Vicky Graff Photo
To Mark Pope, the “greatness” of the NCAA Tournament is that “everybody in here is a championship or a championship-caliber team” and that includes Troy, the team Kentucky plays tonight in Milwaukee in Pope’s fist NCAA game at Kentucky,.
“Troy, the numbers scream out at you, which everybody in BBN already knows the numbers. Our fan base, you talk about the most educated fan base on the planet, it’s really humbling and beautiful,” Pope said Thursday.
“Troy’s the number seven steals team in the country. They’re the number six offensive rebounding team in the country. To put it in perspective, in the SEC, the best conference in the country by a mile, the only team that we played that was more effective on the offensive glass in the entire league was Texas A&M in a league that prides itself on being on the offensive glass.
“That’s how potent this Troy team is on the glass.”
Pope wasn’t finished going in-depth on Troy at his NCAA Tournament press conference.
“They’re very much in the genre of Missouri in terms of having a multitude of changing defenses that they use all the time. They have anywhere between three and five kinds of zone attacks, some full court pressure, some three court to court pressure, different ways that they guard in man,” the UK coach said
“They’re really, really disruptive. They have a point guard who is really special, the conference player of the year. And for BBN, you’ll know the name Chucky Hepburn (Louisville guard) , and he’s very similar to Chucky. He’s a rover on defense. He breaks every defensive rule, and he’s one of the leading steals guys in the country.
“In fact, he’s had five steals a game in three of his last five. That’s a ridiculous number. It’s incredible. He does it by breaking all the rules.”
Again, Pope was not finished warning BBN about Troy so you can only imagine how detailed he has been with his team.
“They have bigs that really, really shoot the ball,” Pope said. “They’re dangerous. Their starting five (center) two games ago was 5-for-8 from the 3-point line. He’s shooting up. Their starting four (power forward) is a guy who will run off staggers, run off screens, run underneath out of bounds actions for him to get 3s. They’re inside-out. Their bigs are really dangerous shooters.”
Pope predicted Troy would be “by a multitude of 10 times” more physical than most expect.
“I think they’ll be one of the most physical teams we’ve played,” Pope said.
Troy also offers some interesting contrasts.
“They’re really interesting because you’ll see this dichotomy. The first night we watched a bunch of film. In the morning, we started digging into the numbers. They walk the ball up after makes. They walk it up after makes,” Pope said.
“We go to their Synergy page, and 18.3 or 18.7 of their possessions are transition, which rivals Alabama. I was so shocked. I was like whoa, hold on. This team doesn’t feel like Alabama at all.
“Sure enough, after missing and after steals, they manufacture so much in transition. It’s a really good team. It’s well put together. It’s incredibly well coached by Scott (Cross). He does a great job. It’s going to be a real challenge for us. I can keep going if you want me to.”
Kentucky MBB in Milwaukee
Photos by Vicky Graff
2 Responses
This is a one and done tournament. You have to respect every team regardless of their seed. If we play our game, we will be ok.
What an ugly win, but it was nice to get it. This team hates playing lesser teams that play hard and press. They were running us ragged when we were on defense, thankfully they were not good shooters. It caused us to catch our breath on our offensive end and we stood around and tried to make the impossible pass. Why does Williams refuse to dunk unless he has brought the ball up the court?