Big Blue Preview: Kentucky vs. Bucknell
No. 23 Kentucky won its season opener on Monday, handily defeating Wright State 103-62. The Cats did a lot of things right in the season-opening victory. But like any head coach, UK’s Mark Pope wants his team to be even better. He pointed out one particular area of concern on Thursday during his weekly press conference.
“We like to be a 30-percent offensive rebounding percentage team,” Pope said. “We’d like to be that consistently. If we could be a 14 offensive rebound per game team, it would be extraordinary. We’re just not living in that space at all right now.”
Pope did not see enough improvement between UK’s exhibition game and the season opener, at least in that area.
“We didn’t make much progress in the last game, either,” Pope said. “But it’s something we’re really focused on and we will make it, we’re just trying to figure out how to get there.”
Kentucky outrebounded Wright State 41-32 overall, but the Cats had just seven offensive rebounds while allowing the Raiders to grab 11. Pope would like to see improvement on both ends.
“Ideally, we would like to keep teams under 10 offensive rebounds,” Pope said. “Those are goals that we’re working on.”
Why does the UK head coach emphasize rebounding so much?
“It’s very important to how we play, it’s really important to how we play,” he said. “It gives us staying power, it gives us confidence in all of the other things we do. Our presence on the offensive glass and our consistency on the defensive glass is really important for us.”
Kentucky’s opponent on Saturday is Bucknell, which beat Delaware State 85-73 in the season opener. Noah Williamson had a double-double for the Bison, scoring 19 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. The Bison topped Southern Indiana 75-69 on Thursday night in overtime. Williamson went for 32 pionts and nine rebounds in the win. Pope has been impressed by what he has seen from the Bison.
“Good team, veteran team. Guys who have been there together for a long time,” Pope said. “They run really good actions and have a good sense of what they’re doing. They have some explosive scorers, they shoot it from all five positions. A good team. It will be another good challenge for us.”
The Cats will look to improve rebounding on both ends of the floor on Saturday as they host Bucknell inside Rupp Arena (4 p.m. ET, SEC Network Plus).
A Flying Start to the Pope Era
Kentucky won big in its first regular-season contest under head coach Mark Pope, taking down Wright State, 103-62, to begin the 2024-25 campaign.
Six Wildcats scored in double figures in the contest, led by 21 points from Otega Oweh and 18 from Koby Brea. Kentucky saw six players finish with at least three assists in the victory, while three had five assists.
UK shot 60 percent from the field and assisted on 30 of 39 made field goals, a 76.9 percent assist rate.
Some nuggets from the Pope opener:
• The 41-point margin of victory in Pope’s debut is the same as his jersey #41 from his playing days at UK
• 103 points are the most for a Kentucky coach in his debut game. The previous high was 88 points vs. Morehead State in Tubby Smith’s first game in 1997
• 103 points are the most in a season opener for the Wildcats since Nov. 11, 2011 when Kentucky scored 108 vs. Marist
• The Cats are 8-0 in a head coach’s debut dating back to Adolph Rupp’s first game in 1930
• It was the seventh season-opening win in a row for Mark Pope dating back to his final season at Utah Valley
• Kentucky improves to 101-21 in season openers all-time and 106-16 in home openers
Share the Rock
Kentucky totaled 30 assists in its opening night win vs. Wright State, just the 19th time in program history with 30 helpers in a contest, and the first time ever in the first game of the season. UK committed just seven turnovers, tied for the fewest in program history when tallying at least 30 assists.
A list of games in program history with 30+ assists and fewer than 10 turnovers:
• 11/4/24 – WRIGHT STATE (30 assists, 7 turnovers)
• 12/29/09 – HARTFORD (30 assists, 7 turnovers)
• 2/15/86 – MISSISSIPPI STATE (32 assists, 8 turnovers)
• 12/23/1996 – UNC ASHEVILLE (32 assists, 8 turnovers)
• 3/14/1996 vs. San Jose State (35 assists, 9 turnovers)
• 11/28/2016 vs. Arizona State (33 assists, 9 turnovers)
