Mark Pope recaps Kentucky basketball’s rivalry win and season sweep of No. 5 Tennessee

Mark Pope moved to 2-0 against Tennessee as Kentucky’s basketball coach.

Pope’s 15th-ranked Wildcats showed some serious fortitude on Tuesday night by securing a 75-64 home win against No. 5 Tennessee, which gave UK the season sweep over the Volunteers.

In fact, Kentucky has now won three straight games against Tennessee — dating back to last season — for the first time in 12 years.

UK is also now 7-1 this season against opponents ranked in the top 15 of the AP poll.

This UK win in front of a raucous Rupp Arena crowd was a total team effort.

Kentucky began the night without fifth-year guards Kerr Kriisa and Jaxson Robinson. UK also ended the game without fifth-year guard Lamont Butler, who reinjured his left shoulder in the second half.

But with their backs against the wall, the Wildcats responded.

Senior forward Ansley Almonor scored a season-best 13 points. Junior guard Otega Oweh continued his double-digit scoring streak with 13 points, as well. Kentucky high school products Trent Noah (11 points) and Travis Perry (eight points) also had career-best scoring nights.

Combine that with UK shooting 50% from both the field (26-for-52) and 3-point range (12-for-24) as a team, and that was enough for the Wildcats to get over the line against the Vols.

Tennessee shot a combined 14-for-63 (22.2%) from 3-point range in its two losses to UK this season.

After Tuesday’s win, Pope met with reporters at Rupp Arena to discuss Kentucky’s injury situation, the breakout nights for Noah and Perry and more.

Here’s everything that Pope said.

Opening statement

I personally have so much respect for Coach Barnes. He’s one of the best in this business. He’s got a great team. They’re playing amazing basketball. They are a top-five team in every statistical, you know, the NET, the AP, the whole thing. They play hard, they play right, they play together. It was really great to be a part of this epic game tonight. It was awesome. I’m so proud of our guys.

We have guys that just want to fight and compete. We’ve got ballers, right? They just want to be ballers man; they just want to come play. We had guys that stepped up and made huge plays and we had young guys that stepped up and made huge plays. Really proud of our guys and really happy and just grateful beyond belief that we get to be on this magical, incredible journey that you only get to do with the University of Kentucky. It’s pretty great.

Question about how UK handled being down its top three guards for the final nine minutes of the game.

Well, mostly in the moment I was just feeling for Lamont. We feel this all the time. We don’t have that much time left and he’s been so incredibly such a winner and such a leader and it’s like, I just want him so badly to be able to play.

My heart is broken for Jax right now because he deserves to be out there on the court and be a part of this. He’s a super-senior and has helped build this identity that we have right now and so that was the biggest thing. I do trust that we will find a way to get those guys healthy as soon as possible.

My biggest thought at the moment was, ‘Oh man, there’s nobody that wants to be on this court more than Lamont Butler.’

Question about Trent Noah and Travis Perry.

Yeah, how fun is that. How about a big, massive shout out for Eastern Kentucky showing up today. It’s just really special. You know, we’ve got the Mountain Mamba. We’ve got the Holla-Balla, which may be my favorite.

I give all the credit to Trent Noah’s family and his community and where he grew up. Because this is what he is. He comes every single day. And he gets no love from us. He’s not a featured guy from practice. He’s not getting the media attention. He’s not (been) gifted anything.

And he comes, I mean we talked about this over and over again and it’s fine to talk about it tonight because he was incredible tonight. He comes every single day and competes with full intensity and incredible physicality. You know, I say this all the time. He’s a clear heart and incredible focus and he’s like a sponge learning. When you do that every single day, that’s the part that people don’t see. They just see tonight. His journey to get to tonight was pretty special. He is just built different man, he’s really special.

He’s a really special player and he’s going to continue to get better and better with all of these freshmen. We have a really good freshman group.

Another question about Trent Noah’s recent play.

Watching him work every single day. You know, I had the incredible blessing to play for the great Larry Bird. I was a diehard Larry Bird-Magic Johnson fan growing up and I got to play for Coach Bird. In quiet moments I would listen to him tell stories about, you know, here is one of the most confident players to step foot on a court and just talk about where all that confidence came from the work he put in.

He’s like, I worked so hard, I take so many shots that I don’t believe I should get the last shot. I don’t believe I should just earn the last shot on the team, but I do deserve to make it. And you watch Trent Noah work, and he’s highlighted today because he was so good today. He works that way every single day. It gives him confidence; it gives me confidence. It gives his teammates confidence.

And so, TP was great today. Collin Chandler had a big-time dime. All three of those guys. We knew they needed to step up. This is the part in the season, in fact it was funny because we talked to the media about it today. This is the part in the season where these young guys kind of have to become sophomores a little bit and our roster issues are forcing them to do it. And they are ready. They are really talented players that have put it in every day.

These guys stay and shoot, the three of these guys stay and shoot. Like they play their own shooting game after practice. They will be in the gym for an hour after.

Last night I had a — I’m allowed to say that, I’m allowed to say I had a recruit? I had a recruit in town and I was at the JCC late after an event and I was in there and it’s 10:15 and... Travis Perry was in there full sweat getting shots up at 10:15 last night. It’s just how these guys are wired. They are great representatives of Kentucky and they are going to be great players.

Question about Kentucky’s balanced playing style.

Well, Tennessee makes it really hard. They are the best defensive team in the country and they make things really hard on the offensive end. I thought we had individuals after individuals make great plays but the guys did most of it together and it’s how we operate. I think our guys love it.

Some of the plays that really stick out, some of the highlights plays. You have Koby Brea kind of against some full-court pressure, being in attack mode, getting downhill, slicing the floor, digging in. That’s his new coined term we are trying to inspire him with to get downhill. Digging in and throws an alley-oop to Otega Oweh cutting from the baseline corner.

Those are not the two guys we normally script to do that. We see guys growing and their games are expanding and growing and they are getting more comfortable with each other. It’s pretty great. It’s really special.

For us is going to be a team effort every single night. It takes every single one of our guys. Every single one of our guys is making key important plays. Every single guy on our roster that could play tonight made important plays. I like Kentucky being that way. I actually love it.

It feels right to me. Maybe it is because of how we were when I played here. Maybe it’s because of what I know. Maybe it’s because it’s how the state of Kentucky works, this community works. But I dig it man, I think it’s a good representation of where we are in the state.

Question about injuries suffered by Lamont Butler and Jaxson Robinson.

Yeah, Jax is, I’m not sure we are going to get him back anytime soon, but I’m hoping and praying we get him back soon. Lamont was just super scary. It was right in front of me. He went down. The second he went down you could kind of see he extended out and just torqued his shoulder a little bit and it was just exactly what we didn’t want to do.

He was incredible. He was brave tonight, too. He was playing as a one-armed bandit out there and just working for his team. We will patchwork it together. You know, we will keep figuring it out. He was brilliant tonight, I thought he was great.

He got the first steal on the first possession. Talk about a statement of like, hey, we are going to guard. What was really fun is I didn’t really see him race on the floor and score a layup because my eyes were drawn to Otega Oweh who was, like I thought he was going to run up in the crowd and body surf. He was so excited about the defensive play. That sets a good tone for our team.

You know, I’m hopeful he can get healthy as soon as possible, we’ll see.

Question about how UK’s roster versatility allows team to handle guard injuries.

Well, I thought tonight was really special guys. We have Kerr Kriisa sitting on the bench. We’ve got Lamont Butler sitting on the bench. We’ve got Jaxson Robinson, who is our retrofitted point guard, sitting on the bench.

And then we got Amari. And TP is not naturally a point guard, but we are shoving him in there as a freshman. It was, to me it felt like a really heroic effort on behalf of our whole team. And Amari Williams is a stabilizing force.

He kind of can bail us out of some complicated situations as a point center. We’ve talked about it a lot. But he really is. I don’t know anybody else in college basketball who is doing what he’s doing. It’s really remarkable.

Question about Kentucky’s 3-point shooting success against Tennessee.

You know, it’s such a small sample size. It’s just two games. But our guys, you know, they understand what a challenge it is going against this Tennessee team. It’s a great defensive team. No two ways about it. They’re great.

I think our guys look forward to the challenge. We had some guys that made some big plays. They exert so much pressure. Kind of the way we play is almost more functional against intense, intense pressure if you can just survive. And so it’s not a terrible fit for how we play, but it’s an incredible challenge for sure.

Question about Ansley Almonor.

Ansley Almonor, guys, come on. I know I told you all that he was going to win some games before the season, I didn’t even expect he would win us this many. I honestly did not recruit him to be a downhill, Euro step, through contact finisher in the crucial moment of the game against the best defensive team in the country, but he did it. He’s been so good.

Man, he’s just super fun. He’s just, you love having him in the locker room. And he came here for all the right reasons... He’s reaping the rewards beyond his wildest imagination right now. Like this is super cool. How fun for him. I love every second of it.

Question about Pope’s daughter, Layla, performing with the UK dance team.

So, actually it’s super sweet to me. I had three of my four daughters here tonight, which we don’t get to be together that much. And my other daughter is out serving the world in El Salvador right now.

I got to have my, it’s really actually pretty incredible. I got to have my daughter wearing my national championship jersey on our court in this game. And it’s just like, you know it’s not about me or about us. In a really personal way, it was a super special moment for me. Thanks guys.

This story was originally published February 11, 2025 at 11:57 PM.

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