Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope is looking for a few good players to join his team. Pope and the Wildcats are holding an open tryout to find players, per ESPN. Pope says he's looking for walk-ons.
The Wildcats are hosting the tryout on August 30. Kentucky is asking players to submit their information about height, weight and position through their high school basketball coaches, per ESPN. The coaching staff will then narrow down the candidates they want to see at their tryout.
The tryout is open to all full-time Kentucky students in good academic standing.
Kentucky basketball is under new management
Mark Pope is now the head coach at Kentucky, after John Calipari left for Arkansas. Pope played for the Wildcats, helping the program win a national championship in 1996. Pope comes to Lexington from BYU, where he led the Cougars to a NCAA tournament appearance in 2023-24.
Kentucky basketball lost a lot of players when Calipari exited, but the Wildcats also added heavily from the transfer portal. The team brought in talented point guard Kerr Kriisa, who played for Arizona and West Virginia. The most important addition may be Jaxson Robinson. The guard played for Pope at BYU, and averaged more than 14 points last season.
The Wildcats are one of college basketball's most successful programs, so there will be pressure on Pope to win games. Calipari had lost some steam in Lexington, bowing out early in several of his last NCAA tournament appearances. That was seen as a primary reason why Calipari left Kentucky. The Wildcats lost in the round of 64 to Oakland in 2023-24. The program hasn't made a trip to the Final Four since 2015, despite a treasure trove of NBA level talent that came to the school.
Pope is tasked with turning the team's fortunes back around. The SEC is a difficult basketball conference, about to get even more challenging. Texas and Oklahoma are joining the league.
It will certainly be interesting to see if Kentucky basketball can find some walk-on talent from their open tryout. Kentucky isn't the first school to do a sweeping search for players. Louisville looked for players last year in the midst of a disappointing season, per ESPN. Some programs also have had a player search due to injuries.
The Wildcats have a tough non conference slate this season, playing Gonzaga, Clemson and Duke in the Champions Classic. There's also a meeting with Ohio State, before the SEC conference schedule even begins. Kentucky basketball fans are excited to see what the Wildcats do this coming year.
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