Mark Pope Explains Play That Led to Game Winning Shot

Otega Oweh was all smiles after hitting another game winning shot. (Vicky Graff Photo)

Q. The last play looked like they were trying to do some type of a trap, 1-2-2 type of zone thing. Did you know get to Otega and he’s so fast on the floor?

MARK POPE: It’s hard. It’s really hard. It’s actually not an easy thing. We were actually playing at Oklahoma a few weeks ago, and it was the end of the first half. We tried to do the same thing. Jeremiah raced down the floor. You’re trying to be conscious about guarding legal. It’s actually really hard to do.

I thought it was a good call by them. Just really tough to execute when Otega made a play like that.

Q. On the final play, was Otega plan A, B and C?

MARK POPE: We had Koby in the corner, and we had A.C. diving late. We thought we would get downhill pretty quick. It was 5.4 or 5.6. We got the inbounds pass, the free-throw line. It was just a three-quarter court. We felt like we could get downhill pretty quickly.

There were secondary things. In that sense, we kind of talked about it. Listen, let’s bum-rush to the rim and see what develops. Otega made a great play.

That’s not really the story. The story is this. The story is, like, if I just talk about the last play, you lose the greatness of the moment. The greatness of the moment is that Otega turned it over two times in a row in the last minute, blowing a 10-point lead, which I’m responsible for, he’s responsible for, everybody is responsible for.

What makes that moment so spectacular is he was somehow able, our team was somehow able, to move past the devastation of just kicking to the curb an emotional, hard-fought win and losing Lamont and all the things that came with that.

These guys, these really special guys, that love Kentucky so much and want so badly to perform for this team, they were like, Okay, this thing went totally bad on us, we totally messed this up, all of us, myself included, and then they still stayed present enough to make a game-winning play in the last five seconds. That’s why that play is so special, right?

That’s why I couldn’t be more proud of Otega and the whole team for doing that.

Q. Some players talk about when they play against their former teams maybe their coach has to talk to them about tempering their emotions. Did you have to talk to Otega at all? Has he always had this resolve since he’s gotten here that he seems to have?

MARK POPE: Well, listen, I think it’s a lot of things. I think Otega has great people that he really loves at Oklahoma. It’s just the nature of the thing. I think part of these two games also is the makeup of the teams and the style of play we both choose to play. In this case it leaves a ton of gap space for Otega to penetrate that he might not see in other situations.

I know there’s something about it. We always talk about when you compete against family, it’s always more, right? Maybe there’s something to that. In terms of tempering Otega, there’s nothing specific about Oklahoma. It’s just helping him try and stay focused on the things that make him great. He’s done a great job with that.

Man, I’m telling you guys, super special. Otega was one of the most distractible guys that we had on our team when we started this season. Like, he was one of the most distractible guys. You talk about like a brilliant moment of not being distractible. It’s so awesome. So proud of him. That’s probably the more fun part of the story.