Like most of the college basketball world, Mark Pope is eager to see exactly what kind of team he has assembled for his first season at Kentucky.

The Wildcats' new boss thinks he's got a terrific squad -- a carefully constructed roster that addresses every aspect of his system and preferred style of play -- still, no one on the UK roster has ever played a second of basketball together at this level.

"We're blessed to have a really veteran group that has a ton of experience," Pope said Tuesday during SEC Basketball Media Day in Birmingham, Ala. "It's just they've got no experience with each other."

Pope had to assemble his first Kentucky team at breakneck pace after John Calipari bolted for Arkansas this spring and took most of the existing roster in tow to Fayetteville.

Thanks to the transfer portal, however, Pope was able to recruit an impressive group of proven, veteran players from coast to coast, including: one of his BYU stars in the form of grad senior wing Jaxson Robinson; grad senior point guard and defensive dynamo Lamont Butler from San Diego State; grad senior sharpshooter Koby Brea from Dayton; and versatile grad senior forward Andrew Carr from Wake Forest, among several others.

The revamped roster features players from nine different states, including two high profile freshmen from Kentucky and a little international flavor with players born in England and Estonia.

College hoops observers seem to like the talent that Pope has brought to Lexington, as evidenced by the Cats' No. 23 ranking in the preseason AP Top 25 Poll, but they're also wondering exactly how all the pieces will come together.

So does their coach.

"It's been since the very, very first day that we were together, it's been a major piece of focus for our guys to understand us and understand each other and try to fit together and communicate with each other," Pope said. "So that's been the biggest part for us. We have guys that bring in exactly the skill set that we're looking for in this first year, it's just a matter of us growing together. That's something that we've done extraordinarily well over the summer and into the fall.

"The next step for us is to actually get on a court and play against somebody else and start coming together in that way, too."

Kentucky will play its annual Blue-White Game on Friday, but it's another five days after that until the Cats see an actual opponent with the first two exhibition games, Kentucky Wesleyan on Oct. 23 and Minnesota State on Oct. 29 leading up to the season opener on Nov. 4 against Wright State.

In most seasons, those might be dismissed by fans and media alike as tune-up fodder, but these might draw more intrigue than usual.

"You play against each other, you're playing a similar style because everybody's playing the same style in our gym," Pope said. "So you're just hungry to get exposed. Show us what we don't know yet about our team.

"We have two exhibitions against good teams. We're playing the defending national champ Division II team, so we're going to get exposed. We're just hungry (for that). I have a group that's humble and curious, and we're actually dying to get in the film room and like, OK, show us what we're not doing well. Where are the holes and the cracks in what we do so that we can go fix them and build them back up? That's what you get from playing other teams. We're at the point now where we're really eager to play other teams."