The Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball head coach, Mark Pope, recently spoke with KSR’s Matt Jones for a sit-down interview. Throughout the interview, Pope spoke about adding more matchups to the college basketball regular season. He made it a point to say that he wants his Wildcats team to play the best of the best each season.
Pope has already scheduled a couple of strong exhibition games to begin the season, in the place of the local talent they used to play in late October. However, he wants to find a way to place these matchups in the actual non-conference schedule instead of just exhibition games. However, logistics and revenue issues found this not to be plausible to happen.
Mark Pope Advocates For An Extended College Basketball Season, Proposes Sharing Increased Revenue With Student Athletes
In Pope’s sit down interview with KSR, he advocated for an extended college basketball season, and even proposed sharing increased revenue with the student athletes. Pope also didn’t shy away from saying he wants all the college basketball heavyweights.
Mark Pope wants all the smoke 🔥
(Via @MarioMaitland_3 🎥)
— Hoop Herald (@TheHoopHerald) May 22, 2025
“Can we please extend the season?” Pope asked, speaking to KSR’s Matt Jones in a sit-down interview. “Because we get Purdue and Georgetown, which is awesome, but come on, man, let us do a home-and-home with Kansas. Like, why am I not going to Storrs (UConn) to play a game like we should be?”
“We need some more flexibility with this. And also, let us get to Maui now. Part of the complication is that we make so much revenue off our home games that I’m locked into this 20-game home slate. We have to do that to pay the bills for us and for the athletic department, which is good.”
“But bring on some more flexibility so we play some more games that every school can bring in some more revenue, that we can share with these student athletes, that we share with the rest of the athletic department.”
Pope appears consistent in his claims about wanting an extended campaign. His earlier calls for a longer season earned mixed reviews from fans, but it remains to be seen if this can actually become a reality.
In his first season coaching the Wildcats, Kentucky played 18 games and two exhibition games at Rupp Arena. Most of the games had a sold-out attendance, which included all of the games played during Kentucky’s schedule against SEC competition. This is far from surprising given the fact that 14 teams made it to the March Madness tournament from the conference.
Currently, the Wildcats have not officially scheduled any matchups inside Rupp Arena this season. The only official games slated for the venue are two exhibitions for Kentucky against Purdue and Georgetown. Otherwise, there are non-conference games scheduled against Louisville on the road, and neutral-site games against Michigan State, Gonzaga, and St. John’s.
But have no fear, there will be 18 games played against SEC competition in the upcoming campaign. This means the Wildcats will have to schedule nine of those remaining home games against teams in their league. Including the two exhibition games, there are 11 games in total to be played at the historic Rupp Arena.
In a perfect world, Pope’s suggestion of an extended season would be entertained by those in charge. However, that’s highly unlikely. Kentucky appears to be finding a way to work around these limitations in its non-conference schedule. The Wildcats’ opponents this coming season are already looking to be must-see matchups.
