Mark Pope gets another top-25 win just when Kentucky needed it most.
After getting embarrassed in Nashville earlier this season, revenge was firmly on the mind of Kentucky Basketball when the Vanderbilt Commodores traveled to Lexington.
And revenge was served in a big way, as Kentucky raced out to an early lead and never looked back while crushing the Dores by a final score of 91-77.
The big three of Otega Oweh (23), Collin Chandler (23), and Denzel Aberdeen (15) alone combined for 61 points, while Malachi Moreno stuffed the stat sheet with 11 points, six rebounds, and five assists vs. two turnovers.
This was exactly the kind of performance we all thought Kentucky was capable of before the season. While there were certainly some rough patches, this should give the BBN hope that their Wildcats can make some noise in March.
After the game, head coach Mark Pope and select players met with the media to discuss the game. Here is a recap of what they had to say via UK Athletics and our own Dylan Ballard.
MARK POPE: All right. Great environment. It’s March, we are minutes away from March. Big time game. BBN turned out. Vanderbilt played great. Shot the ball great. And so, I’m proud of our guys, it was a fun contest. Far away. Hit me with questions.
Q Coach, I want to ask about Denzel. It’s been a bit of an up-and-down season for him. But this is his sixth straight game in double digits. What have you seen from him really in this second half of conference play that’s allowed him to be so consistent?
MARK POPE: Yeah, listen. I’m so impressed with him. We talked about this story all season long. He came in here to do one job and he’s doing a totally different job than he expected, than we expected. He’s grown into, in the last two games, if you think about on the road in the SEC and at home against a really, really good Vanderbilt team. He’s 9-0, that’s hard to do. Two teams that really pressure and really give you different looks against two of the best steal guards in our league in terms of Vanderbilt’s backcourt. He just has been incredible. He makes big shots. He’s really poised. He had a couple of unbelievable driving lines tonight. I think his defense of effort, he’s getting overlooked a little bit because in the last two games, he’s been so good defensively and he’s just making every play.
Q Mark, I’m curious, what can it do for your team’s psyche to know they went to Nashville and got hammered by 25 and then come back and almost flip the tables on them completely. What can that do, especially this late in the year?
MARK POPE: I don’t know if the guys are reading into that. I just know that right now we want to keep growing as a basketball team and getting better and we think we can. We think we are getting better. We shot the ball extremely well tonight. We handled some issues that we knew we were going to have to handle going into the game. I thought the guys were really, really locked in and we gave up some things, but it was in the process of taking away some other things. So I think we’re just growing.
Q Mark, during the pregame radio show with Tom. I think he asked you about Collin and you talked about watching him as a recruit in a high school player. To see the performance that he did now. How much of his potential has he realized with the way he’s able to shoot the ball and how much does he still have to grow and where he can elevate his game based on a performance like that?
MARK POPE: Yeah, he’s got so much more, doesn’t he? And the thing is, you know, he’s 6 for 8 tonight, is that right? 6 for 8, really 7 for 9. Nobody that’s watched him is surprised. Is anybody surprised? I mean, a week ago he was the number one three-point shooter in the SEC. It’s crazy a guy goes 6 for 8 and nobody is surprised. That’s what he does. He’s got a calmness and a poise and we talked about this a lot. He’s always been confident, but he’s just getting more and more comfortable. And his ceiling is incredibly high. He’s got so much more in the tank. You know, probably the best play was we got to a high ball screen and DA had a great driving line against Tanner Tyler, and then Collin was like, oh that looks cool, let me get a shot at that. And two possessions later he gets exactly the same play and makes the exact same play. That’s fun watching the guys grow.
Q Coach, here in the back. A little bit of off-topic. Recently Mouhamed put out a video about how he was preparing for your last game and he’s obviously observing Ramadan. I just wanted to get your thoughts on it as a man of faith yourself. Are you guys doing anything special to keep his energy levels good during games like this?
MARK POPE: Yeah, we’ve talked about it as a team. I think when you sacrifice, literally when you make things sacred, you hope you spend your whole life making things sacred. And he is making this sacred. When you sacrifice to make things sacred, the payoffs sometimes is rewarded by a great play, sometimes it’s just inside yourself. But you always get payoff for making things sacred. It takes a lot of work and sacrifice to make things sacred. But that’s what he’s doing. I have unbelievable respect for him. You know, you think about, just what he’s doing, and to do with this point in the season. And there’s nobody that’s making him do it. It’s just a sign of his devotion and his faith. His personal choice is to not even rinse out his mouth during games. You can imagine, he got up this morning and had a full shootaround and then rested and had a full game and then he comes out here and plays 24 minutes in a really, really competitive game. And is incredibly physical. And never even rinsed his mouth out and won’t for the next five hours until he eats again. I think that’s a beautiful thing. I think when people make commitments like that and they sacrifice to make things sacred, I think is special. It’s just who he is. I can talk about that for days because I’m really proud of him. It’s just a great sign. We should all be taking things in our life and making them sacred. Lee Anne is like, would you stop. Please stop. Sorry.
Q Mark, it’s a horrid sports writing cliché that veteran guards win in March. You are going into March with two seniors and a fourth-year sophomore. How big of an advantage cannot be for you?
MARK POPE: It’s important. You know, you look at the season this year and there’s some young teams that are really winning huge also. It’s just us, it’s just who we are. You know, it’s been fun. Otega Oweh, you think he walks in the season as the preseason SEC player of the year, so how do you grow from that? Like you are supposed to be the best player in the league. But for everybody who has really been paying attention, it’s been incredible to watch him grow. He’s sitting there with 6 points somewhere halftime-ish and a little bit of frustration. But he is trying to make plays for guys, but there’s a little frustration. It’s like if you stay in this, this game is going to come back to you, like you imagine he does. He ends up with another 23 point game. Watching him kind of grow into that rarefied era of understanding the game is pretty fun. These veteran guards are fun to coach.
Q Mark, kind of a two-part question. First, being how big of a tone setter was it for you guys to come out and play the way you did in the first half? Especially as many times this season as you’ve been on the opposite end. And secondly, when you came out of halftime, there was no let up. You guys kept that level.
MARK POPE: I will tell you, I was proud of the 46-45 second half. I was really proud of that. That’s with us not playing far from perfect but making enough plays. I was really proud of the guys for staying really aggressive. As Vanderbilt tried to extend the press and our guys just attacked. It’s what we do when we are at our best. There was not second-guessing. Guys were super aggressive against the press and we ended up with four or five layups and a couple of and ones just with our guys making great aggressive decisions. That’s how you want your guys to feel. You don’t want them to feel like they are on their heels. And they did a nice job with that.
Q Mark, you all shot under 30% from the last two games from behind the arc. But today you shot 50%. How big is that with your team’s confidence going into the final week in the season?
MARK POPE: It’s fun to make shots. It makes life easier. We never think we win or lose because we make or miss shots. But it is fun to make shots. I don’t know, what are we, probably the second best 3-point shooting team in the conference? What are we right now? We are second. We make shots. That’s the way this team was put together and it’s what we do and it’s what we are doing. And so, we trust that we will make shots, and our guys have done it.
Q Mark, I think on Thursday, your exact quote was we are not as efficient from 36 to 38 as we are from 32 to 34. How pleased were you with the showing tonight being able to keep Oweh at 34 and getting 30 out of Collin and some of the other guys?
MARK POPE: Well, I didn’t do a great job with DA. DA is 37. He managed it really well. He really, really managed it well. I think you saw some of those really explosive plays from O down the stretch and he seemed comfortable. He probably could have played a couple of more minutes. I thought Jasper was really good. I like Jasper a lot tonight. Jasper comes at us with zero turnovers against a backcourt that’s really one of the best turnover creating backcourt in our league. I thought Jasper was good off the bench. Trent gave us some really quality minutes off the bench. I thought AJ was great starting the game. And BG helped us off the bench. BG is giving us something off the glass defensively. Our bench matters and I thought those guys were good. And if we can stay in this space. You know, that’s our goal and number if we can stay somewhere between 32 and 36, we have a chance to operate at our very best.
Q Mark, you talked about Mo’s sacrifice. Collin put his own career on hold for two years for a mission trip. You just got Avery back from a mission trip. How does all of that, that has nothing to do with basketball, does it make you appreciate basketball more, with the guys you think?
MARK POPE: I think so, I think it does. I think it makes you appreciate it and I think it also gives you some perspective and I think, you know, yes. The answer is yes. I can talk about it for an hour, but I’m going to say yes. Because you were saying stop talking so much. Just real quick. You guys know, there was a moment where I talked a little bit too much. I don’t know what it was, a week or so ago. It was really expensive. So, we are trying to, especially now, we are trying to work on a budget here. And I kind of ruined that. Lee Anne is fully justified in saying, would you just stop? I’m sorry, young man. Go ahead.
Q Were there any stretches where you felt the game could have slipped away and how did you refocus your team?
MARK POPE: Great question, by the way. That’s a great question. There were a lot of moments. You are working on yourself as a coach just like you are working on your guys to stay aggressive. There are times when you think you are in a good spot and your instinct is to pull back and be more conservative and you are usually wrong when you do that. Usually, it’s like prevent defensive football. It usually prevent you from winning. Right? And so, our guys did an unbelievable job, I think our staff did a really good job of staying aggressive in those moments in the second half where you are kind of not nursing a lead, but you are trying to play the game. I thought our guys was excellent at it. There’s a lot of moments where you catch yourself where you kind of have to readjust and thinking, stay aggressive, stay aggressive, stay aggressive, keep making plays. I think that contributed to our guys success. Thanks, guys.
On how he feels he’s progressed this season….
“Every game is a new game, and I think I appreciate the trust that my teammates and my coaches give me, and I just have to make a play with the ball.”
On the impact of Collin Chandler’s three-pointers…
“When guys are hitting, it opens up the space. That’s why we started hitting each other on back doors and guys were getting close ups. You saw Mo [Dioubate] get a couple layups there. Otaga [Oweh] was getting some backdoor cuts and some open driving lanes, so we’re shooting shots and everybody is getting open”
On what was different about this game compared to the last game against Vanderbilt…
“I think it’s just our energy. I think, when we played them down in Nashville, the energy was off. We didn’t come out with the best mindset. We’ve had a couple games in our belt where we’ve shown that we can play as a team.”
On getting the energy to explode after his dive on the floor…
“Vanderbilt is a team that challenges you physically in your toughness and we made a few comments last time, so I think it was important for us to make a statement.”
On his teammates ability to attract attention from defenses…
“I think when Denzel Aberdeen is penetrating and moving the ball, he’s so good. Ortega attracts so much, he has so much gravity as a player as well.”
On the importance of starting the game strong…
“It’s super important. They’re challenged our toughness right from the jump. We were hitting everything and it was impressive. They stuck with us for a little bit, but then we ran away, and it’s hard to come back down 20 in the first half for any team. I thought we did a good job as a team and just put pressure on them.”
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