As Mark Pope continues to try and establish himself as a top college basketball recruiter at Kentucky, there’s a potential ace in the hole that’s been unleashed for the second-year UK coach.
Earlier this summer, Pope served as a court coach during a USA Basketball training camp in Colorado that was used to determine the United States’ roster for the 2025 FIBA Under-19 World Cup, an event the Americans won in Switzerland.
That training camp included 32 participants, among them some of the nation’s top college basketball prospects.
Thirteen of the training camp’s participants were from the 2026 recruiting class. Among this elite group of rising high school seniors, nine have UK basketball scholarship offers and eight remain uncommitted as the fall official visit season looms.
Pope was far from the only college head coach that got the opportunity to directly work with these prospects in a USA Basketball setting.
The coaching staff for the final U-19 World Cup squad included Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd, Texas Tech’s Grant McCasland and Notre Dame’s Micah Shrewsberry. Pope was one of three college coaches that served as court coaches during the training camp, along with Alabama’s Nate Oats and North Carolina’s Hubert Davis.
To some extent, all of these coaches are trying to recruit the elite class of 2026 players who were at the USA Basketball camp.
But, by being in the gym and getting some one-on-one instruction time with these prospects, Pope might have given himself and his UK program a leg up as the 2026 recruiting picture comes into full view.
“When you get to deal with great players like that, they’re usually, almost without exception, incredible human beings also,” said Pope, who was making his USA Basketball coaching debut at the June training camp. “Because to make the sacrifice and do the work and have the commitment to get to that level, you usually have to be built pretty special. What a joy as a coach to be able to go do that.”
