Why Mark Pope’s first Kentucky team is guaranteed to make UK men’s basketball history

When Kentucky officially launches the Mark Pope coaching era against Wright State on Nov. 4, the 2024-25 Wildcats will take a unique place in UK’s regal men’s basketball history.

By one metric, UK in the coming season will field what is all but certainly its most-experienced roster ever.

Pope’s first Kentucky team will enter 2024-25 with a roster that boasts players who have started a combined 586 — 586! — career college basketball games.

There are more career starts on this coming season’s Kentucky roster than there were on John Calipari’s first six Kentucky teams (579) combined.

The current Cats will have 219 more career starts on their roster than did the most-experienced team of the Calipari coaching era — Kentucky’s 2021-22 roster had 367 career starts entering that season.

To put in greater perspective just how much playing experience the 2024-25 Cats will bring into the coming season, consider:

▪ Kentucky’s 2014-15 team — which reached the Final Four with a 38-0 record — entered that season with 164 career starts on its roster.

▪ UK’s 2011-12 national championship team began that campaign with 125 career starts on its roster — 71 of those supplied by one player, Darius Miller.

▪ Kentucky’s 1997-98 national championship squad — which started two seniors and three juniors — commenced that season with 164 total college starts on its roster.

▪ UK’s 1995-96 NCAA championship team — which started two seniors, two juniors and a sophomore — entered its title year with a cumulative 233 career college starts.

The 2024-25 Kentucky roster will boast nine players who have all made at least 21 career starts in college hoops. UK will have five players who have started 69 career games or more.

Three of the 2024-25 Cats — big man Andrew Carr (112) and guards Lamont Butler (102) and Kerr Kriisa (93) — have started more than 90 career college hoops contests.

Suffice to say, Pope is emphatically giving that segment of the Big Blue Nation that has been pleading for UK to field more experienced teams what it has been wanting.

In building such a veteran-laden roster, Pope has benefited from what will be the final season when super-senior players are available en masse due to the “one free COVID year” granted by the NCAA to all athletes enrolled in college during the 2020-21 school year.

Kentucky in 2024-25 will have six players using a fifth season of playing eligibility — Koby Brea, Butler, Carr, Kriisa, Jaxson Robinson and Amari Williams — on its roster.

Because of the “new team every season” reality of Calipari-era roster construction, UK was all but certainly going to be facing a complete rebuild whenever it had a coaching transition.

That Arkansas lured Calipari away within the time window when the super-senior dynamic was still in place to bolster the amount of talent available in the transfer portal counts as a massive stroke of good fortune for Kentucky’s rebuild.

For all the experience Pope will have on his first Kentucky roster, UK will nevertheless not have one player who will begin 2024-25 having ever started a game for Kentucky.

Even during the Calipari era (2009 through 2024) roster flux, UK only had one team, 2012-13, that began its season without having a player who had ever started a game for Kentucky.

Let’s stipulate that just because a team is experienced does not guarantee it will reach the NCAA Tournament promised land. The most-experienced Kentucky team of the Calipari era, the 2021-22 squad that had 367 career starts on its roster, lost in the NCAA Tournament round of 64 to No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s.

Nevertheless, it is true that, in building a veteran-laden roster, Pope has made Kentucky look more like the teams that have been thriving in recent NCAA Tournaments.

Of the 20 players who started in the 2024 Final Four, 13 of them were seniors or super-seniors. Among the 80 players who have started in the past four Final Fours, there have been a grand total of four freshmen.

While guaranteeing nothing, “old is gold” has been the most-consistent recipe for recent NCAA Tournament success. Over at Arkansas, even the former Kentucky coach whose brand is synonymous with one-and-done freshmen seems to have grasped this.

While nowhere close to the experience-level that Pope attracted to Kentucky, Calipari’s first Razorbacks roster will enter 2024-25 with players who have made 191 career college starts.

Of Calipari’s 15 UK rosters, only two, 2021-22 (367) and 2022-23 (262), had more career starts than the 2024-25 Arkansas roster boasts.

Forty-seven of those career starts are supplied by former Wildcats D.J. Wagner (28 starts) and Adou Thiero (19).

Ex-Florida Atlantic guard Johnell Davis (53), holdover forward Trevon Brazile (46) and former Tennessee big man Jonas Aidoo (45) will give Calipari a veteran core to build around.

As for the 2024-25 UK roster, it is not filled with the number of can’t miss NBA prospects that Wildcats backers are used to watching. It is, however, stacked from top to bottom with proven, quality college basketball players.

For frustrated Cats fans, that change in focus may prove refreshing.

UK basketball finalizes its non-conference schedule. Here’s who the Wildcats will play.

An NCAA rule that John Calipari loathed is helping Mark Pope rebuild UK basketball’s roster

One big way that Mark Pope’s coaching will differ from John Calipari’s

Two teams ruined John Calipari’s tenure at UK. They were not Saint Peter’s and Oakland.

In the unending war between Calipari and Pitino, Ricky P. has won the latest battle

The tie of faith that binds Mark Pope to a Kentucky men’s basketball legend

Jason Booher keeps alive the memories of those lost in Carrollton bus crash by marathoning