UK had to fight to earn a win over Colgate. What did Mark Pope think of the performance?

It wasn’t as straightforward as the early minutes of the game indicated, but Kentucky basketball eventually eased its way to another win at Rupp Arena on Wednesday night.

The No. 5-ranked Wildcats (9-1) had five players score in double figures as part of a 78-67 home win over Colgate (2-9). Fifth-year guard Koby Brea led the way for UK with 17 points, while Otega Oweh and Amari Williams each added 15.

Kentucky sprinted out to a 17-0 lead in this one. Colgate didn’t score until nearly seven minutes had passed on the game clock.

But the Raiders battled back and trailed by only two points, 38-36, at halftime. At the break, Brea had scored 12 points on perfect 4-for-4 shooting from 3-point range. All other UK players were a combined 0-for-11 from deep.

Colgate went on to establish an early second-half lead, and the Raiders actually led the Wildcats 47-46 at the under-16 media timeout. The Cats responded with a 12-0 scoring run, all via 3-pointers, and Mark Pope’s team led by a comfortable margin for the rest of the contest.

It might have taken more work than anticipated, but the Wildcats ultimately did dispatch of the worst team remaining on the schedule: Colgate is No. 256 in the KenPom rankings.

Next up for Kentucky? A renewal of the annual rivalry with Louisville.

The Cardinals are now 6-4 this season, having snapped a three-game losing streak with a narrow home win over UTEP on Wednesday.

Back in Lexington, Pope addressed media members following the win over Colgate, which came without normal starting guard Lamont Butler and without experienced backup guard Kerr Kriisa.

Here’s everything that Pope said after the victory.

Opening statement.

Congratulations to Colgate. Listen, they are not having their best season ever so far, but they are a championship pedigree team. They got a lot of pride. I like the way they play. They were terrific tonight. Congratulations to them and their crew. I was proud of the way our guys kind of responded, we had some weird energy. There was all kind of weirdness. The 17-0 was a little weird. I think it made it weirder and we got weird. Our guys rang the bell the way that they do and I was really proud of them. We got good contributions from them and got a bunch of guys that protected the ball really well which was a point of emphasis for us. We finally got back over 30 3s and it’s been really hard for us to do but I was proud of that. Some good things for us. We got some guys some minutes and different situations that they haven’t had so it gives us a little chance to adjust to changing line-up a little bit. And it was a good night.

Question about Trent Noah and Travis Perry.

That is going to be a work in progress. They are super talented players. I thought they made solid contributions tonight and it’s hard, you know, you want to get them in the game when there is a real flow to it. They weren’t, you know Trent probably had a little bit — was in the game when there was a little better vibe. My favorite part of Trent Noah. This is why I love him so much is he has been in a game a good minute and seven seconds, I’m guessing, something like that. He’s standing right in front of me and I’m like punch it, punch it, throw it in the post, you know, punch it, punch it and he shoots the three.

That’s how I know he’s going to be a big-time player. It was a really happy joyful moment for us. He’s been playing so well in practice for us and he’s been working so hard and he has no agenda other than to get better every day. I thought he really gave us a boost. In fact, I think he went nine straight minutes, give or take. The staff was like, we’ve got to get him out of there, he’s at nine. It’s good, this is how you grow as a team and as individuals.

Question about how Kentucky battled back in an ugly game against Colgate.

Ideally, they wouldn’t be different. Today was more of a response to just the energy. We talked about it in the locker room afterwards. You know, we are an energy monitoring managing team. The energy on the floor is really important to us. We kind of were having that discussion through the game and trying to discover for ourselves not just why the energy kind of got off, I don’t know if it was because of 17-0, maybe it got off and maybe they made some really good shots and maybe it was a little fatigue or maybe it was the rotation difference.

Maybe it was not having either of our point guards on the floor. I don’t know. Usually it’s all of those things, somehow, right? A little different lineups on the floor. But that’s this game for us. We are trying to become masters of energy and you know, games like this can help you learn a little bit more about yourself and hopefully they are helping us a little bit.

Question about Kentucky continuing to shoot 3s despite not always making them.

For sure, 100%, yes. And for us it’s just the volume. Our volume has been down and it’s been a little frustrating to me. Kerr has been one of the big catalyst for us. Not only is our volume down for us but we lost one of our catalysts. We are going to rediscover ways to get back to that part of our game. I was happy to get over 30.

Question about Kerr Kriisa’s injury and what Kriisa can still contribute to UK while hurt.

Am I allowed to do details? What are we allowed to do here? Deb said I can tell you the answer. If I get in trouble, it’s on Deb. Did we get that on video? It’s on record.

We have the best performance team ever. Kerr has already had the surgery and we are kind of like it’s in this, Vegas would say, somewhere around the six-week period, I’m saying like 10 days, we will see how it goes.

That’s kind of the prognosis on his injury. In terms of energy. Kerr might bring more energy to the team on the bench actually. He’s going to have to grow into this. I don’t know if he has sat like this ever before. He can be an incredibly valuable piece of this team right now. We need him, that’s really important. He’s an important part for us. If you think about Kerr sitting on the bench all game not talking smack. It’s going to be — heaven help us.

Question about preparing Koby Brea for his first Kentucky start.

Koby is such a vet and we didn’t have any conversation with him. We just put him in a blue jersey and practice and it was off to the races. Koby could start the rest of the season. We are very malleable and fluid that way and listening to what the game tells us. I thought Koby obviously shot the ball pretty well tonight. I guess pretty well, it’s just his normal.

He came up with a couple of huge rebounds again and was better in the second half defensively and in the last 10 minutes. He was getting really good getting downhill to the rim and I thought he’s making strides. He’s got so much more that he’s going to explore and get comfortable with about getting downhill. He’s a terrific, terrific talent. He’s a big-time player. He’s probably the best shooter in the country.

Question about Mark Pope’s thoughts on where Kentucky is ranked in various metrics.

Listen, I’m glad we are in the conversation and I’m glad we are in the national conversation. That’s where we are supposed to be, it’s Kentucky, right? I’m really happy with all of that. More importantly, I just want us to be a great team, right? And we want to keep getting better. We had some runs tonight where we got better. We started the game better and then we just, the energy just turned a little bit on us. But we will learn from this and we will get better. Right now it’s a race to get better. It’s Kentucky, we have to win every game along the way.

That’s a beautiful thing and I’m not complaining, I think that’s why Kentucky is special. All of the things matter, everything matters. The metrics matter, the analytics matter, the efficiencies matter. All of those things are really important to us. We would like to be the flagship program in every single category that we grade and rank and evaluate as a team. That’s our goal. It’s all really important.

Question about Lamont Butler’s injury.

Lamont is getting a little bit better. He’s on the court a little bit today. Every day we test him a little more and see, we will know more tomorrow morning when he wakes up how he’s feeling. It’s kind of a throw it out there today and see what we end up with when he wakes up. We will know a little bit more and I would prefer he re-joins our team on the floor sometime soon.

Question about Mark Pope preparing to coach in the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry.

The answer is probably no. You probably have to experience it to do it. I’m also blessed with guys, you know, I have seasoned guys. I have guys that have played in big time rivalry games. It’s not foreign concept to them. It’s just a little level up, right? It will not be unfamiliar to our guys. It’s exciting, it’s awesome. We love it and we hate it and all of those things.

Another question about Pope coaching in the rivalry.

No, no, no, I’m well aware of the beauty of this rivalry.

Question about why shooting 30 or more 3-pointers a game is so important for Kentucky.

It is just our goal marker. I wish we could get to 35. It is kind of a standard for us we would like to hold. We would like to be there. Because the 30 3s, for us we have to earn them. Right? Really what the 30 3s translates is we are getting unbelievable movement, we are really, really in attack mode and we are really getting downhill and earning power plays, right? That we are playing off two feet and we have a ton of motion away from the ball.

To get from 30 3s to us the way we should have, it is a measure of how we are moving, right? And how intentional we are on the offensive end and how we are screening and cutting and those are all results because we want to shoot catches and shoot 3s. The nights where we don’t get a lot of 3s is probably because we are not aggressive enough downhill, in transition, not cutting and having the first cut, second cut, third cut action. It’s really a measure of, in a sense, it’s really a measure of the energy of the game on the offensive side for us. Awesome. Thank you.

This story was originally published December 12, 2024 at 12:06 AM.

Cameron Drummond

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-242-5257

Cameron Drummond works as a sports reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader with a focus on Kentucky men’s basketball recruiting and the UK men’s basketball team, horse racing, soccer and other sports in Central Kentucky. Drummond is a second-generation American who was born and raised in Texas, before graduating from Indiana University. He is a fluent Spanish speaker who previously worked as a community news reporter in Austin, Texas. Support my work with a digital subscription