Mark Pope has brought 12 brand-new faces to the Kentucky men’s basketball program. Of the dozen, eight are transfers from another program who have never played under Pope, and three are incoming freshmen. Only one, BYU transfer Jaxson Robinson, has any experience of what it’s like to be taught and led by the new Kentucky head coach.
Robinson played for Pope and the Cougars during the previous two seasons, winning Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year in 2023-24. After contemplating a leap to the NBA, Robinson elected to follow Pope to Lexington. Now just six practices into the summer, Robinson has turned into Pope’s on-court translator for the rest of his Wildcat teammates.
“It’s a gift,” Pope said on Tuesday about Robinson’s ability to disseminate his thoughts to the rest of the group. “I bumble around saying what I’m saying and then Jaxson is like ‘All right guys, this is what he really means, okay?’ He’s a great interpreter. And he’s not just an interpreter of words and concepts on the court but he’ll also double down on the ideas about like, ‘Hey guys, this is really important. You’re gonna hear this — what we just talked about, you’re gonna hear this every single day for the rest of the season.’
“And then there’s a lot of things where Jaxson is like ‘Ah don’t listen to him, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.'”
Jokes aside, having someone like Robinson, who knows Pope’s system inside and out, is only going to make life easier for his teammates. He can show and the rest will follow. It’s not just on-court tactics either. When it comes to building a culture and establishing a healthy locker room, Robinson also knows exactly what Pope is looking for.
“He’s a pretty good distiller of information for us and then also the vibe, the feel, the approach of the game,” Pope added. “He’s got a good sense of how we try to build a locker room and the things that are important to us in the locker room, and how we try and cultivate communication on the floor and he’s done a great job of being an example of that. He’s a really, really vital piece of that. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a NBA-caliber player. That always helps, too.“
As a senior at BYU this past season, Robinson averaged 14.2 points per outing on 42.6 percent overall shooting, including a 35.4 percent clip from deep on nearly seven attempts per game. Pope having one of his best players also be familiar with the high-powered offensive system that he wants to run is just an added bonus.
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