Vicky Graff Photo
Kentucky had dominated teams in Rupp Arena this season until Western Kentucky made things a lot harder on UK Tuesday night before the Cats won 87-68, their sixth straight win.
The Hilltoppers actually cut the deficit to six points in the second half and that prompted Kentucky fans to roar and give coach Mark Pope’s team a needed boost that he appreciated.
“We can’t do this without BBN. And why would we want to, right? It’s the best relationship there is in college sports and maybe all sports together, right? I may be biased, but I believe it’s the best relationship in all of sports. We love it,” Pope said after the win.
“I love that people came and showed out and support these guys and celebrate with them and at some point we are all going to suffer a little bit together and then we are going to celebrate with tears of joy together and the fact we get to do it together, all 22,000 of us, give or take something, is awesome. It’s awesome.”
Pope then shared a story about one Kentucky fan.
“We had a friend come to the game who has never missed a Kentucky game, ever. This was the first time he’s ever actually been in the gym for a Kentucky game. That is just like, ‘Come on, man, there’s nothing like BBN.’ It’s awesome. It’s really great,” Pope said.
He closed his press conference with Thanksgiving wishes for media members.
“Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you guys have a great, great, great Thanksgiving. We got a lot to be thankful for,” he said. “I’m super grateful for you guys and I’m grateful for you guys telling these stories.
“Even when you guys start writing terrible things about me, I will still be grateful for you. Have a happy Thanksgiving.”
4 Responses
I think Pope knows he’s the right man for the job. I think when his time is up he walks away with no regrets!
Arkansas lost today. I see them losing 15 games, if not more this season. Thank you Fayetteville!
U got that right–Fayetteville, ARK gave the state of KY its greatest gift in many many years. Thank GOD for them because our own admin sure wasn’t going to do anything to save us, and they came right out and said so as soon as last season was over. Seems that we actually have ARK to thank more so for who we ended up getting than we do our own people, because it’s not like our administration, on its own, was going to send our old coach out to replace him with Pope, and once the old coach announced his resignation, Pope wasn’t even the first, second, or third choice of our administration. We have ARK and the other prospectives who were contacted first who turned us down to thank the most! Barnhart fell into this little gold-mine ass-backwards through mostly luck and good fortune, as he has throughout most everything in his entire career.
I don’t think they’ll win half their games in the conference.