Mark Pope's offense improving on this metric will make Kentucky an elite team this season

Kentucky will be one of the best shooting teams in college basketball.

University of Kentucky’s new men’s basketball coach Mark Pope speaks about the future of Kentucky men’s basketball during his introductory press conference to thousands of fans in Rupp Arena on Sunday, April 14, 2024. / Clare Grant/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Kentucky Wildcats are getting closer to the start of the 2024-25 season, and everyone in Lexington is really excited about Mark Pope's first Kentucky team.

The exciting part of having Pope as the head coach in Lexington is his high-powered offense is capable of putting up a ton of points. His offense is based on lots of threes, passing for open looks, and cutting to the basket.

Last season at BYU, Coach Pope's team shot the second most threes per game in college hoops at 32 per contest. Many expect that number to be similar in Lexington this season, but the hope is Coach Pope's first Kentucky team will make more. Of the 1,087 three-pointers BYU shot last season, they made 378 for a percentage of 34.8. While for that many three-point shots, that number is excellent, Coach Pope would love for it to improve this season at Kentucky.

Coach Pope has the shooters to get this done. Jaxson Robinson, Koby Brea, Kerr Kriisa, Andrew Carr, Travis Perry, and Ansley Almonor make Kentucky one of the best shooting teams in college basketball, so in this system that gets shooters open looks, Kentucky should be great. It is the same system from last season at BYU, just with better shooters all around.

If Kentucky is able to shoot close to 40% from three this season, they are more than capable of making a Final Four run. Knowing how much this team is going to shoot the ball and just how good these players are at shooting; the college basketball world should be very scared of Mark Pope's Kentucky Wildcats.