Everything Mark Pope said after Kentucky basketball trounced Eastern Illinois

A transcript of Mark Pope after his Kentucky men’s basketball team beat Eastern Illinois 99-53 on Friday at Rupp Arena.

Some questions have been modified for length and clarity.

Mark Pope: (Marty Simmons) is terrific coach. He’s got a great team. They were down a couple of players tonight, which made it hard for them. I thought it was a functional game for us. We have a ton of work to do that we’re really excited about, and good for those guys, coming in playing, keep hitting it hard, and made some shots, and it was a good night for us.

Q: After the Purdue game, you talked about how the balance of point distribution was something similar to your national title team. Tonight, 10 guys found the basket, you had five in double digits. Do you feel like that’s something that can be more consistently relied on throughout the season?

Pope: It’s gonna be really important for us. We’re still learning ourselves, and unfortunately for us, we got to break a lot of stuff before we fix it right now is where we feel like we are, which is OK. Because the growing part of the season is incredibly painful and frustrating, it leaves you with a lot of doubts, but if you step back, it’s actually a really beautiful process. And so, yes, this team is built to function like that, and if we embrace it, then we have a chance to be good.

Q: You made a comment yesterday about an out-of-character experience right before the Louisville game that kind of went a little viral. I was wondering if you’d like to elaborate on that since you didn’t say much about it yesterday.

Pope: You know, we were walking in and Deb said, ‘Hey, they might ask you about that statement yesterday.’ So you guys know I’m a big Taylor Swift fan, and I just like to leave out these little things and just keep everybody wondering and guessing. There’s really not much to it. At some point, I’ll tell you the story, but I’d like you guys to prognosticate on that for a couple more days. It really is nothing. It’s just something about the emotional level of our team. Like I said, I want to, like, tease this out and let it play for a few more days, but when we talk about it, it’s really not gonna be very interesting.

It was just the way that we felt as a team and how we responded. So thanks for letting that float around for a while. It’s fun, right? Give you something to write about, guess about and tweet about. I’m gonna give you something else today. I got to figure out what it is.

By the way, the comment was very genuine. It was super genuine. I’m genuinely trying to learn this group, for sure. So it wasn’t nonsense.

Q: Any update on Jaland, and with all the injuries last year and Jaland has been hurt twice, does that give you any concern to be overly conservative with Jayden Quaintance when he’s ready, does that play into it?

Pope: You know what, I don’t — I was gonna say I don’t spend a lot of time worrying, but I think that might be a lie. The best me, the me that I would like to be, doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying. It’s just like, we deal with things as they come. It’s the beauty of a season. I would say with JQ, I’m not spending a lot of time worrying. I’m just excited (for) when he’s ready to go and it’s gonna be fun. We have so much to figure out with JQ. He hasn’t been in any type of live action; it will be nine months since he’s actually done anything live and had any contact at all. I’m way more curious than I am worried. I’m curious about how quickly he’s going to learn us and how he’s going to fit into the deal and what type of impact he can make and what type of player he is gonna be. I think players, you see them on film, you look at their number, kind of spend time with them and you get references. But there’s still a growing process once they actually get into us, into Rupp, into our style of playing and learning that. I think that’s where I’m more preoccupied is just fitting the pieces together.

Q: Is there an update on Jaland?

Pope: We don’t have anything yet. We will probably have some discussions over the next couple of days about what’s the best thing to do right now. That’s probably the point where we are right now. We’ve got a bevy of second and third opinions and so right now it’s gonna be more just the whole group, the whole medical team and mom and dad and J-Lo and me sitting down and having a real conversation about what’s the best thing to do moving forward.

Q You just mentioned you didn’t like how the team was feeling, the energy or how they responded on Tuesday night. How do you think they responded emotionally tonight and how do you think they will in a big game on Tuesday over at Madison Square Garden?

Pope: I thought they were OK, and I expect that we’re gonna be great. That’s what I think.

Q Especially in light of Jaland’s injury. I’m curious about the use of the big man to bring the ball up the court. We saw that a lot last year with Amari. How do you feel maybe Mo, Brandon, even Malachi would function and is that even something you would be willing to explore more?

Pope: Yeah. It’s one of the nice things about the way we play is we feel like we have a lot of options to go to on a need-to basis. And there’s so much to learn and so, but yes, I feel a lot of comfort because I think we have a lot of options. It’s not really options like the ball is going to be in this person’s hands all the time. It’s just that there is a lot of ways we can attack the game with guys that can potentially be playmaking deciders. I feel pretty good about that. I have a lot of comfort. That’s one of the beautiful things about our roster.

Q: What I’m curious about is you are up by 46 and you check back in the starting five with like a minute and a half to go. Are you trying to send a message to the backups or to the starters? Especially if you’re saying you’re worried about injuries, some people would say ‘What the heck is this guy doing putting the starting five out there when they’re up by that much?’

Pope: At the last media timeout, we had a little incident in the huddle, I’m not going to talk about that right now. Kidding. It’s a joke. That’s a joke. I’ll be totally transparent. …I’ve been disappointed with my ability and commitment to explain to our guys what it means to sprint back in transition defense. We’ve always said ‘First three steps’ as a mantra. We want to sprint through half court, and still we were seeing not an effort that’s not a championship effort tonight, for most of the night. But in a moment of sheer inspiration towards the end of the game with all the frustrations that went on, I went to the guys and said, ‘Hey, we track wedges and we have teaching; every time we don’t wedge, we have a teaching experience for those guys the next day in practice. Every time we don’t contest legal, we have a very focused on contesting legal teaching for 10 minutes.

And so now transition defense, the teaching moment is every time our guys aren’t in a full sprint back in transition, a full sprint, it will be a ladder, a run. If you don’t sprint back in transition it would be 10 ladders. I was hoping for that number. We didn’t have enough possessions by the time I went to this. And then I wasn’t getting a great response, so then we went to a 17 for every time that we don’t sprint back. And we are going to try to use that as our teaching technique, and it’s actually really applicable. Run in the game or run in practice. It’s just a good teaching tool. We have beautiful guys. It’s just a communication lapse with the words I’m saying and them understanding how urgent it is. I put that onus on the group that was in the game at the media timeout and I wanted to give the starters a chance to run also.

And it was really functional for us and it was really good. It was probably one of the most productive things from the whole night. I think we’ll have some life in it and I’m going to invite the whole media postgame maybe after the Michigan State game to the next practice and you just can watch the guys run and it’ll be great. It’s not a punishment, it’s genuinely just teaching, by the way.

Q We heard on the pregame show that during practice, you pulled Otega Oweh aside and wanted to have a private conversation with him. Is there any insight into what you said to him and what you want to see from him going forward this year?

Pope: For all of our guys, this is just a learning curve. I’ll be really bluntly honest with you guys: I wish that I was farther ahead right now. I wish that I was farther ahead with this group. Maybe it’s been complicated that – I’m trying to figure out why I’m not further ahead with this group in terms of just this group’s identity. There’s a lot of contributing factors, for sure. So, like, what I expect from the guys is that they embrace who they are. Like they’re here for a reason. They have very, very special, unique, quantifiable skill sets. And I want them to use them; I want them to celebrate them; I want them to be proud of them; I want them to love their game. And I talked to the staff about it today, it’s even a problem for me. Sometimes I see a way another coach approaches something or an anecdote they share or a style of coaching or an action that they run or philosophy of how they coach and you look around you are like, ‘Ahh, I would like to do that, I would like to do this, I would like to do the other.’

It’s always important to grow, but you never want to lose yourself when you grow. You want to grow yourself. The anecdote I’ve shared with the guys is like if Tom Brady was really upset that Michael Vick, people thought he was a better running quarterback and so Tom Brady said, ‘You know what, I’m just gonna run every time so I can prove that I’m a great running quarterback.’ Nobody wants to see that, right? Us understanding where we bring our special sauce to the team is really, really important. Us growing as individuals is really important, but us knowing who we are and knowing what makes us special is really important as a staff, me as the head coach, our players, Deb as SID, the whole thing.

Q: Mo had a quiet night against Louisville; tonight gets a double-double and shoots perfect in the second half. What does that say about him as a player that he can have such a quick turnaround and perform the way he did?

Pope: I was proud of his focus. I didn’t think he was great defensively the first half. I thought he was great. He imprinted his self on the game on the offensive glass. And in the beginning of the second half, he finally got around to having some impact defensively. I think we’re leaving a lot on the table in terms of how disruptive we can be. And so, I thought he made some progress toward that. It’s going to be a big deal for him. Him and Otega should be vying for the best defensive players in the country right now. So far, they haven’t been close. And that’s OK. But for us to be great, they got to get there. And I thought we saw some good signs from Mo in that respect.

Q: You sounded really bullish with Tom on the pregame show about Jasper at the one, specifically. Just what have you seen from him from at that spot specifically that gives you confidence that he could really do some good things there?

Pope: Yeah, Jasper’s kind of been able to get where he needs to go to on the court. He didn’t have his best night tonight, but I have a lot of faith in him that he can get where he wants to go. He’s certainly not scared of the moment. I think he’s growing as a defensive player. I think he’s got an opportunity to be an elite-level playmaking passer, especially against different ball screen looks. He just needs time right now. You know, he’s a little bit of a deflection guy trying to make reads off ball screens, especially when there’s pressure. It’s a place where he’s capable and gonna grow, just gonna grow fast. I think he’s a great option for us at the one. He’s an incredibly talented player. He’s going to be a star. It’s just a learning process.

Q: What has it been like for Brandon Garrison learning this new role and you talking about everybody learning and what makes this team special? And the second part, the end of the half you tried Andrija at the five, is that something you’ve thought about more while people are figuring out their roles?

Pope: I thought BG had some really terrific ball-screen rotation defense communication tonight. I thought there were spaces where he was really good. Uncharacteristically for him, tonight, he kind of went away from the simple play. He threw the skip pass 50 feet out of bounds to the corner when he could have just chosen DA early and then he chose the one-hand, 75-foot full-court pass when he just had so many simple options in front of him. He got the offensive foul in transition where he kind of ran over a guy, which I’m not so upset about that because his force has been so much better this year than last year. His conditioning has been so much better. His communication has been so much better.

Tonight, I thought he uncharacteristically was a little greedy trying to hit some home-run plays. Maybe it was the nature of the game, but that’s not him. I do think there could be some space for Jela at the five and some space for Kam at the four in unique situations. We went to some zone underneath out of bounds, it was nice to get that on film; it’s something we’ve been working on. A game like today affords you just a chance to get something on film so you can see it. So it was only a couple of possessions, but I think Jela’s capable for sure.

Q: If these conversations with Jaland get to a point where it becomes surgery and potentially a season-ending thing, are you confident in the current group of ballhandlers you have right now or would you potentially look into some external help?

Pope: I’m really confident in the group we have, I like the group we have a lot. I just think we have so much growing to do. I love this group. Thanks guys, have a good day.