Mark Pope talks Travis Perry, Jaxson Robinson and more after UK’s win against Texas A&M

Kentucky basketball and Mark Pope have collected yet another win over a team ranked in the top 15 of the weekly Associated Press poll.

Tuesday night’s 81-69 win at Rupp Arena for No. 8 UK over No. 11 Texas A&M marked the Wildcats’ second consecutive win over a top-15 squad, and their fifth of the season overall.

The 12-point win was headlined by another star offensive performance by fifth-year guard Jaxson Robinson, who tallied 22 points. Robinson also tied his career high with eight rebounds.

Fifth-year forward Andrew Carr — who had been on UK’s SEC pregame injury report Monday night but was removed from that report Tuesday — added 13 points. Junior guard Otega Oweh had 11 points, four assists and three steals, and it was his thunderous second-half poster dunk that will likely be replayed all week long.

UK’s win over the Aggies — who were without All-SEC senior guard Wade Taylor IV for a third-straight game — was most notable for the way the Wildcats controlled the rebounding battle. Kentucky won the boards battle 40-30, and had the edge over Texas A&M in both offensive rebounds (12-11) and defensive rebounds (28-19).

Pope’s team also won the second-chance points 13-11 over the Aggies. Texas A&M is the No. 1 team in the nation in offensive rebounding percentage.

Now sitting at 14-3 overall and 3-1 in SEC play, Kentucky continues to strengthen its NCAA Tournament résumé by stacking impressive win after impressive win.

Another opportunity for just this will arrive Saturday afternoon when No. 4 Alabama rolls into Rupp Arena.

The Crimson Tide are ranked fourth in the country, but Nate Oats’ team suffered a setback Tuesday night at home against No. 21 Ole Miss.

Such is life in this season’s SEC.

After the Cats’ win, Pope met with reporters at Rupp Arena. Here’s everything he said after the Wildcats beat the Aggies.

Opening statement.

Man, what a great job. Buzz is just one of one. He is a culture guy and gets his guys to play hard and grind it out and they are down a really important piece. They are still playing just tough and hard-nosed and an elite-level basketball. That’s a real credit to him and those guys, they are playing really hard. They are a really really good team. I think top-10, top-11 team in the country.

They fought tonight. I couldn’t be more proud of our guys. I love winning a game where we never felt great, we didn’t feel great. There was no 60-second (run), well, maybe there was a 60-second. There was no three-minute run where we felt great where we felt like we really got into a flow. For our guys to win that game is really important. I like the way we can win different ways. I’m proud of our effort on the glass and on the defensive end. And we still can get so much better. I will take any questions.

Question about the evolution of Jaxson Robinson’s game, especially rebounding.

Well, the best thing for Jaxson is he missed his first three or four maybe, give or take? And it is just fun to see growth, right? You know, you miss your first three or four shots and you can start evaluating if you are having a night or not and he didn’t.

He turns that slow start into a night where he was pretty productive. He has been consistently great on the defensive end and he has been consistently trying to grow his game on the toughness end. For him to be in this game, like this particular game, the way this thing rolls and do what he did on the glass. One offensive (rebound) and seven defensive (rebounds) is massive. One of the things we’ve been talking about is our guards making a bigger impact (rebounding). Otega had eight last game. Jax had seven this game. That is a massive difference-maker for us on the glass. It’s pretty great.

Question about the kinds of open shots that Kentucky’s offense was generating to begin the game.

A couple of things. We started out 1-for-11, is that true? From 3? And so, that’s not very fun. We practice this every day. We talked about this box drill, this shooting drill we do every day where we have to get to 140. And a lot of days, it’s a two-minute drill. A lot of days it’s continuous and a lot of days you are looking up at the shot clock or the scoreboard and it is one minute 55. The guys just keep going and they know they are going to keep making shots.

To start 1-for-11, who is my math majors? 8%, 7%, and finish up solid 33% is pretty great. Especially against a unbelievable defensive team like this. You know, I am proud and I love the fact we got close to 30 (3-point shots). I wish we would have got to 30. I did feel like the guys, you know we never were flowing great offensively, but we just kept fighting and fighting and fighting until we finally found some cracks. But I thought they were terrific defensively tonight and I thought they really caused some issues.

You know, I mean, it gives you a sense of how potent we are offensively, you feel like it’s a night where you just can’t get a bucket and you put up 81, that’s pretty great. It’s fun to have that team.

Question about Kentucky’s improved rebounding and physicality.

It’s awesome, isn’t it? I was saying in one of the pregame things, I can’t remember. You know you are really blessed as a coach when you have great students. What I mean by that is our guys want to learn. When we plan our guys in a direction, our guys go. It’s unbelievable. That sounds so simple but it actually doesn’t happen in basketball with very many teams. When our guys dig into a focus it might not be an immediate payoff in a day, but over the course of a week or two weeks or a month, these guys every single time answered the bell (and) actually got better.

For us to be 40-30 and we are going to out offensive rebound them by one and we are going to hold two of the best offensive rebounders in the entire country, their starting five and backup five, to only one offensive rebound between them. That’s an epic effort by our guys and I’m really proud. I’m saying that because we have so much respect for what Texas A&M does on the glass. They are incredible on the glass. They offensive rebound 44% of the opportunities, that’s an insane number. And they came in as number one in the country.

Question about Travis Perry getting more comfortable playing.

TP, he’s terrific, isn’t he? Again, really complicated defense. This is not a really easy defense to figure out. What our guys are pretty good at is they are pretty good at figuring out what they are seeing, we are pretty good about coaching them. Things change as much as they do with Texas A&M and that’s the next step for us to be able to really change with the changes.

But TP, you know I mean it was big shots, really big shots. Right? It made us feel a whole lot better. He’s got no fear. He’s just going out to play. It’s fun. If you chart his trajectory you get to see these little steps that he’s taking, we all get to see it. It’s one of the great things about coaching and being fans that are really invested, which is BBN, is you get to actually see the beginning, the middle, and the growth that we get to prognosticate about where they are going and to see these guys grow is special and TP is definitely doing that.

This is a high-pressure game. It’s a top-10 game against one of the best defenses in the country and he was terrific.

Question about how Kentucky didn’t get frustrated while playing against Texas A&M.

Well, there’s a lot of frustration. That’s what Texas A&M does really well. Our guys, you know that is something we will continue to work on all season long is just, you know our guys do a bunch of things. One is there is so much good happening on the floor, like we felt good on the glass all night long. In fact in the first half we gave up two offensive rebounds in the first half, minus two possessions where we gave up five offensive rebounds in those two positions.

There was so much good for us to keep talking about in timeouts and to keep focusing on and I think when you keep focusing on what you are doing well, I think it gives you some staying power. Our guys are pretty good about metabolizing frustration, they are pretty good at that. Which is massively important. If you are going to be a good team, you have to get rid of frustration. You have to be able to absorb it and spit it out and our guys can do it.

Question about how experience benefits Kentucky in games like Tuesday’s.

For sure it’s experience. For sure is a huge part. I would say that is secondary to our guys connectedness. And their focus. Our guys are unbelievably connected and that gives them staying power. They care about each other, they want to fight for each other, they want to celebrate each other.

And that connectedness. They want to help each other. That connectedness really matters and our team’s ability to really focus on the challenge. Like we know exactly what the challenge is. We know what the challenge is, we are super frustrated right now. Let’s get that out and let’s move onto the next thing. The guys’ focus is great and their experience is also a huge part of it.

Question about the process of Kentucky’s improvements with rebounding.

You know, growing is super complicated. Right? We’ve put a huge emphasis on it. It is the Matt Santoro project. You should all chase down Matt. Matt has a staff; we usually have 12 segments in practice. Seven of them will be live. So, Matt live stats with his team and charts every single rebound that goes up and who is getting a hit. Not just getting a rebound but actually doing their job, blocking out, getting a hit.

And then he makes an announcement either on the loudspeaker here at Rupp. He will be on the Jumbotron. When we practice here it is quite entertaining. And then in the (Joe Craft Center) he has a megaphone. I don’t know where he got this thing but credit to him, he got a megaphone. He makes the announcement after every single segment. We believe what you focus on broadens. Our staff has done an unbelievable job about at the beginning cherry picking unbelievable efforts so our guys could see what it looks like to be successful.

And now it’s getting easy, now the guys are having fun with it. Matt Santoro is handing out a formal certificate. Our genius graphic designer, Addie Feldhaus is making these incredible certificates. After every game, the hit champion. On Thursday we will present the hit champion of this game with an official certificate. Ansley Almonor is two for two. We will see if he goes three straight games.

But I do, I think what you focus on broadens and our staff and our players are doing a great job with it, it’s pretty fun. It’s really fun when you see these results.

Question about Jaxson Robinson’s current level of play.

I think it’s probably the most well-rounded I’ve seen him play. The 27 and 22 stand out. One game on the road, one game here against two top-10 teams I think 14 or 11 give or take or something like that. I don’t know. It’s really not the story. It’s his contribution on the defensive end.

He had a huge defensive play in the guts of the game where he had to pick up the point and Phelps is devastating off the bounce. He caused Alabama, like I mean, when you watch the film he is causing so much frustration because he was getting downhill every time and Jaxson immediately jumped in and met him with the championship chest, took away the reject and was like this is fine. He’s making plays like that consistently on the defensive end. His blind cut from the corner late in the game four minutes, maybe five minutes late for the dunk was a huge play that was an IQ play for a space guy to actually be able to internalize the game and see when defenders are going blind and make that time up.

It’s those plays I think that is setting him apart. It’s the eight rebounds, right? That is the space. It’s the resilience of missing his first three or four shots and you think man, was the other night just an anomaly and I’m going back to it. He didn’t. He’s like, nope. I’m here to play. I’m going to keep making plays. So it is all of those pieces of his game that are pretty exciting, man. Like I said, it’s awesome to watch guys growing up and a great honor and privilege to watch them grow up for three years.

Question about Amari Williams’ rebounding and physical play.

Yeah. He looked like a man-child on the glass, didn’t he? My goodness, he was a man on the glass. I was really proud of him tonight. It’s interesting, Amari has played at a much different level basketball for the last three years. I think what’s fun right now is that he’s been given position by the whistle to actually use his physicality, which he couldn’t use at Drexel.

He was a much different deal, right? It was like I’m playing against smaller guys, if I touch somebody they’re going to fall over. I’m going to get a whistle. This adjustment for him now where he’s like wait, I can run dudes over and it’s OK, like this gets fun. I think he’s having a great time, man. He’s fighting for his team.

We talked about this after the last game. He loves this game. He’s just a ginormous, I know that’s not a word but I’m going to use it anyways. But a ginormous heart. I thought he was brilliant today. I thought he was so good. He was just a commanding presence on the glass. He was a man among men. That was a bunch of men on the court today. It was super cool. Thanks guys.

This story was originally published January 15, 2025 at 12:46 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