Mike White remembers the time Mark Pope's Kentucky team beat him by 30 points

Mike White has a pretty good memory. The head coach of Georgia men’s basketball can go back nearly 30 years and perfectly recall the outcome of a game he played in as a freshman in college. Unfortunately, he remembers it for all the wrong reasons.

The game in question? A 30-point loss in Rupp Arena to Mark Pope‘s Kentucky team in January 1996. Just a few weeks into his first college season, White recorded four points and one assist in 16 minutes. But what still stands out to him decades later is just how talented that Kentucky team — which went on to win the national championship — truly was.

“I tell this story all the time. I want to say the final score was like 90 to 60. I’ve told this story so many times I probably Googled it one day to make sure I wasn’t lying about the score,” White said at SEC Media Days on Tuesday in Birmingham. “But I want to say it was like 30 at halftime, and I remember Walter McCarty dunking balls under the rim. He’d land under the rim and just start jumping up and down and get into press. That’s the way they played. They were a phenomenal team with a bunch of pros on that team.”

White recalls getting snowed in in Lexington after that game too. Ole Miss had to stay an extra night before heading back home to Oxford. Imagine losing by 30 points in an unfamiliar city and having to stew on it for an entire night during a blizzard. That might have you reconsidering some life choices. That’s how good that group of Wildcats were though — they made sure you never forgot them.

“That team there was about as talented a college basketball team as I’ve seen,” White added. “And you could go through that roster — I want to say nine or ten of those guys played in the NBA if I’m not mistaken. Nine. How about that?”

Just to refresh everyone’s memory, that Kentucky team (coached by Rick Pitino) featured the likes of Antoine Walker, Ron Mercer, Walter McCarty, Tony Delk, Anthony Epps, Jeff Sheppard, Derek Anderson, Wayne Turner, Cameron Mills, and a freshman Nazr Mohammed. Pope, a senior at the time and team captain, finished with four points and one rebound in the win against White’s Rebels, if you were wondering.

Almost 30 years later, White has new memories to make with Pope and Kentucky. The Big Blue Nation will be hoping for similar results to what went down in 1996 when Kentucky heads to Athens this January to take on Georgia. White expects it to be a challenge.

“I’m sure (Pope will) do a wonderful job. It’s a big-time program, obviously, a proud program. I always enjoy our trips to Rupp Arena. He was a heck of a player, he’s a heck of a coach,” White said.