Kentucky coach Mark Pope races toward the Louisville bench during Saturday's game. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Obviously my memory has failed me about Mark Pope.
Why? Because I never remember him being blessed with the kind of quickness he has shown at Kentucky.
Twice the Cats have been involved in brief skirmishes during games and both times Pope raced to get into the fray to make sure his players did not do anything they should not.
The one Saturday against Louisville was in the middle of the Louisville bench and Pope sprinted from the UK bench to the other end of the floor to pull his players away from the Cardinals.
The skirmish started on a loose ball scramble and escalated when UK’s Brandon Garrison was pushed twice and ended up almost on the Louisville bench. However, Pope was able to push his players away and Kobe Brea helped make sure teammate Otega Oweh stayed in check.
Pope downplayed the incident as just part of the intense rivalry.
“I think that you have two veteran groups that are pretty focused on the way they compete the best, the way they give themselves the best chance to win. It is to be laser focused on the job at hand and be super disciplined about not letting the emotion be a distracting factor, if that makes sense,” Pope said after UK’s 93-85 win.
“I was really proud of our guys. Listen, it wouldn’t have been an appropriate game if, you know, if it was a tension filled mosh pit down in front of their bench. That was probably the most fun of the game, right?
“But I think you have two organizations right now that have an insane amount of passion about winning and feel all of the joy and intensity and stress of this rivalry but also are pretty good about being focused about what actually makes you play the best to give yourself the best chance to win. I think both programs are probably in that space somewhere.”
5 Responses
We haven’t seen intensity yet, but it’s coming in 3 weeks.
Barry, I don’t know what you define intensity. But the cats has shown flashes of it. Once we ge in conference play be no difference that’s why we play the likes of Gonzaga, Duke,Louisville to prepare ourselves
We’re 10-1.
We’re ranked number 4 in the nation.
We have a promising young coach that has built this team from nothing.
Everyone can do what they want but, I choose to be happy.
UKfanfromWildwest has it so right.
This team is so much better than anything we have had around here in several years.
Every team has its ups and its downs. What distinguishes teams is not the variability of the play but the average quality of play, around which the variations occur.
The variations in the quality of play with the Fraud was not the issue, the issue was the mediocre quality of play over the course of time. This year is the same, it is not variations in the quality of play, game to game, but the high quality of play this team has posted through its first 11 games.
Coach Pope is the real deal. This is his first team, and it consists of all new players because the Fraud left the cupboard bare, empty.
Thanks professor , Pritchett doesn’t understand the variation what the team is doing got 5 players averaging 10 pts or better that hasn’t happened since 1995 and plus lead the nation in scoring