Mark Pope and Cody Fueger came to Kentucky last year with a reputation for relying on the numbers, and they weren’t shy about one in particular.
The new UK basketball coaches wanted their first group of Wildcats to put up 35 3-pointers a game. Fueger — known as the “offensive coordinator” on Pope’s staff at BYU — stated that number early and clearly.
It wasn’t a joke — no UK team has averaged even 30 long-range shots per game over the course of a season — or some pie-in-the-sky figure. It was a real goal, indicative of the way Pope and Fueger wanted their team to play amid a college basketball landscape that was trending toward putting up more perimeter shots.
Those Cats ultimately set a school record for most made 3-pointers in a season, but they fell far short of Fueger’s stated goal. They averaged 25.3 3-point attempts per game, fourth in program history — behind three of Rick Pitino’s earliest UK teams.
So, what’s in store for Year 2? Maybe a more realistic number for these Cats to hit?
Nope.
“Shoot, if we can get up 60 3s, I’m gonna take it,” Fueger said. “As many 3s as we can get up!”
For the UK basketball brain trust, 35 3-pointers per game remains the goal. And they say it’s plenty realistic.
Pope, Fueger and the Wildcats running it back for a second season clearly think this UK roster is better equipped to actually hit that number, even if past results would call that into question.
“This group might not have come in with the reputation of being as prolific 3-point shooters as some of the guys we brought in last year, but the progress they made every single week during the summer was remarkable,” Pope said. “And we have some guys that are shooting the ball at such an elite level right now. It’s pretty inspiring. So we will continue to push that number as high as we can. And Coach Fueger and I are still arguing about it.”
Arguing about how to get to 35, that is. Not the number itself.
“There’s nobody in the world more proud that last year’s team made more 3s than any team in the history of Kentucky basketball,” Pope said. “I would like to run that back, you know, times two this year. And I think we have a group that can do it.”
