It was judgment day for Mark Pope in March Madness as the Kentucky Wildcats were aiming to end a 10-year streak of not reaching the final four. Unfortunately, it was not to be, as they bowed out in the Sweet Sixteen against Tennessee, losing 78-65. It was always going to be a rebuilding job for Pope in his first season at his alma mater.
After all, he had to build last year’s roster from the ground up. Especially coming after the famed John Calipari, who was 15 years at the helm. To change the culture akin to your ideas in an atmosphere drilled for 15 years by somebody else was always going to be a tough job.
They had given the fans some hope with their frenetic pace and an offense that ranked among the highest-scoring teams in the country, but it eventually ended in heartbreak. Now, in his second season, UK is losing five double-digit scorer.
Pope was surely in a difficult position last year. But this time there was a difference, as he was supported by a big, fat check.
College basketball insider Jeff Goodman said on the The Field of 68 podcast, “There was a report that came out yesterday, Rob, $20 million dollars, I think David Sisk, who put it out, somebody, I don’t know where it came from, but that number’s… I’ve been told by a few sources here that the number is not that far off. It might be closer to 17 at the end of the day. It could go to 22.”
Many of the fans weren’t particularly impressed with Pope’s debut season. Realistically, they had no chance of cracking the top 4 considering the conditions. But fans don’t care; they want their team to succeed. In the end, the management had enough faith in Pope to hand him this big bag of money in order to assemble the best team possible.
Credit: Imago
These numbers will seem too wild for the old-timers. Just a few years ago, Nijel Pack’s $800K deal to transfer from Kansas State to Miami was a cause for moral panic. Now teams are shelling out tens of millions on their rosters, with million-dollar deals being the norm.
We have players who are rejecting the NBA to continue playing college ball. The most obvious example of this is Texas Tech’s JT Toppin. A First Team All-American and a projected first-round NBA pick, Toppin opted to bypass the draft process altogether to return for $4 million at TTU. It’s just ridiculous how much the NCAA has changed in such a short time.
Can anyone realistically compete with Kentucky?
They have spent that money well, adding five transfers, two prep freshmen and one international freshman to go with their five expected returners. Arizona State transfer Jayden Quaintance, a projected top-10 pick in the 2026 draft, is the crown jewel of their transfer portal.
Alabama transfer Mouhamed Dioubate at power forward adds more athleticism to this squad. Pope bet big on Pitt transfer Jaland Lowe, who had a disappointing season last time around, but could give this team the creativity it needs.
It’s a very complicated market to track nowadays, the college basketball market with the transfers, players leaving for the draft and whatnot. Now we even have scholars decommitting from colleges in order to get more money. However, Kentucky seems to be the New York Yankees of this season in their conference with their out-of-this-world budget.
Goodman emphasized in the podcast how crazy this budget was and how difficult it would be for other colleges to compete against this kind of behemoth.
He said, “It’s somewhere between that 17 and 22 million dollar range, and that is an astronomically insane number when you look at. It’s like what we used to talk about, you know, with the New York Yankees, right? You look at those, the Yankees and the Kansas City Royals and be like, how the hell can the Royals compete with the Yankees? And how the hell can anybody compete?”
There are only 10 teams out of the 350 that have reported budgets of $10 million or more, and Kentucky has double that, which makes it almost the top spender of the group.
Needless to say, Pope has all it takes to create a winning team, and it will be interesting to see how the rest of the money is spent.
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