Ansley Almonor checks out the newspaper that was on display at Mississippi State’s Arena Saturday night. (UK Athletics Photo)
If you thought it was crazy when Ansley Almonor hit three 3-pointers in about two minutes minutes in the second half of Saturday night’s win at Mississippi State, so did Kentucky coach Mark Pope.
“This Ansley Almonor is really special because he came here (from Fairleigh Dickinson) understanding what he was walking into,” Pope said after the win. “He came here understanding that Andrew Carr was sitting there, and the roster was almost done.
‘He’s like, ‘I’m coming in, where I want to come and I want to find a way to win games.’ You probably remember me saying this. I’ve said this so many times. I’m telling you, Ansley Almonor is a perfect fit for how we play, and he’s going to win us some games.”
Pope said not to think he made some magical coaching move that led to Almonor’s spurt.
“I love when players make coaches look really smart because we’re not. Sometimes, they make us look smart, and Ansley did that. What a brilliant performance from him. I’m telling you, that’s why you come to Kentucky because you can’t find, I don’t care if you’re a 100 times over billionaire, you can never, ever buy what Ansley Almonor just did and what he just experienced. Never,” Pope said.
“There’s no money. There’s nothing that can buy it. It’s just the blood, sweat equity and the courage to actually come here and then step up and do it. There’s only one way to get it, and it’s to do everything he’s done to get here.
“It’s just like, I’m so happy for him. It was fun, man. That was super fun. I know BBN was going crazy.”
3 Responses
Those 3 triples were precisely what UK needed and it was one of the 100% TEAM players who did it. He does not try to be a selfish star but gives his all to try to help UK WIN, WIN, WIN.
You won’t see him shooting some difficult shot instead of passing. Pope sure has an eye for talent as well as an eye for team players. A few just need to stay more focused every minute of the gwme whether they are on the floor or the bench.
Maybe….just maybe…these guys are showing that they really do belong. Consistency, or lack thereof, has been our Achilles all along. Either the team only plays a half at a time or certain players do the same or 2 or more players don’t want to pull the cart. If we can keep 5 guys in double digits ever game and getting at least 2 significant contributions from the bench, we can continue to be very dangerous. When State erased our 14 pt. lead and went up by 2 or so I thought here we go again. Congrats to the team and staff on this one as all seemed to be plugged in!
just part of the new college basketball world where there is not a dominant team and every team has ups and downs