You just watched the biggest win of Mark Pope’s UK basketball coaching career
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Pope’s Wildcats rallied past No. 15 Arkansas 85-77 to claim a defining road win.
- Kentucky’s balanced effort featured Otega Oweh’s 24 points
- Six wins in seven games suggest Pope’s coaching, roster’s resilience have traction
In what has been a season of adversity and challenge, pretty much every bit of Mark Pope’s standing to be Kentucky men’s basketball coach has been questioned.
Roster construction.
Recruiting acumen.
Public relations instincts.
Motivational skill.
Toughness.
In other words, pretty much every quality a coach needs to succeed in the hot house that is coaching at Kentucky has been questioned about Pope so far in 2025-26.
That is why what the UK coach and his gusty team pulled off Saturday night before a shocked Bud Walton Arena crowd of 19,200 felt so important.
Using John Calipari and No. 15 Arkansas as a foil, Pope’s Wildcats gutted out an 85-77 victory that stands as one of the more stirring UK men’s hoops victories in eons.
The Cats (15-7, 6-3 SEC) were coming off a miserable showing in an 80-55 loss at Vanderbilt on Tuesday night. UK was on the wrong side of a bizarre officiating sequence in the second half Saturday night that saw a five-point Kentucky lead turn into a one-point UK deficit after the Wildcats were whistled for three technical fouls in 38 seconds.
Yet the Cats refused to buckle. In rallying past Arkansas (16-6, 6-3 SEC), Kentucky played with a toughness and poise that also made a loud statement about the UK coach.
“I don’t think it says much about me as a coach, but I think it says a lot about our guys,” Pope said, deflecting credit. “... They just keep finding a way to fight back. These guys just continue to inspire. Man, they’re just like, ‘Keep it on, heap on the hate and all the other stuff.’ And these guys keep answering the bell. And it’s pretty fun to be a part of.”
A season ago, when Calipari brought the Razorbacks to Lexington as the visiting coach for the first time, Kentucky backers were desperate for Pope and the Wildcats to show Cal that UK basketball was bigger than the Cats’ former coach .
Instead, Arkansas rode a savvy game plan to an 89-79 victory that few saw coming.
On Saturday night, Pope turned those tables.
Kentucky’s victory came from a collection of players who, for the most part, would have never been recruited to UK during the heyday of Calipari’s one-and-done palooza.
UK senior Otega Oweh was the best player in the game. The 6-foot-4, 200-pound wing hit 9 of 12 shots, scored 24 points, grabbed eight rebounds and defensively hounded Calipari’s latest prized frosh, point guard Darius Acuff Jr., into an 8-of-20 shooting performance.
“I just try and go out there and have a super-high motor,” Oweh said. “I feel like, if I do that, I help put the team in a good position to win.”
Forced by injuries to become Kentucky’s point guard, Denzel Aberdeen, also a senior, accounted for 10 points, three assists — and no turnovers.
Sophomore wing Collin Chandler contributed 13 points, including a late fall-away jumper that put UK ahead 80-72 and, essentially, sealed victory for the Cats.
Perhaps sweetest for UK fans, homegrown Wildcats Malachi Moreno, 11 points and seven rebounds, and Trent Noah, nine points, seven boards, came up huge against Calipari.
“Give them credit, this was Kentucky coming in, more desperate than us, and played way rougher than we played and came up with balls that we just didn’t come up (with),” Calipari said.
One victory doesn’t answer all questions about the Pope coaching era. The lack of perimeter shooting and offensive skill on the roster Pope put together for his second season is still confounding. Pope still has to prove he can recruit at the “Kentucky level.”
Still, this is a season in which UK started with a series of rugged losses in games — Louisville, Michigan State, Gonzaga, North Carolina — that meant much to Wildcats fans.
For the second-straight season, the Cats have been decimated by injuries to key players. Kentucky is playing without Jaland Lowe, Jayden Quaintance and Kam Williams, who are widely thought to be among the five most-talented players on the UK roster.
Yet Kentucky has now won six of its past seven games, including going into Fayetteville and hanging the loss on Calipari that many UK backers have so yearned to see.
The Vanderbilt no-show notwithstanding, that suggests there is some pretty good coaching going on right now at Kentucky.
“When you struggle, and then you get your team playing right, it means you’re coaching,” Calipari said. “So I think (Pope’s) doing a great job.”
Said Pope: “I think we have a great future this season, and I think we’re going to win a lot of games and have an epic run. So maybe the story about this team is going to be even more important than what they’re doing right now. It’s pretty awesome.”
To survive as coach at Kentucky, you have to renew your hold on the job with victories that prove one’s worthiness to occupy the seat.
Beating Arkansas on the road was that kind of win for Mark Pope.
