Mark Pope's bet on the bench paid off in Tennessee sweep

Remember all that chatter about Kentucky needing to tighten the rotation coming out of the loss at Ole Miss? Mark Pope pushed back on it almost immediately, making it clear the starters wouldn’t be run into the ground no matter the team’s injury hurdles.

At the time, Lamont Butler had missed three straight games while Andrew Carr was still figuring out his back situation — playing, but clearly limited. Then we found out Jaxson Robinson had taken a spill in practice and tweaked his wrist.

“We’re an energy team, we feed off energy. We live and thrive off energy. The way we were built was to kind of beat teams through just wave after wave of energy,” Pope said ahead of the South Carolina matchup this past weekend, responding to a fan question about pushing the minutes of the top guys. “… Right now, we’re trying to stretch exactly the opposite way of what you’re suggesting. We think we have good young players, and so we’d like to expand their minutes so we can have more intensity and energy on the court, more consistently from different guys.”

Pope made it clear he had no idea if it was a winning formula — his team had just lost four of five when he talked about the possibility of letting it ride with guys like Ansley Almonor, Travis Perry, Trent Noah and Collin Chandler, players nine through twelve in the rotation when completely healthy to open the season — but he was going to trust the process.

“We’re going to keep trying to stretch that way,” he said. “I think we can. I think we can do it.”

Sink or swim, they were going to get their shot.

Almonor would play 24 minutes against South Carolina starting in place of the limited Carr, who gave 14 minutes off the bench. Noah added 13 minutes with Perry and Chandler combining for five minutes in the 23-point win. Robinson played 20, but favored his injured wrist all game and exited a number of times in clear pain. Butler added 23 minutes in his first run since January. 11 players earned time with no one exceeding 30 minutes individually, five between 20-24.

Pope kept his word, albeit in a blowout victory against a winless team in the SEC. The real test would come a few days later with No. 5 Tennessee coming to town with revenge on the mind, hoping for payback after Kentucky got ’em in Knoxville just four games prior.

Robinson would be declared out the night before with his wrist issue while Butler re-aggravated his shoulder injury with eight minutes and change to go. If the Cats’ depth hadn’t been tested already, it was certainly going to be.

The result? Almonor (13), Noah (11) and Perry (8) combining for 32 of Kentucky’s 75 points in 53 total minutes played. Noah and Perry set the tone early with four made 3-pointers in the first half, followed by 11 points and a pair of threes for Almonor in the second. Nine players would earn at least 12 minutes of run, and, again, no player exceeding the 33-minute mark — Koby Brea, ladies and gentlemen. It all led to a double-digit home victory to complete the sweep and the team’s seventh win against top-15 competition on the season, a new program record.

The lineups have admittedly been maddening at times — a group of Brea, Perry, Noah, Almonor and Brandon Garrison gave up 11 points in three minutes early in the second half — but the long-term reward proved to be worthwhile as Kentucky won the final 8:20 by 11 points (21-10) with Robinson and Butler both out due to injury and Almonor, Noah and Perry all seeing the floor in that stretch.

Not too shabby for some end-of-bench guys.

Pope bet on the depth and it paid off not only in the form of a Tennessee sweep, but what’s to come as Kentucky figures out its injury situation ahead of postseason play.