Coach Mark Pope liked that his team had to "fix things" during the game against Minnesota State. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Maybe it was a “weird” win from coach Mark Pope’s vantage but Kentucky still did a lot right in Tuesday night’s 98-67 win over Minnesota State.
Kentucky got a little out of sync early when starting center Amari Williams injured his knee about three minutes into the game and did not return. That could have led to UK only having six offensive rebounds even though it missed 24 3-pointers.
Pope said after the game he thought Williams was “fine” and he did ride an exercise bike after leaving the game.
“X-rays came back solid but we’ll get some more imaging tomorrow. We’re hopeful he’ll be back soon,” Pope said.
Kentucky pulled away from Minnesota State late in the first half and never let the game get close in the second half.
We were getting initial thrust and then stymieing. Our transition from that original thrust into our actions was a little weird,” Pope said. “We spent 20 minutes on the floor without one of our traditional fives (Williams), which is such an important piece for us, and so that was a little weird.”
Pope said on his postgame radio show that it was an “important night” for his first UK team because of the way it had to overcome some things that did not go right.
“We had some weird rotations, some weird lineups. We had some weird fatigue on the floor, and so all of that led ourselves to be in a situation where we kind of had to fix things,” the Kentucky coach said.
Pope even liked that his team recognized things didn’t “feel quite right” at times.
“It was actually a real gift playing against a terrific team defending national champions. And so it was a great night for us,” Pope said.
4 Responses
They will have to make adjustments in a lot of games this year, so now is the time for the players to learn how the coach handles those things and for the coach to learn how the players handle these situations.
Hope he is ok
The biggest challenge this team faces is believing they are as good as they are as opposed to what the talking heads say they are. This team is experienced, has depth, defends, rebounds, and can shoot like no other team…if they don’t doubt their skill. Robinson is a believer and it shows. When the rest of the team catches up to Robinson in the confidence department they will not lose another game from that point on. No. 9 is coming home to Lexington!
We had a game Tuesday?