Mark Pope hasn't slept well since his team's last trip to the city that never sleeps.
"We just laid an egg last year. All credit to Ohio State, but I haven't slept hardly. I wake up in cold sweats thinking about that disaster," Pope said of his team's 85-65 loss to Ohio State in the 2024 CBS Sports Classic. "The fact is we went to Madison Square Garden and we just didn't perform. That's a hard one... We've got to fix New York, man. That city is so important to me. That arena means to much to me as a college player and a former Knick for a year."
When the Cats return to New York City this week for a prime time game against Tom Izzo and the Michigan State Spartans, it's a chance for the Kentucky men's basketball coach to earn redemption in the city that's kept him up at night for the past year. Revenge for being haunted by a nightmare showing in the city he loves.
But for junior forward Mo Dioubate, the trip marks a return to the city that raised him. A dream come true.
"Majority of my family is still in New York to this day," Dioubate told us ahead of the trip. "The whole city is going to come out for that game. My whole family, friends, supporters."
Dioubate credits those people, specifically his immediate family, for shaping him in to the competitor we see on the court today.
"If you're having an argument and you want to settle the difference, you play basketball. That's the environment I was in," Dioubate said before referencing the fact that, in New York, there's a basketball court on every corner.
"It made me tougher. My older siblings picked on me - that's just something older siblings do," he added after listing his 15 siblings, currently ranging in age from four through 40 years old.
"I had to toughen up; I couldn't go to my mom crying every time something happened between us. It built a lot of character in me."
"I think it's something that was actually common throughout the different levels and stages he played in: his desire to play with passion," Rob Diaz, Dioubate's middle and high school basketball coach, told BBN Tonight reporter Noah Cierzan Monday afternoon.
"We had a tournament we won in 2021 and 2022... I remember actually having one player who's a player of the year, one who's our MVP of the game, but Mo was actually the difference between winning and losing."
For the past 27 years, Diaz has been an assistant coach at John Bowne High School, where he also worked with former Wildcat, Hamidou Diallo.
"Hami set that same path for Mo, and I think Mo can set the same for other kids to follow," Diaz said. "Being a young kid from the inner city in New York City for kids to know if you work hard and you have the potential, it can happen."
Noah Cierzan is in the Big Apple ahead of No. 12 Kentucky's game against No. 17 Michigan State.
Tipoff in the State Farm Champion's Classic is set for Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. ET on ESPN and the UK Sports Radio Network.
For more on Kentucky basketball and all of the Wildcats, join us on BBN Tonight, airing weeknights at 7:30 p.m. on the official station for UK Athletics, LEX 18.
Photographer Nick Lazaroff and anchor Maggie Davis also contributed to this report.
