They’re here and they’re beautiful, your first Kentucky basketball practice highlights of the summer — and of the Mark Pope era in general.
Monday marked day one of on-court instruction allowed by the NCAA, a period that includes four hours per week for eight weeks ahead of the fall semester and regular season. All 12 Wildcats were in attendance, the latest being Drexel transfer Amari Williams, who arrived on Saturday morning to round out the group.
Now, it’s about putting the pieces together and seeing just how special this team can be in Pope’s debut season with the Wildcats.
“I want to see you take in all the information you can, and I want you to go 100 percent, full speed ahead,” Kentucky’s head coach told the team before practice.
From there, the initial footage is about what you’d expect on day one: dunks, layups and 3-pointers with plenty of hands-on teaching. The clip opens with a lob from Lamont Butler to Williams, a three from Collin Chandler, a dunk from Brandon Garrison, a lay-in from Butler, catch-and-shoot threes from Ansley Almonor and Kerr Kriisa, an alley-oop to Andrew Carr, big slams from Jaxson Robinson and Trent Noah, then threes from Otega Oweh and Travis Perry.
It was a little bit of everything from just about everyone in attendance — exactly what the doctor ordered on June 17.
Take a look at the minute-long clip:
“I’m really excited (to start practice),” Pope told KSR on Saturday. “We have dug really, really deep into everything we can know about our team and about our guys, about putting this together. We need more data, right? And we need more time. It’s time and data. You guys are going to get tired of me talking about connective tissue, but to build the connective tissue and the special sauce of what makes teams great. I’m just grateful that we’re here right now and we can start doing that in massive earnest. I think this team has way more potential than maybe people think.
“The question is, how good can we be at tapping into it and helping all the pieces fit together with a synergy that makes our whole way bigger than the sum of our parts?”
That’s what this summer is for, and the process began on Monday. Now I’m counting down the hours to footage from practice No. 2.
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