Mark Pope knows his players are hungry and eager to start the season

The Wildcats are ready to face other competition.

Oct 15, 2024; Birmingham, AL, USA; Kentucky Wildcats head coach Mark Pope talks with the media during SEC Media Days at Grand Bohemian Hotel. Mandatory Credit: Vasha Hunt-Imagn Images / Vasha Hunt-Imagn Images

By now, practice for Kentucky basketball has been going on for a couple of months now. With the season inching closer and closer, Mark Pope knows just how hungry and eager his team is to begin playing competition other than themselves. The biggest thing? They are dying to get "exposed" to see what they need to work on.

Mark Pope says this is a team full of humble and curious players who are experienced in many different ways. As the season gets closer, the head coach said at SEC Media Day this week that they're hungry to get things rolling, especially with two exhibition games coming up.

"You play against each other, you're playing a similar style, because everybody's playing the same style in our gym. So, you're just hungry to get exposed. Show us what we don't know yet about our team."

- Pope on his team's attitude right now.

A big part of that is having a curious team that is eager to learn and improve. Mark Pope knows what these exhibitions will bring, and he also knows that the team won't be taking them lightly, no matter the competition.

"We have two exhibitions against good teams. We're playing the defending national champ division 2 team, and so we're gonna get exposed. We're just hungry. I have a group, like I said, that's humble and curious. We're actually dying to get in the film room and be like, 'Ok, show us what we're not doing well. Where are the holes and the cracks in what we do so that we can go fix them and we can build back up?' So, that's what you get from playing other teams. "

- Pope on team dying to play others.

One of the biggest reason why Pope has stressed this and why the team understands being eager and curious is the goal of playing your best when March comes around. This team is ready to roll.

"We're really eager. We're at the point now where we're really eager to go face some opponents because what we need to do is we need to be a great team by the time March comes around. We need to learn all that and take in all that information and learn the principles where we can combat the little holes that we have."

- Pope on importance of March.

Mark Pope knows how important March is, and it's all about improving throughout the season to be at your best when that moment comes about. The Wildcats are hungry for competition, and they'll get it on Oct. 23 in their first exhibition against Kentucky Wesleyan.