The offense will still be exciting, but this year, Mark Pope is building a team that wins with toughness, not just talent.
Championships are won with defense. It’s one of the oldest clichés in sports because it’s true. For all of its offensive firepower last season, Kentucky’s inability to consistently get stops was its ultimate undoing. A quick look at the final defensive statistics from that campaign reveals a team whose numbers simply weren't championship-caliber. The analytics say Mark Pope did a great job reinventing the team, but let's look back at just how bad things were last year.