Story byMike RutherfordFri, December 5, 2025 at 5:38 PM UTC·9 min readAmong the most tiresome of modern sports media trends is the overuse of the phrase “must-win game.”If a loss doesn’t result in the immediate end of a season for the losing team or the immediate end of the losing team’s primary goal for the season, then the use of the phrase “must-win game” is superfluous. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSo let’s make this clear from the outset: Friday night’s home game against No. 11 Gonzaga is absolutely not a must-win game for the Kentucky Wildcats. But it certainly feels like it is. For good reason. Mark Pope’s first year in Lexington was sort of like a Hallmark Christmas movie: Cute, predictable, got the job done, but lacking in the substance for any viewer or fan to refer to it as one of their favorite movies or seasons of all-time. Pope understood the assignment. Whenever there’s an unamiable parting of ways, the task for the next person up is to showcase that they’re capable of continuing to provide the good qualities of the person they’re replacing, but also that they are the antithesis of said person in the areas that had ultimately steered the relationship towards a breakup. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementKentucky fans were upset that John Calipari seemingly refused to modernize his offensive philosophies. Mark Pope came from BYU with an offensive game plan centered around lighting up the scoreboard with outside shots and high percentage buckets at the rim. Kentucky fans were upset that John Calipari had seemed to believe that he had become bigger than the program. Mark Pope was a former player who played up the notion that the Big Blue Nation WAS Kentucky basketball, and that this was a perpetual truth that couldn’t be changed. Kentucky fans were really upset that John Calipari hadn’t been to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament since 2019 and couldn’t seem to stop losing games to double-digit seeds. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementMark Pope’s first Kentucky team played to its 3-seed, making the Sweet 16 before getting hammered by conference rival Tennessee. It was nice, it was refreshing, and it hit just about every necessary benchmark the fan base had for year one.