'This is pretty sick': Colgate's Parker Jones dreamed of playing against a team like Kentucky

Colgate has made four consecutive NCAA Tournaments and returned nearly 50 percent of its scoring from last season. Despite some overall inexperience and a slow start, this group of Raiders wasn’t going to be stunned by the bright lights of Rupp Arena — although it looked like it early on Wednesday night.

Colgate went down into a 17-0 hole from the jump against Kentucky. But the Raiders soon found a rhythm thanks to a 2-3 zone defense that stymied the Wildcats’ offense. Head coach Matt Langel said postgame that the plan all along was to go zone, but only on made baskets. Colgate didn’t score for nearly the first seven minutes of the game. They found a groove once they did and had the Big Blue Nation sweating under the very end.

Kentucky still came out with the win, 78-67. It certainly wasn’t pretty though for Mark Pope‘s team. Colgate sophomore Parker Jones and company made it tough on the Wildcats. It was a two-point game at the half. Jones dropped a team-high 17 points on 6-9 shooting (4-7 3PT) to go along with six rebounds. He’s played in similar environments before, having gone to Arizona as a freshman in 2023-24.

But the opportunity to perform (and perform well) inside a building as historic and famous as Rupp Arena was a different kind of special for the California native.

“First of all, this is pretty sick. I’ve never been in a press conference, so this is just kinda high-level for me,” Jones told the media postgame. “So I’m sorry if my answer isn’t top-level but, coming back in from halftime, I think we were all super ecstatic.

“I mean when you play a team like Kentucky — at least personally, I dreamed of it. In my backyard thinking about, ‘Parker Jones subs in, he hits a three!’, like all this stuff that I think about in my head. I don’t know, just being in this environment was really cool and kind of surreal.“

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kentucky Sports Radio (@ksr_ig)

It’s not often you see raw emotion in a postgame press conference during a random non-conference game in mid-December. The majority of college basketball players will never have the chance to go up against a team like Kentucky in a gym like Rupp Arena. Jones wasn’t going to pretend it wasn’t a big deal that he’s now in the minority.

Just a cool, humanizing moment from a kid who loves basketball.