Kentucky-Nicholls Postgame Quotes
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY MEN’S BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE
November 4, 2025
Lexington, Kentucky, USA
Coach Mark Pope
Press Conference
Kentucky 77, Nicholls 51
MARK POPE: A loss at a season opener here? Was that season over here or Utah Valley? I think it was. First, I will note I kind of just followed a little bit of this tragedy in Louisville. It just is awful. Certainly, all prayers go out to everybody involved in that. Just hopefully we can have the best news possible and best resolution for that and just know that BBN is just fully engaged with that and best wishes for everybody there. I’m grateful for this Nicholls team. I like this team. They were actually really good last year and I think they’re going to be really good this year. The coach is doing a terrific job. And it was good for us. We had some tightness on the floor. On the offensive end. I was so proud of our guys the first-half defensive performance. I thought we really, really focused the last several days on communicating defensively and trying to fill some different assignments and I thought we did very, very well in the first half. Brought in Malachi Moreno. His goal is to be a 4 offensive rebound a game guy and he started off well. I’m really proud of DA. Deb is going to check this but I think it’s the first time in his career he’s been 6 assists and 0 turnovers and was really, really good kind of climbing back into action. I’m proud of him on the offensive glass with 15 offensive rebounds. That’s where we need to live consistently. There are some good things and certainly a bunch of tightness and we have a long road to keep getting better but I’m excited about coaching this team.
Q Mark, it seems like you guys really struggled to penetrate in the first half and then second half you come out, Otega goes, Collin goes, there was a lot more of it. Was that an emphasis at half time and what was going on with the first half struggles there?
MARK POPE: All we do is work on the defensive end right now, we are going to spend a little bit of time on the offensive end. I thought like we were tentative and tight, we had a tough time catching balls in the game and sometimes you are so excited about beginning this journey and this is our first step in this journey and we are so excited and we have been building on this for a while now. And so, I think we are a little, you know, just lost in the weeds little bit on the offensive side. We have challenges as a group offensively, we will be really good there, we just were not good in the first half.
Q Mark, how much of an influence do you feel like Denzel can have given his championship experience? Obviously, you have talked about your experience playing. Does it feel a little different when it comes from a player?
MARK POPE: Denzel has been through it and he’s going to still be in high-pressure situations where things are complicated but he just knows what it feels like and what it looks like and how his experience is and he’s kind of been in the biggest moments. So, he has been on his fair share of journeys already and he’s going to be a real calming influence for our group for sure.
Q Coach, you got to watch Collin have his biggest game tonight because you’ve been with him for so long and one of the players you have been with the longest. What has it been like just getting to watch him really show off his stuff and having a good performance?
MARK POPE: I thought Collin started the game elite defensively. I thought he made great defensive plays early in the game and, again, none of us had much of a rhythm offensively and it was nice to see him find some comfort level on the offensive end tonight too.
Q Mark, you referenced Malachi off the top, but just for all your debutantes tonight officially, Jasper, Andrija, just what did you like about their performance. It seems like all of them flourished in their different roles?
MARK POPE: Jasper had a huge challenge in the last couple of days and we talked about him on the defensive end. I thought he was much, much improved tonight. The one thing about Jasper, man, is when you give him an assignment, he takes it seriously and he came into practice on Saturday with a vengeance, like just determined to guard. He was going to find a way to guard and I thought he as gave us great minutes defensively and he so creative offensively. He’s always going to give us great stuff there. AJ, you know, just working into this vibe. I thought he got a little bit better as the game went on. Malachi, you know it’s funny because he’s only one game into the season but he’s already played three really big games and he’s just going to be a force to reckon with as he becomes more and more comfortable.
Q Mark, kind of a two-part question. One, this being this fewest points you’ve allowed in any game as UK’s coach. The first question being is how much does that excite you about the potential? But then secondly, knowing that the leveled you to go up once JQ has helped with his rim protection?
MARK POPE: I’m really excited about that. We held them to 15 in the first half. The all-time record at UK is 11 so it was 4 points, 2 basket side of that. I like it. We started leaking a little bit in the second half and I thought overall it was a 10 kill game and it was the first time I’ve coached a team here that’s got 10 kills in a game. I was really proud of that. We can get so much better. Our defense is going to have to carry us at some points this season. And that’s okay. Because they can be a real strength of ours and that’s going to be a fun piece of this game for us.
Q Coach, you guys are fighting the injury bug already. Denzel came back tonight and Jaelyn has been out and JQ has been out for an extended period of time. Trent goes down tonight. Do you have an update on Trent? How are these injuries letting you learn about players in different roles and what they can do, so kind of a two-part question?
MARK POPE: Trent is, one of the assistants come up to me, I think at the end of the first half or beginning of the second half and said Trent is good to go. I was like, that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Trent is the toughest dude I know and he was in a lot of pain on the floor and he doesn’t ever show that. I went to Brandon Wells and walked down to the sideline and Brandon Wells, Brandon, is he ready to go? He’s like, yeah, we just tested him and he ran and said he’s feeling fine. My direct quote was like, well, Trent Noah is a liar. I think I yelled it probably louder than I should have. He’s just such a tough kid so I’m glad we were able to through game and not have to put him back in. We got to get him healthy because he’s an important part of this team. One of the luxuries we have is we have guys, we have guys and we have guys that can go play and go compete. We have some depth that we didn’t have last year. And you know, our guys were incredible last year. But you know, we should be able to overcome some of those issues this year and handle them a little better.
Q Mark, after the Georgetown game, Mo and Otega really seemed to take it personally, the lack of defense, the ball screen defense especially. How personally did the team collectively take that going into the weekends practice and how much of that, especially ball screen defense, is going to be, you need to get that connectivity and get these guys on the court against the outside?
MARK POPE: It’s really important, it’s really important. Is going to determine how good we are this year. It was nice, Jim and Rice got a little bit of action the second half and we switched up the match up and put Otega on him and blitzed every ball screen and it’s just a out of time, out of adjustment. And our guys were able to execute it twice first time and ended up being a turnover out of bounds in the second time was unbelievable blitz late by Jela to do it. So I like the fact that our guys are far enough advanced right now that you could make simple adjustments like that in the game and you can actually go execute them pretty well and it’s going to be important for us to be able to do that this season. It’s really important. But it’s fun, Guarding is fun, its inspiring and actually, it’s pretty great. One of the things, we had so much frustration in the first half offensively, and we were just tight and didn’t feel right and no flow. Every single time-out, it’s a conversation like guys, this is unbelievable. I’m going to make this number up. We have five minutes left in the first half and they’ve only scored 10 points. This is incredible what you are doing. We should be gathering energy from our defensive success. Not in here frustrated about not feeling great on offense. That’s really important we can go get energy from having defensive success and that we cannot lose our energy because things are a little discombobulated offensively. It’s going to be a important for this team. So I was proud of our guys. It was not easy for them to do that but they fought hard enough to stay focused on that task at hand in first half, which is great.
Q Change my question now. You talked about taking energy from defense. How rare is that an hard is it for a team to grasp that because everybody loves the offensive side.
MARK POPE: It will give us a chance to be special. We can do it. We were treading water and barely staying engaged because of our defensive success. If we can ever get to a point to where we are like, if we can ever get to a point to where we like, we don’t even care if we score. We are getting a stop every single time down the floor, that would be actually a really fun team to coach. This team, I don’t know if we are built exactly that way but we might be built close. We might be built close. It’s a pretty fun way to play. It could be great.
Q Mark, not sure how high grading dunks comes on that analytics scale right now. But Collin Chandler set the bar pretty high.
MARK POPE: It was fun, right? I’m actually curious to see my reaction. Usually, I can stay stone cold and I assume I did on this one, but I’m not sure. We will see but that was spectacular. Thanks guys, have a good night.
KENTUCKY BASKETBALL POSTGAME QUOTES
#9 KENTUCKY VS. NICHOLLS
RUPP ARENA – LEXINGTON, KY.
NOVEMBER 4, 2025
Kentucky Player Quotes
#5, Collin Chandler
On his dunk…
“It felt good. I’ve gotten a few so far, but it’s my first time having somebody jump with me this time. It was fun.”
On his composure during the dunk…
“That’ll be fun to see. I want to watch that back too.”
On his defense early in the game…
“That was something we hit on this week, and I felt like our team defensively was great. Being in our gaps, we hit on big this week. It’s just something that no matter how the game’s going, obviously, offensively wasn’t great for the first little bit, but that’s always something we can lean on as our effort defensively, making it hard on teams to score, and that’s what kept us alive.”
#23, Mohamed Dioubate
On how he’s feeling being 1-0…
“I’m feeling good. I’m not content, but we got a lot of games to go this season.”
On how he feels about playing in the first half versus the second half…
“You know, taking every mistake, we made in the first half, and try to change it for the second half. We talked about it at halftime, about, you know, how we get our offensive moving. But our defense was pretty good.”
On teammate Trent Noah getting hurt while battling other injuries on the team…
“I just hope he’s alright. Trent is tough. But we just hope it’s nothing serious. I’m just praying for him.”
#1, Denzel Aberdeen
On sitting on the Georgetown game…
“I feel great. Feels good to be back. Atmosphere today was crazy, and overall, it was a good game. First half was a little shaky, but we bounced back in second half and got up. When did you know you were playing yesterday? I had practiced yesterday, and it felt good. I told him, I feel good. So, they put me in today.”
On his influence on the team…
“Oh yeah, for sure. I just feel like I just try to give 110% every time I get in the game, no matter what the circumstances, I’m always trying to bring energy on the defense side and offensive side, just doing anything we can to get a win.”
On his decision making & passing ability…
“Just trying to be aggressive, doing what I do, what I work on, my shots not there. Got to get my teammates involved, and credit my teammates for being the right spot in front of me and then just executing our plays, play calls. So overall, good first half. Do you think that’s film that you guys will go back and review, or is that just burn that tape and let’s look at the good things we did. The second most definitely watching film. We got film bright and early in the morning, bright and early in the morning tomorrow. So just got to pick up what we didn’t do well and pick up. We’ll keep doing what we did well and just execute from that.”
KENTUCKY BASKETBALL POSTGAME QUOTES
#9 KENTUCKY VS. NICHOLLS
RUPP ARENA – LEXINGTON, KY.
NOVEMBER 4, 2025
Nicholls Head Coach Quotes
Opening Statement…
“I thought it was a good night tonight. I thought we did some good things in the first half. Give credit where credit is due. I thought Kentucky came out in the second half. They adjusted, and I thought Mark Pope did a better job at adjusting than I did.”
About Kentucky’s defense…
“I wouldn’t say it was unexpected, but give credit where credit is due. I thought physicality bothered us. They made it hard to get inside on threes. We took a lot of early threes. I would say it was the physicality that bothered us.”
About the flow of the game and what Nichols does to limit success on the point range…
“We try to do a good job of making them play 1-on-1, we know they are going to come in and shoot a ton of threes. I thought the guys did an excellent job executing the scout in the first half and holding the Kentucky team to 28 points at halftime. In the second half, they came in and threw a big punch, and I didn’t think we responded very well.”
