Mark Pope explains the meaning behind his early-game substitutions

Mark Pope's coaching philosophies were brand new to Kentucky fans last season in his first year as the head coach. Despite being a former player, there was still a lot of things for Kentucky fans to grasp and understand when it comes to his coaching. One of those was his philosophy of having early-game substitutions, even when things were going very well.

Deep into SEC play last season, the rotation numbers were really prevalent, with nine, 10 and 11-man rotations on a game-by-game basis. That is how it was for much of the season. At the time, fans were questioning his quick rotations, especially the stretch were Kentucky lost four of their last five games. Those questions dwindled as Kentucky closed the season, but Mark Pope explained the decisions with his early-game subbing in an interview on KSR. His main reasons for doing so? Keeping his players fresh and preventing a lot of inexperience on the floor at the same time.

"In the games where I brought in substitutions and it went bad, it was just bad substitution. ...So these are thoughts that go into it, and it's pretty much artistic. ...Sometimes there's there's a young guy that you're trying to put on the court where
you need to have them kind of protected. So, sometimes it's hard to take a bunch of young guys or less experienced guys and put them on the court at the same time and so sometimes you have to grab someone out of the line up early to get someone in so that you can start the rotation early so you don't have a bunch of guys fatiguing all at the same time. Or, maybe a guy when he's fresh, he's actually gonna be able to be more supportive than when he's tired. You think about running through the roster to see who's got a good vibe that night because there's game-to-game differentiating. ...Sometimes it's just a matter of like, I'm going to take the hit now so I can be more fresh than the second half, which was really effective for us this year." Pope on his early-game subs philosophy.

Mark Pope's rotations were consistently around nine players in Kentucky's three NCAA Tournament games. Pope's points about taking a hit early to be fresh later and see what's working early in the game is exactly why Kentucky fans trust him. His halftime adjustments, when needed last season, nearly always worked. Entering next season, Kentucky looks to have a deeper rotation than last, with 14 spots (counting Otega Oweh) currently filled on the roster.

It will be interesting to see how Kentucky's rotation changes game-by-game next season, but fans have to appreciate his smart philosophy with his early-game substitutions. It seemed to pay off a lot last season.