Pope loved his team's focus after things got "salty"

It is safe to say Mark Pope is probably more of a lover than a fighter. He’s more of an inspirational quote kind of guy rather than a trash-talker. In fact, he’s the type of man to buy everyone ice cream after a fight. So when Big Blue Nation witnessed the first on-court skirmish of the Mark Pope era, you couldn’t help but wonder how the new head coach would respond. In a very Mark Pope fashion, one of his first thoughts was about his wife, Lee Anne.

When asked about running onto the court immediately following the Clash Peters flagrant foul, Pope said his first thought when he ran onto the court was to remove players from the fray. His second was, “Where is Lee Anne?” thinking she’d run out into the melee too.

Considering security was probably holding Mrs. Pope back, Mr. Pope went on to rave about how the incident made his team regain its focus and didn’t let it turn into a distraction. “As an athlete, as a performer, that’s really what you are, especially the way we play which is so mentally demanding, you can’t get too carried away emotionally. You’ve got to channel it back to focus.”

Focus they did. Kentucky went on a 44-23 run after a renewed sense of focus lit a fire under them that hadn’t been there in the second half until that point.

Not only did Pope tell the media about his team’s focus after the incident that led to a flurry of technical fouls, he told the players in the moment. Jackson Robinson told reporters after the game, “We got into the huddle and [Coach Pope] told us we just need to focus on ourselves and not worry about what they have going on.”

Robinson continued, “The scuffle kinda got us going in the second half. Hopefully, it doesn’t take a scuffle for us to play that way, but I think it shows how much fight we have, how much grit we have, and determination.”

Pope also talked about how the kerfuffle brought the team together. “When things got salty, our guys leaned into each other. They looked at each other. They made eye contact with each other. They talked to each other. They were backing each other up. And that’s what you want from a team.” That camaraderie lasted all the way into the locker room. “The guys said it felt good to know we are all in this together.”

Look, I’m not as smooth of a wordsmith as Mark Pope and will never be able to match his level of positive spin on things, so let me summarize: Kentucky got in a fight that made them play ticked off, and it was awesome.