Given the circumstances, Mark Pope believes Jaxson Robinson played his best game in college

You don’t earn Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year honors by accident. Jaxson Robinson transferred to Kentucky with 835 career points and 164 3-pointers under his belt, one of the best players in the portal this past cycle and a home run for Mark Pope pulling him out of the draft. After building a roster of system fits, he was the guy capable of adding star talent to the rotation and raising the ceiling tenfold.

Until Starkville, though, Robinson had scored at least 20 points just once — that one against Lipscomb out of the ASUN. 11 double-digit performances, sure, but just two shooting better than 50 percent from the field. He’s only had one truly elite half against high-major competition, saving the day out in Seattle against Gonzaga after the break, and he was coming off arguably his worst performance of the year at Georgia.

As his confidence waned, Mark Pope doubled down on his guy.

“I do think with Jaxson Robinson that we’ve just barely begun to see what he’s going to contribute to Kentucky basketball,” the UK head coach said Wednesday night, a day after the fifth-year senior finished with his second-worst scoring total of the year, putting up five points on 1-5 shooting and four fouls in 27 minutes. “I do think this team has a huge upside so I’m excited to watch him continue to grow.”

Three days later, Robinson put together not only his best performance as a Wildcat, but what Pope believes was his most impactful game in 112 outings across five years in college.

“My goodness, it’s the best part of coaching, actually,” Pope told KSR after the win. “When you see guys grow and do things that they didn’t know they could do in times when they didn’t know if they could do them — when you get to be a part of that, it’s really special. Jax is unbelievable.”

The weight of the world had been on Robinson’s shoulders, and it was painfully obvious. He would sulk after missed shots with lackluster energy throughout, as deep in his own head as one could get. We first heard him apologize to his teammates for poor body language following the Duke win in November, and that was two months ago. It’s been an ongoing talking point since as the impatient wait for his breakthrough continued.

That led to a heart-to-heart with Pope where Robinson looked to get to the root of his confidence issues.

“He had a really tough week, he had a lot of frustration, a lot of things that he was concerned about, a lot of stress in his life — from basketball, off the court, everywhere,” Pope said. “He came to me (Saturday) morning — we talked a couple of days ago, and he’s been unbelievable in practice the last two days with his voice and energy, his juice and freshness. He told me this morning, ‘I’ve been worried about making shots, missing shots, worried about my future, worried about all of the things. I just want to go compete and go play, let all that stuff take care of itself.'”

Then came his moment, dropping a high-major career-high 27 points on an absurd 9-12 shooting and 7-10 from three with three rebounds and two assists in 30 minutes. He was brilliant, oozing confidence and playing with a joy and love for the game we simply haven’t seen since he arrived in Lexington. The guy who was minutes away from keeping his name in the draft as a likely pick this past offseason finally looked like the pro this team needs him to be to reach those banner-hanging heights.

His trust in the process finally paid off.

“I can’t thank these guys enough, my coaches — especially after last game. It was tough for me mentally, but I know I had to just move on,” Robinson told KSR. “Coach talked about just moving on to the next game. Confidence, confidence is really all it is. I mean, I put in the work the whole summer leading up to the season. Tonight I was able to show it.”

“We all know Jaxson, how hard he works,” Amari Williams added. “He’s probably the hardest worker on the team, so just being in his corner and making sure that he knows that, then just seeing him today (play the way he did) made us all proud.”

He went nuclear in the first half, going for 16 points with four 3-pointers before intermission, then opened the second half with a trio of treys before the first TV timeout. Robinson was unconscious, firing away with a bright smile on his face, knowing they were all falling en route to an all-time day.

When you’re feeling it, you’re feeling it.

“My teammates found open shots for me,” the Kentucky guard said. “I felt good, so I let them fly. That was really it.”

Pope has seen him play well over the years, but given the circumstances with what he had been through mentally and the build-up, he believes this was Robinson at his best. He showed up when it mattered and when his team needed him most.

“When you get a guy, a young guy, who can get himself to that place, then you see performances like tonight — I’m telling you, it’s thrilling to watch. I’m so happy for him,” Pope told KSR. “He’s done this before, but he hasn’t done it on this big of a stage. He hasn’t done it in this league, this way, against a ranked team on the road. But he sure has now.”

Biggest of all? He did it in a Kentucky uniform, proving to himself he can do it on college basketball’s brightest and toughest stage — specifically in a top-15 road matchup and the vicious environment that comes with it.

For Pope, that’s what coaching is all about. He saw the process through from day one with Robinson at BYU, never wavering in his confidence as the star guard struggled with this. It’s because he knew this moment was coming.

He’s the coach, sure, but he couldn’t help but enjoy the breakthrough as a fan of the fifth-year senior both as a player and as a person.

“I’ve seen him play some great basketball. I would put it this way, you see the kids play great as eighth graders and you see them play great as seniors in high school. You see them play great at other places, but he’s now at the pinnacle. He’s wearing a Kentucky jersey,” Pope said. “He came and did that in a Kentucky jersey, in the toughest league in America, against a top-20 team with the 25th ranked defense — I would put them as a top-10 defensive team.

“With some frustration, carrying some frustration into it, I’ve never seen him do it with all of that before. It’s pretty awesome.”