Mo Dioubate ‘almost died’ trying to pass Mark Pope’s conditioning test
We’ve been working, getting prepared for the season,” Alabama transfer Mo Dioubate said Monday. “… Coach made us run 17s today in practice. Coming in, I didn’t think it was gonna be that hard, but it was really kind of challenging today. We got it done, but that was probably the hardest thing we’ve done in practice so far.”
For those curious, a 17 is when you run from sideline to sideline 17 times, timed. Pope gives the bigs 66 seconds to get it done and the guards 63 seconds. If you fail, you have to come back a week later and try it again.
No exceptions — as Dioubate learned the hard way.
“We did four of those today, and you get a one-minute break in between each 17,” Dioubate said. “… If you fail the first one, it doesn’t count and you have to come back next week and try to get it. … Last week, I was short by like four seconds, and I thought the coaches would have some mercy on me, saying, ‘Oh, you don’t have to do it again.’ But (Pope) said, ‘Nah, you got to do it until you make it.’ So that’s what I did today.
“I almost died, but it was fun just knowing that I completed it. It was hard, but we still got it done.”
Mark Pope told Big Blue Nation to pray for the Kentucky Wildcats as they prepared for their first-day conditioning test back on June 17 — and for good reason.
The second-year coach in Lexington told KSR there would be a “new focus” on conditioning and “that’s going to be a huge emphasis for us the way we want to play this year.” When you have one of the deepest teams in the country, you want to use that depth to your advantage by attacking opponents in waves until they roll over and die, quicker bursts at 110 percent effort across the board.
“That’s a little bit of a new vibe for us,” he said.
How did things go with the conditioning test? Well, it’s the hardest thing the players have done up to this point, if you want the truth
Another reporter came up later in the conversation and asked a similar question about the conditioning test and how it went. Dioubate didn’t miss a beat, repeating the same line from before to really drive that point home: it nearly killed him
