Mark Pope challenged Kentucky's bigs to shut down Noah Williamson by getting under their skin

Mark Pope‘s defensive game plan for Preseason All-Patriot League seven-footer Noah Williamson started with some light-hearted jabs at his own big men. During practice throughout the week, Pope tried to agitate his players in an effort to light a fire under them.

Judging by Williamson’s final stat line for the Bucknell Bison, the tactic worked out beautifully.

“(Pope) was just making stuff up, telling Amari (Williams) ‘Oh yeah, he said he’s gonna have 30 (points) on you.’” Kentucky forward Ansley Almonor said after Kentucky’s 100-72 win. “It wasn’t really true, it was just funny.”

Jokes aside, the UK bigs took that as a challenge. Williamson, who was fresh off a 32-point performance in Bucknell’s win on Thursday over Southern Indiana, struggled from start to finish against Kentucky’s size. Amari Williams and sophomore center Brandon Garrison did an excellent job of defending Williamson and preventing him from finding a groove.

Williamson picked up a couple of early fouls, throwing him off his game in a way that he could never recover from. Shots inside the paint were met with physical force while outside shots were anything but clean looks.

“It was something a little personal,” Almonor added. “Coach tried to get under their skin a little bit, tell them how good of a player he was during practice. I felt like they took it personally and they shut him down today. So it definitely worked.”

Williamson finished with just seven points and five rebounds on 3-12 shooting (1-8 from deep) in 24 minutes. Even in one-on-one situations around the rim, the talented junior was suffocated by one of Kentucky’s towering big men.

“He is a terrific player. He’s coming off a huge game,” Pope said of Williamson postgame. “We talked about this in pregame — I don’t know if we’ll face another center that will score 32 points in a game anywhere this season, against any opponent. There’s not a lot of centers doing that.”

Pope individually praised Williams for his focus on defending Williamson from the opening tip. A three-time Defensive Player of the Year winner in the CAA at Drexel, Williams is more than capable of holding his own against (and even getting the better of) someone like Williamson. This was just another day at the office.

“He was unbelievably focused,” Pope said of Williams. “He did a great job against a terrific player.”

Getting Williamson into foul trouble was key in sparking Kentucky’s early lead. He went to the bench a little over two minutes into the game after Williams and Otega Oweh tagged him with a foul each. Without his presence, the Wildcats feasted on the offensive glass, an area that Pope has challenged his team to improve upon. UK grabbed eight offensive rebounds in the first eight minutes, ending the night with 22 as a team.

By the time Williamson checked back into the game at the 12:22 mark of the first half, Kentucky was already in front by 13 points. Without a spectacular game from him, Bucknell never stood a chance. And the Big Blue Nation can thank Pope’s trash talk for helping make it happen.

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