When Mark Pope left BYU basketball to take over the Kentucky job, he made a few critical exchanges. By leaving Provo, he exchanged the Marriott Center for Rupp Arena. He swapped the Big 12 for the SEC. He traded royal blue for... Kentucky blue (I'm not entirely sure)?
And he's seen some real success in his first season at the helm in Lexington. The Wildcats were a top-10 program nationally for some time before a rough stretch through the SEC gauntlet kicked his roster back to their current 17th spot.
But the truly horrifying reality was presented to Coach Pope when a statistic began circulating through college basketball circles. This statistic calls into question the entire validity of the SEC's dominance in the national conversation.
Since the beginning of conference play, the Southeastern Conference has gone .500 league-wide. For every game they've won, they've lost one to match.
Pope was questioned on this number during a press conference, and he let his frustrations be known.
There's been a lot of talk about the SEC being the best conference in college basketball, but the league is still .500 since the start of conference play.
— Jacob Polacheck (@PolacheckKSR) February 13, 2025
I asked Mark Pope about it to get to the bottom of this. pic.twitter.com/cPj4qBUSwQ
"I think it's been a really disappointing start to conference play," Pope announced, tongue-in-cheek. "I feel like we're not living up to expectations, just being at .500 as a conference and I'm kinda looking around at the other programs and saying, 'guys we've gotta pick this up -- this is embarrassing!'"
A hilarious statistic to go so viral, but when taken at face value, fans can understandably be confused about such a low standard. Peeling back the onion, I've made another startling discovery: every single conference in college basketball -- at every level -- has won exactly as many in-conference games as they've lost.
We're glad Mark Pope can remain optimistic to such a dizzying reality,