Mark Pope

Kentucky head coach Mark Pope looks up at the scoreboard during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Duke on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024, in Atlanta.

 ASSOCIATED PRESS / John Bazemore

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Kentucky dished out a handful fewer assists than has been its custom in Tuesday's 77-72 upset of No. 6 Duke.

Didn't matter. After the game, first year Wildcats' coach Mark Pope made up for it in his postgame comments. He passed the credit. He passed out praise. He passed on a chance to make himself look better.

He wasn't having it. He had Wake Forest transfer Andrew Carr give the opening statement. And when asked about the reaction he expected from Kentucky fans after this win — Kentucky's first over Duke since 2015, he deflected the credit again.

"I said this in the postgame, but it's really important — I think one of the things that's great about our team is this is not actually about us," Pope said. "It's not about me. If this gets about me, it gets too big. If it gets about Andrew Carr, it gets too big. We're a pretty faithful group, and we get to learn that this isn't really about us. So, I think the best part about all of us being able to acknowledge our fans in the stands is it's just an extension of that. This is about us, it's not about me. . . . When it can be about us, that's when it's magic."

All right, yeah, magic, writing it down. But here's something you don't have to be a Basketball Benny to understand. It's also coaching.

HALFTIME ADJUSTMENTS

Kentucky wasn't great in the first half against Duke. It made some early threes and played well enough to keep it close, but still trailed 46-37 heading into the locker room and, as Pope told Tom Leach in his postgame radio show, "we had a couple of major issues."

First, Pope said, Kentucky was giving up 1.5 points per possession in transition isolation defense. And, he added, the Wildcats were giving up more than that when trying to defend ball screens.

That, Kentucky fans will know, is a familiar issue. For some time, Kentucky has looked like a kid trying to solve a Rubik's Cube when trying to play ball-screen defense. And not one of those really smart kids who knows all the solving algorithms, either.

Pope, however, fixed the issue with one halftime conversation and a handful of tools.

"It was mostly the ball screen ball-handler just getting too deep," Pope told Leach. "Our downs and weaks -- we just needed to move the point. We needed to get our big up to the point. Their roll is such a threat because they're so big. We were a little too zoned up so our sprinter and cover was late. So, what happened was their guards are so talented from six feet, we needed to make those same plays from eight and nine feet. We did that better in the second half. And we also changed it up a lot. We were pretty, the same look the whole first half. And then second half, we went to a bunch of blitzes on ball screens. We went to a bunch of switches on ball screens. Went to some unders, we went to some down-weak switch. And so, we gave a much less constant, consistent look."

I posted that comment on X and I think some people teared up. Complicated, sure, but simple. Multiple looks. Break down the components of the play. Pay attention to the analytics in the first place.

"EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE"

But, you know, none of that matters if the players don't take it and execute it. It's not enough to know how to fix something on the basketball court. Actually fixing it requires persistence and effort.

And Pope got that from his team.

"I thought our guys had incredible resolve," Pope told Leach. "They had a great emotional resilience, and that's really important in this game of basketball, playing at a high level. I thought that was probably the winning feature for our guys. That what gave them -- and not taking anything from Duke, because they're a great team also -- but for us to have a chance to win, our guys had to show incredible emotional resilience. And they did. They did it in all kind of little ways. They did it at halftime. They did it to start the second half. They did it after some fatigue issues, some misplay issues, some frustration issues, some rotation issues. They just kept bringing a fresh heart to the possession. And when you can do that and kind of endure all the frustration and metabolize it and spit it out and keep fresh, it pays off, and it did tonight for sure."

So, it was midnight, and Big Blue Nation wasn't ready to sleep. They were partying on campus. For a November win.

There's a context to everything. Kentucky fans have grown accustomed to losing these games, but being told it's early in the season, and look at all this talent, and you have to understand how hard it is.

Six years and six days ago, John Calipari took a Kentucky team that featured five eventual regular starters in the NBA (including four first-round draft picks) into the Champions Classic and lost to Duke by 34. Now Duke had three Top 10 draft picks that year.

Duke probably has three Top 10 draft picks this year, too. But Kentucky had more depth. And it had better coaching down the stretch. Pope also moved Andrew Carr, who had been playing the four spot all game, into the five for a few offensive possessions, and Carr responded with a pair of huge and-ones in the final four minutes, including one that tied the game and another that put Kentucky up by two.

As well, Pope challenged an out-of-bounds call just inside of two minutes that gave the ball back to Kentucky when it was going the other way.

Instead of being the team that came up short late, Kentucky outscored Duke 13-5 in the final four minutes. After giving up 46 first-half points, Kentucky outscored Duke 40-26 in the second. After being outscored 28-6 in the paint in the first half, Kentucky outscored Duke 20-18 in the paint in the second.

CALL-IN MESSAGE

On the bus ride back to the airport, Pope called into the KSR Postgame Show and spoke with host Matt Jones. He wanted to talk to fans directly. He talked about the hype video he showed his team, with highlights from the Kentucky Duke rivalry, all the way back to Jack "Goose" Givens scoring 41 against Duke in the 1978 NCAA Championship game. He showed them the Christian Laettner shot and highlights of the Comeback Cats in 1998.

"You guys know, how much I love the history of Kentucky," Pope told Jones. "So our guys were very, very aware of what this (game) means, how fun this matchup means, especially to Kentucky fans. Man, we all feel the same way, and I hope everybody in BBN is going to bed with a smile on their face tonight. . . . Hopefully everybody's got a little memory they can put in their pocket now."

Also, what is this? You're telling me the coach calls into the postgame show, Mark from Atlanta? He gets on the bus, it pulls out for the airport, and he says, "I think I'm calling the postgame show."

Yeah, it's only three games in. But Pope has not hit a false note yet. He has strummed more heartstrings than Bill Monroe. For Kentucky fans, the thousands who stay up past 1 a.m. for the postgame show after wins like this one, after years of hearing it was not about them, the message has changed.

"I just hope everybody feels how much we love them and how much we feel, like, the community deal," Pope said. "This is us. This is us. It's not about me, it's not about our players. It's about Kentucky. That will never change as long as I'm here, as long as guys on this team are here, because we feel it. So be safe and celebrate like crazy."

And with that, Pope pressed "end," and rode off into a Blue Moon that kept on shining.

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