that, you feel like you can do anything. You go down that road, in that profession, and your life is pretty much mapped out for you. It’s incredibly hard work and challenging and noble and everything else. We walked away to take the worst job in all of college basketball, making $24,000 to do laundry at the University of Georgia — which is a great place — with no guarantee of any future in it at all. And Lee was just like, “Let’s go, baby. Come on, let’s go. We’ll go do this together.” And so when you’re blessed to be married to someone like that, man, it makes life good every single day.

Andy: Awesome. Well, I know, and I’ve seen it, and they’ve embraced the whole Kentucky experience. But you had that as a player, in the ’90s.

How did the whole family buy into all this? How did that all transpire?

Pope: It’s been a family endeavor, guys. My first head job was at Utah Valley University, and we had just moved from Division II to Division I. We had no resources whatsoever. When we got there, there was actually no reserved seating. You just walked up to the door, bought a $5 ticket and went to sit courtside. It was nothing.

So from that early age, we started the Green Club, where we went around to our neighbors and sold them courtside season tickets for $20 a seat. And they agreed to come just because they loved us. And so the girls’ job was — they were in the corner of the arena, and they were literally cooking hot dogs and pretzels to hand to our neighbors in the courtside seats. And since then, it’s always just been a family endeavor.

And so this move, coming to the Mecca of all college basketball — something the girls had heard about their whole lives — and then for them to be able to be around it and see it in person, to walk into Big Blue Madness… You sell out the arena in 22 minutes. Guys, these numbers just don’t exist in college sports anymore.

Twenty-two minutes. They sell out Big Blue Madness this year, and then within an hour there’s a hundred thousand ticket requests in the waiting line. It’s just staggering. And so for the girls to hear those stories their whole life and then get here and witness it, it’s been a real treat for them.

The Hoops HQ Shot Clock Challenge

Andy: We are going to end with what we are calling The Hoops HQ Shot Clock Challenge. The college basketball shot clock is 30 seconds. We’re going to give you 60. You’ve got to answer quickly. Ready?

Favorite player when you were a kid?

Pope: Magic Johnson.

Andy: Best advice you’ve ever received from Rick Pitino?

Pope: Be yourself.

Andy: What’s your perfect date night with Lee Anne?

Pope: Time alone together.

Andy: What, if any, is a big complaint from Lee Anne about you?

Pope: Not enough time.

Andy: What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to?

Pope: Believe it or not, Garth Brooks in Seattle when I was a teenager. I wasn’t a huge Garth Brooks fan, but I’d never been in an arena like that. It was crazy.

Andy: Life skill you wish you had?

Pope: Wow, this is hard. I’m a little bit of a musician already. I wish I was better.

Andy: That works. A person, living or deceased, in all of history that you wish you could meet.

Pope: Abraham Lincoln.

Andy: Good answer. What’s one thing that no one outside of your family knows about you?

Pope: Oh, boy. I’m the head coach at the University of Kentucky. Everybody knows everything.

Andy: All right. How much would you pay for a full head of hair again?

Pope: I’m the one person in the world that has no interest in hair. It’s just another decision you have to make.

Andy: Favorite basketball moment in your life?

Pope: My gosh. There’s too many. Recently, Otega Oweh at the end of the Santa Clara game was just one of those brilliant March Madness moments that you remember forever.

Andy: Toughest player you ever coached against?

Pope: There’s too many.

Andy: If there’s one coach not named Rick Pitino that you could have played for, who is it?

Pope: Billy Donovan.

Andy: LeBron or Michael?

Pope: LeBron is like nobody else. But there’s never been a competitor like Michael Jordan. Ever. Ever.

Andy: Who’s winning the NBA title?

Pope: I’m going with the Knicks to run it back.

Andy: And an NCAA basketball rule that you’d like to change.

Pope: I’d like to be able to advance the ball, make the games more interesting at the end.

Andy: I love it. Mark Pope, you are off the shot clock.

Pope: Appreciate you.