In the wake of a recruiting trail lit ablaze by a blue flame, Mark Pope has made another move that will go down as historically relevant in an entirely different way.
Big Blue Madness (BBM), the annual introductory basketball event held before the season begins at Rupp Arena, will be led this month by a new coach for the first time in 15 years. Among many seismic changes for Kentucky’s basketball program, Coach Pope will make an immediate mark by debuting an LED court at the event.
Not only has this never been done at BBM, but it’s never been done on the collegiate basketball level, period. The only place that such technology has been implemented in the sport is for the NBA All-Star game, which is arguably one of the biggest stages it possibly could have been.
Rupp Arena is climbing those ranks under a new regime. In addition to giving fans who’ve had nothing to be excited about for a long time exactly that, the implementation of a court that can be digitally altered and changed is a sign of the times for a sport that is ahead of the curve in adapting to them.
Not only can the floor switch colors at the press of a button, but it can also react to movement on it and the environment around it. Trails of fire follow players, the sidelines pulse to the music and graphics shoot across the center of the court.
It’s almost like adding a new dimension to the space. Of course, the LED court leaves after the event; they don’t play games on it… yet.
Pope pushing the technological envelope may be the start of something much greater and much more formidable. On top of introducing the court a few years back, the National Basketball Association (NBA) crowd-tested digital jerseys with numbers and names that could be adjusted from a phone in a different room.
These have yet to be used on the floor in any fashion, but even the idea of a player scoring and his uniform changing to reflect that is mind-boggling, to say the least. What’s more, the prototype jersey shown hardly bears any difference from a normal one.
Hand-in-hand with basketball’s technological trends is, expectedly, the rise of artificial intelligence in just about every aspect of our lives. That’s become unavoidable.
What it means for the sport specifically is another question entirely, but for Kentucky fans, being at the cutting edge of anything at all is a good feeling. Pope has made it his undying goal to restore the program to what it once was by simply embracing what it is: the greatest tradition in college basketball.
In all his years and through every up and down, John Calipari failed to do that. It was always about the next level for him, about what came after. Pope is focused on the now – what’s here and what’s to come.
Fans should take this first move, as purely cosmetic as it is, as a positive sign of the times. This is a coach willing to cut checks for the sake of excitement, prioritizing the people who pack the place he coaches in.
Wherever basketball goes, this is a coach that is going to make sure Kentucky goes with it. If it’s a new era for the sport, it’ll be a new era for Kentucky, too.
