Kentucky-Colgate Postgame Quotes
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY MEN’S BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE
December 11, 2024
Lexington, Kentucky, USA
Coach Mark Pope
Press Conference
Kentucky 78, Colgate 67
MARK POPE: Congratulations to Colgate. Listen, they are not having their best season ever so far, but they are a championship pedigree team. They got a lot of pride. I like the way they play. They were terrific tonight. Congratulations to them and their crew. I was proud of the way our guys kind of responded, we had some weird energy. There was all kind of weirdness. The 17-0 was a little weird. I think it made it weirder and we got weird. Our guys rang the bell the way that they do and I was really proud of them. We got good contributions from them and got a bunch of guys that protected the ball really well which was a point of emphasis for us. We finally got back over 30 3’s and it’s been really hard for us to do but I was proud of that. Some good things for us. We got some guys some minutes and different situations that they haven’t had so it gives us a little chance to adjust to changing line-up a little bit. And it was a good night.
Q Mark, given your injuries at the guard situation. It looked like a good time to get Trent and Travis playing, how do you think they did?
MARK POPE: That is going to be a work in progress. They are super talented players. I thought they made solid contributions tonight and it’s hard, you know, you want to get them in the game when there is a real flow to it. They weren’t, you know Trent probably had a little bit – was in the game when there was a little better vibe. My favorite part of Trent Noah. This is why I love him so much is he has been in a game a good minute and seven seconds, I’m guessing, something like that. He’s standing right in front of me and I’m like punch it, punch it, throw it in the post, you know, punch it, punch it and he shoots the three. That’s how I know he’s going to be a big-time player. It was a really happy joyful moment for us. He’s been playing so well in practice for us and he’s been working so hard and he has no agenda other than to get better every day. I thought he really gave us a boost. In fact, I think he went nine straight minutes, give or take. The staff was like, we’ve got to get him out of there, he’s at nine. It’s good, this is how you grow as a team and as individuals.
Q Coach, you have proven that you guys can get into an ugly game and come out the other side like you did against Gonzaga. How different, if at all are those conversations in the huddle when things get ugly in a game like Colgate?
MARK POPE: Ideally, they wouldn’t be different. Today was more of a response to just the energy. We talked about it in the locker room afterwards. You know, we are an energy monitoring managing team. The energy on the floor is really important to us. We kind of were having that discussion through the game and trying to discover for ourselves not just why the energy kind of got off, I don’t know if it was because of 17-0, maybe it got off and maybe they made some really good shots and maybe it was a little fatigue or maybe it was the rotation difference. Maybe it was not having either of our point guards on the floor. I don’t know. Usually it’s all of those things, somehow, right? A little different lineups on the floor. But–but, that’s this game for us. We are trying to become masters of energy and you know, games like this can help you learn a little bit more about yourself and hopefully they are helping us a little bit.
Q Mark, when you first came here you said we are going to shoot a lot of 3s and somebody asked you, what if you are not hitting? You said we are going to keep shooting. Was tonight an example of that? You weren’t really hitting your 3s and all of a sudden you got four in a row and get some separation.
MARK POPE: For sure, 100%, yes. And for us it’s just the volume. Our volume has been down and it’s been a little frustrating to me. Kerr has been one of the big catalyst for us. Not only is our volume down for us but we lost one of our catalyst. We are going to rediscover ways to get back to that part of our game. I was happy to get over 30.
Q Mark, what can you tell us about the specific nature of Kerr’s injury and when the surgery might be and what approximate timetable might be and then how can he still contribute that energy that he bring even when he’s on the sideline?
MARK POPE: Am I allowed to do details? What are we allowed to do here? Deb said I can tell you the answer. If I get in trouble, it’s on Deb. Did we get that on video? It’s on record. We had the best performance team ever. Kerr has already had the surgery and we are kind of like it’s in this, Vegas would say, somewhere around the six week period, I’m saying like 10 days, we will see how it goes. That’s kind of the prognosis on his injury. In terms of energy. Kerr might bring more energy to the team on the bench actually. He’s going to have to grow into this. I don’t know if he has sat like this ever before. He can be an incredibly valuable piece of this team right now. We need him, that’s really important. He’s an important part for us. If you think about Kerr sitting on the bench all game not talking smack. It’s going to be – heaven help us.
Q Mark, back here. With Koby getting his first start tonight. What were the conversations you had to have with him, if any about seizing a moment and being prepared for a big time opportunity like this?
MARK POPE: Koby is such a vet and we didn’t have any conversation with him. We just put him in a blue jersey and practice and it was off to the races. Koby could start the rest of the season. We are very malleable and fluid that way and listening to what the game tells us. I thought Koby obviously shot the ball pretty well tonight. I guess pretty well, it’s just his normal. He came up with a couple of huge rebounds again and was better in the second half defensively and in the last 10 minutes. He was getting really good getting downhill to the rim and I thought he’s making strides. He’s got so much more that he’s going to explore and get comfortable with about getting downhill. He’s a terrific, terrific talent. He’s a big-time player. He’s probably the best shooter in the country.
Q Mark, you were favored by 30 and you squeak out an 11 point victory. All of these scores count. They count in the net and count in the rankings. What is your thought, for example, where Kentucky is ranked right now and how important that is?
MARK POPE: Listen, I’m glad we are in the conversation and I’m glad we are in the national conversation. That’s where we are supposed to be, it’s Kentucky, right? I’m really happy with all of that. More importantly, I just want us to be a great team, right? And we want to keep getting better. We had some runs tonight where we got better. We started the game better and then we just, the energy just turned a little bit on us. But we will learn from this and we will get better. Right now it’s a race to get better. It’s Kentucky, we have to win every game along the way. That’s a beautiful thing and I’m not complaining, I think that’s why Kentucky is special. All of the things matter, everything matters. The metrics matter, the analytics matter, the efficiencies matter. All of those things are really important to us. We would like to be the flagship program in every single category that we grade and rank and evaluate as a team. That’s our goal. It’s all really important.
Q Is there an update on Lamont Butler so far?
MARK POPE: Lamont is getting a little bit better. He’s on the court a little bit today. Every day we test him a little more and see, we will know more tomorrow morning when he wakes up how he’s feeling. It’s kind of a throw it out there today and see what we end up with when he wakes up. We will know a little bit more and I would prefer he re-joins our team on the floor sometime soon.
Q Mark, your first game as a coach of the Kentucky Louisville rivalry coming up. Is there any way you can communicate to your guys exactly what’s at stake?
MARK POPE: The answer is probably no. You probably have to experience it to do it. I’m also blessed with guys, you know, I have seasoned guys. I have guys that have played in big time rivalry games. It’s not foreign concept to them. It’s just a little level up, right? It will not be unfamiliar to our guys. It’s exciting, it’s awesome. We love it and we hate it and all of those things.
Q Is it unfamiliar to you?
MARK POPE: No, no, no, I’m well aware of the beauty of this rivalry.
Q You might have talked about this before but what is 30+ 3s continue to be that magic number for you guys?
MARK POPE: It is just our goal marker. I wish we could get to 35. It is kind of a standard for us we would like to hold. We would like to be there. Because the 30 3s, for us we have to earn them. Right? Really what the 30 3s translates is we are getting unbelievable movement, we are really, really in attack mode and we are really getting downhill and earning power plays, right? That we are playing off two feet and we have a ton of motion away from the ball. To get from 30 3s to us the way we should have, it is a measure of how we are moving, right? And how intentional we are on the offensive end and how we are screening and cutting and those are all results because we want to shoot catches and shoot 3s. The nights where we don’t get a lot of 3s is probably because we are not aggressive enough downhill, in transition, not cutting and having the first cut, second cut, third cut action. It’s really a measure of, in a sense, it’s really a measure of the energy of the game on the offensive side for us. Awesome. Thank you.
KENTUCKY PLAYERS QUOTES
#4, Koby Brea, G, Gr.
On how it feels to get his first start …
“It feels good, thanks to the man above. At the end of the day, I just go out there and try to do what I do every day and bring positive energy to the team and do what’s asked of me.”
On if he prepares differently knowing he’s starting …
“No, I go through everything the same. I had to ask them a couple of questions because I have never started here. I asked how they do the lineups and all that stuff, but everything is the same, and at the end of the day, it’s just basketball. We’re going out there and playing and doing what we love.”
On being prepped for Louisville…
“We still haven’t started talking about it, but I think that’s something that throughout the summer and even throughout the year we all know that it’s a really big game. It’s something that we’ve all been waiting for, and I’m super excited that it’s finally here because it’s something that I definitely want to be a part of, so I think it’s going to be history in the making for sure.”
#7, Andrew Carr, F, Gr.
On Coach Pope’s description of tonight’s game being weird …
“Yeah, no, I’d probably agree with him. It was a little bit weird. To start a game 17-0 is a little bit different, of course. We’ve got to keep our focus throughout that. I felt like, you know, credit to Koby, he did a great job. They got pretty comfortable knocking down some threes and things like that. So, we had to buckle down in the second half and really respond and we played well.”
On what happened when giving up the 17-0 lead …
“Um, I mean, it’s hard to point, there could be a whole bunch of things. But maybe a little bit of a loss of focus and things like that. So, I don’t know, there’s probably a lot of different things. Of course, they switched the zone a little bit, and we started missing some shots, even at the rim, and even you know some three’s as well, didn’t really have as much energy and things like that. So, I’d probably just say a combination of all of those things. And then you know it seemed like they would see one or two go in, and they started making other tougher shots. So, credit to them again. But I think it was just a combination of a lot of things.”
On how important it is to keep the energy up …
“Yeah, definitely. You know, I think we play the best when we’re playing with a lot of swag. And, you know, and you can see it, you can see our energy on the court when we’re playing our best. And so, you look back even on our last couple of games, it felt like even in the first half of those games, we should struggle a little bit more with our energy, and then, you know, able to kind of find it a little bit more in the second half. And, you know, so definitely, we always try to focus on our energy a lot and I felt like it was probably lacking from who knows what, but a lot of different things tonight.”
#22, Amari Williams, C, Gr.
On his position against Gonzaga vs. tonight…
“I felt like the second half, we were down. We used that fight to finish through the end. We brought the lead up to twenty and kept it there. I felt like that was the difference between this game and the last game.”
On Colgate creating “trouble” against Kentucky tonight…
“Nothing specific, they were just making their shots. We weren’t and that’s how the game is.”
On Colgate’s defense throwing Kentucky off in the first half…
“I wouldn’t say it threw us off, it gave us open looks. We just didn’t make our shots, and they went down the other end and got a few transition buckets which brought the game close. I feel like that’s what changed the game.”
KENTUCKY BASKETBALL POSTGAME QUOTES
KENTUCKY VS. COLGATE
RUPP ARENA – LEXINGTON, KY.
DECEMBER 11, 2024
COLGATE HEAD COACH QUOTES
Opening Statement …
“This is tremendous. We’ve been to the NCAA tournament the last five NCAA tournaments that have happened and we haven’t had this much media attention, so I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I’m proud of our group, obviously got off to a sluggish start, the group that was in there kind of just fought. We’ve really been working with our experienced group on just fighting whatever the circumstances are…and I mean that in the most competitive way, not any other way. I thought we did that, we made some shots, we played hard, we competed with a group of guys who—and we had a player last year who transferred to Gonzaga and is sitting out this year to be a part of their program. So, we were watching that game with some personal interest the other night. I just think the group that Coach Pope has assembled here are winners. They’re here for all the right reasons and so we have the utmost respect. And again, I was proud of our group…just ran out of gas a little bit and Kentucky give a tip of your cap, they made some shots and they, you know, they had a stretch where we had gotten lead, and then they stepped up in maybe five or ten minutes. So, we’ll be following them closely. I like how they play; I like how they play for one another, and certainly the name on the front of their jerseys, which I know is really important around here.”
On the rough start down 17-0…
“I don’t know how it happened, we have an inexperienced group even though we have some guys that have played that haven’t been in the roles that they are in now and so we have been working hard on just trying to win and complete one round at a time. With it being 17-0 I think we were hesitant on both ends of the floor. 1999-2000 I had the chance to play the preseason NIT first round at Rupp Arena and the environment can just do that to you. That’s what you grow up watching on TV and they are really good players, and they took advantage of some things, and we didn’t see the ball go through the hoop and once we did, I thought we got some loose balls and some rebounds and scored in transition. I think Parker, is just a smaller forward, they have bigger forwards, so it was different and mismatched, and he started to get lost in the open a little bit.”
On what made him decide to go to a 2-3 zone to slow down Kentucky’s offense…
“That was our plan from the beginning. We were going to try and play our zone defense that we work on, we don’t play it a lot. On makes, and man on misses, we didn’t make any for a while so you couldn’t tell that was the plan for the first part of the game. I just think when you are playing a team with that age gap that experience gap you know the talent difference in this environment you can’t keep giving them the same dose of anything they are smart players, they are well coached if you know the same coverage and defense they are going to pick you apart. So just try and keep them thinking and change what they are doing. They got a bunch of good shots and over the season they are going to improve. They are going to shoot as they did in the second half. They are going to shoot a better percentage than they did that half.”
COLGATE PLAYERS QUOTES
#25, Parker Jones, G, So.
On the teams’ attitude playing in Rupp…
“First of all, this is pretty sick. I’ve never been in a press conference, so this is kinda high-level for me. So, sorry if my answers aren’t top-level but, coming back in from halftime we were all super ecstatic like, I mean we play a team like Kentucky, at least personally I dream about it. Like in my backyard thinking about, “Parker Jones subs in, he hits a three”, like all this stuff that I think about in my head. I don’t know, just being in this environment was really cool and kind of surreal. We got back to the locker room, emotions were really high, and we were all just kinda saying to ourselves, because I remember last year we played Arizona, and we were down three going into the half then they came out and just blitzed us. So just trying to stay more composed and collected cause we kind of tend to not get off to the best of starts so, you’re trying to calm it down even though there was a lot of really high emotion at the time.”
