NEW YORK — It’s about 26 hours before Kentucky is scheduled to play Ohio State in the CBS Sports Classic on Saturday here inside Madison Square Garden, and I’m sitting at a table on the second floor of a luxury hotel overlooking Central Park, talking to UK coach Mark Pope while a light snow dusts the city.
The subject is … Hamilton.
Eventually, we’ll get to the 10-1 record, the No. 4 ranking, the surprise Pope had when what he calls the best job in the sport opened last April — and the even bigger surprise he experienced when it fell to him. Eventually, we’ll get to the basketball stuff. But, for now, and for several minutes, we’re talking about Hamilton. Because that’s what the Wildcats took in shortly after landing in New York on Thursday, they made the 22-block journey south from their hotel to the Richard Rodgers Theatre on West 46th Street to experience Lin-Manuel Miranda’s award-winning musical that premiered in 2015 and won 11 times at the 70th Tony Awards before also receiving the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Kentucky’s Mark Pope keeps the drama to a minimum, has his Wildcats 10-1 heading into CBS Sports Classic
