Vicky Graff Photo
Now comes the game that Kentucky fans have been waiting for almost since the day Mark Pope was hired after John Calipari bolted for Arkansas.
Kentucky reached the 100-point mark in its first two games, including the win over Bucknell Saturday, to build momentum going into Tuesday’s showdown with Duke in the Champions Classic.
Kentucky has been awful in this classic on national television in recent years and Duke is again considered one of the nation’s best teams.
So what does Pope like best about his team as of today?
“I like how our guys are responding. This is the thing, we’ve been sitting on this rebound issue for like I said, 10 days now. And what an epic response. Right? And just a commitment. The guys as a group said we are going to go fix this. It’s been really impressive to see when we point our guys in a specific direction, their willingness to commit to it and that bodes well for us being able to grow throughout the course of the season,” Pope said after Saturday’s win.
“We are playing good basketball right now. We have a chance to grow into a great team. Now we have to earn it and we gotta work on it and we got to get better every day. I have high hopes because our guys, we want to take some focus and run with it. They certainly did that tonight on the glass. It was awesome.”
Now Kentucky has to definitely bring its “A” game against Duke in Atlanta. Pope doesn’t want this team to be “ratcheting up and down” no matter who the Cats are playing.
“We have to ratchet up and down to get to the same space every single game. Right? That is way more artistic than scientific. I would love for it to be scientific. I’m not that smart enough – I’m not quite smart enough or that. So yes, we are paying very much attention to the energy we are feeling from our guys and where it is coming from and how it gets there,” Pope said.
“We are trying to manage our pregame and our walk-through to kind of compensate for where we might be energy-wise. To get to the same place every time is really important. We are an energy team. Energy is massively important to us. There were times tonight where we were dealing with loads of frustration actually. We had an onslaught of frustration which was really good for us. And I thought we had some guys deal with it well over time. Eventually we will be able to deal with it quicker.
‘But we had frustrations from the staff and frustration on the floor. The game is going to give you so much frustration. That was really helpful for us tonight. Also, Bucknell’s physicality from minutes 12 to 4 in the second half. Their physicality was tremendous. That is going to be really important for us going forward. To feel that and understand how we respond energy wise to that. We are managing it great and hopefully we will do it well.”
4 Responses
Does Almonor give anyone else Walter Mcarty Vibes? His game reminds me of Mccarty. How he’s a smaller 4 but can also play the 3. I think Ansley is a little bit better of a shooter than McCarty was. But McCarty could knock down 3s too. Walter is one of my all time favorites. I think out of everyone on the team at this point he deserves a couple more minutes a game. I think he’s getting about 11-13 mins a game and he’s almost averaging about 10 ppg? He’s averaging a point a minute dang near. We have so many options which is a great thing. Who does everyone think should take a redshirt year on this team? Perry or Noah or both or do you see how the year goes and if we get some injuries and go from there. I think its safe to say they won’t be playing against duke. Would you burn a year and not play them against any of the better teams or do you do like I said this past summer and save the extra year on the back half of their careers when we actually need them? Like I said I think these 2 will lead us in scoring there senior year! But do you have them for 3 great years or 2? I didn’t see that Hudson Greer signed with Creighton 😔
We are definitely a final 4 caliber team but we will know how good we really are Tuesday night. I think we beat Duke. 89-81 Kentucky wins. I’m calling for a big game from Oweh and Kriisa. Also Brea and Robinson will get there 15. For some reason I think Garrison has his coming out game against Duke. Couple Blocks and a couple of big dunks. I think they will try to get Williams in foul trouble. Because they know we only have 2 true bigs. I think Garrison makes them pay for it with a big game. We shall see Tuesday night.
Tuesday night we are going to find out not only how good we are, but how much fight we have.
Very true Barry