Nate Oats offers high praise for Mark Pope’s fit at Kentucky

Nate Oats has to compete against Kentucky and Mark Pope regularly, but he had high praise for the Wildcats’ coach.

Alabama edged Kentucky 102-97 in Lexington, but Oats knew Pope would be a great fit with the program. Having played for them during his time, Pope has looked like a natural at head coach this season.

Oats went as far as that Pope was embraced by the entire state. Maybe not that Louisville section though.

“I thought it was a great fit,” Oats said of Pope at Kentucky. “He played here. He knows what this place is about. From afar, I’d kind of seen some of his teams at BYU play. I think you’re seeing his offensive product. He’s going to be able to get players here. Kentucky has always had that tradition of getting players. When they hired him, it made total sense. I think his introductory – I don’t know if you’d call it a  press conference, the way they rolled him in. It was pretty cool. I think Mark’s a great guy. It seems to me like the state’s embraced him.”

Pope is 14-4 in his frist season at Kentucky after going 110-52 at BYU over the course of five seasons.

Perhaps Oats and Alabama will see Pope and Kentucky again in the postseason. Both teams were top 10 going into Saturday for a reason.

“They obviously lost today, but we’re a good team,” Oats said. “This is not going to be a bad loss for them when all is said and done. They’re a very good team. This was their first loss at home since he’s been here. He’s done an unbelievable job. They’re playing a great style of basketball. I thought it made sense. So I’m happy for him. We needed to get this win, and we get them twice this year, so there’s one other time that we’re gonna make sure we need to give them a loss.

“But I think he’s done a really good job. I think it helps the SEC to have Kentucky good. It’s been traditionally good most years, and he’s got them very good. They’re eighth in the country, and they looked like a pretty good team today.”

Kentucky and Pope are back in action Saturday against Vanderbilt while Alabama and Oats will play the Commodores on Tuesday.