WATCH: Mark Pope, Kentucky players recap 82-61 Vanderbilt win

Kentucky got back in the win column Wednesday thanks to an 82-61 victory over the Vanderbilt Commodores at Rupp Arena.

After the Wildcats’ much-needed victory, head coach Mark Pope spoke with reporters to break down the action. He touched on Collin Chandler‘s breakout performance, Amari Williams‘ ultra-aggressive approach, his team’s overall defense, and much more. After he wrapped up his 14-minute press conference, Chandler, Williams, and Andrew Carr took their turns to answer questions from the media.

Dive into everything Pope and the players had to say below.

Mark Pope post-Vanderbilt press conference

Collin Chandler, Amari Williams, and Andrew Carr

Mark Pope Transcript

MARK POPE: Man, this Vanderbilt team is doing an unbelievable job.  You know, they were picked preseason, I think, last or close to last.  They are just playing hard and executing well and the pieces fit together well.  Mark is doing an incredible job coaching them.  They beat us at their place.  Yeah, this was a great response by our guys. I’m really incredibly proud of our guys.  We are learning as fast as we can with this new roster.  We’ve got a bunch of guys stepping up and I thought they did a great job.  Before we move on.  I hate asking people for things, but I’m going to do it because it’s just so important.  I’m going to say this out here and then in the radio show.  Giving supplies and giving donations of cash to the people of Eastern Kentucky is really important right now.  The website is UKathletics.com/floodrelief.  I have been in contact with governor Beshear several times.

And then Ansley comes off the bench and goes three for five.  I mean, he just doesn’t skip a beat.  It’s a really beautiful thing to have guys on your team like Ansley Almonor that are just doing whatever it takes and playing elite level basketball, again, like he did tonight.  I’m happy for both those guys.  

Q Coach, right over here.  First man off the bench was Collin Chandler.  I’m assuming maybe he did something different in practice.  What was it that you saw from him the last couple of days to make him perform the way he does?  Seven points, six rebounds, stuff like that.  

MARK POPE: I thought Collin gave us a massive boost tonight energy wise.  You know, he is a two-two-two guy.  Two assists, two turnovers, two steals.  Right?  Just the energy and intensity.  Collin has a really special burst.  Collin Chandler, you know, we talk about these bamboo trees.  You guys know the deal about these bamboo trees.  So, if you think about a bamboo forest.  I think the Guinness Book of World Records is 36 inches in a day.  I think 35 inches in a day.  What happens is they grow over time and they grow these massive networks of roots and they grow and grow and grow and you don’t see it.  Right?  And all of a sudden, they shoot up out of the ground and they are growing almost a yard a day which is almost incomprehensible.  That’s a little bit of Collin Chandler.  He’s been growing big time roots.  The plays he’s made today, he’s been making in practice.  He is going to help us in a huge way as we move down the stretch.  I was really proud of him tonight.  

Q Mark, Amari Williams, what kind of tone does he set with his physicality especially in the second half like he had?  

MARK POPE: Amari decided he wasn’t passing the ball tonight.  But that was the only thing.  I mean, guys, we are witnessing and seeing all of these metrics right now where Amari is top five all time in the SEC in terms of PAR per 40 minutes.  Top five all time.  Like that’s insane what we are witnessing him do. He is a unique player and he’s just getting more and more confident and more and more comfortable.  He’s getting more conflict around the rim where he’s, you know, he was not unstoppable at the rim early in the season because he would get rushed.  Right?  Now he’s like, Yep, I’m just going to go to work down here and I’m going to get to two feet and I thought he was brilliant tonight.  To the point to where he’s making some tough shots.  That last kind of jump hook he made over his right shoulder from like eight or nine feet was, that was a world-class play and he’s making it look easy.  You know, we’re in the process of witnessing just an incredible analytic guy right now in terms of what he’s doing.  It’s fun to coach him.  Man, I’m really proud of him.  He’s grown so much and he’s taken on so much and he’s like, give me more, give me more, let’s keep getting better.  

Q Mark, you talked about maneuvering with this new roster.  I know you guys had a lot of confidence between the teams you’ve already beaten.  But this group of guys, how much confidence does that give them to beat a tournament caliber team by 20+ points?  

MARK POPE: We are a work in progress.  It’s a brand-new season, right?  I think it will give them a lot of confidence.  You know, what was fun is we had such huge contributions from everybody.  This was a team that beat us down there and this is a really good team, this is a team that we respect a lot.  This is a team that poses real problems for us.  They did what they do.  You know, 99 is still banging threes and that’s problematic for us.  You know, 30 made his first three in nine games.  But I thought our guys were really talented.  I thought Otega Oweh was unbelievable tonight on both sides of the ball. He continues, you talk about guys that are putting together special seasons.  My goodness, Otega Oweh was spectacular tonight.  I think it should give our guys a lot of confidence and we needed, you know I’m happy for our guys that they get this little injection of energy.  Right?  Positive energy, like okay, we’ve got a brand-new team.  Game one.  We played well but we didn’t finish the way we wanted to.  Game two we played really well.  Now we’ve got the epic challenge of all challenges going to Alabama and seeing if we can deal with that insanity down there and it’s going to be fun and it’s fun to grow this group.  

Q Do you think this team played physically and mentally tough after watching the US Canada matchup?  

MARK POPE: We didn’t actually show that because I was worried some of our guys might take it a little too literally.  But we thought about it, we really thought about it.  It was pretty incredible.  

Q Mark, you held Vandy to 21 points in the second half. Back in the olden days, they used to say that defense wins championships.  That may not be the case nowadays.  How much do you think your team has actually improved on the defensive and from the beginning of the year and how much more room is therefore improvement?  

MARK POPE: Well, there’s a lot of room for improvement because we’re not great.  We are getting better.  With this new group, we’re getting better.  I thought Travis Perry had a really really hard job tonight.  I thought he stood in there admirably.  I’m talking about on the defensive end.  And 21 Chandler I thought was really really good on the defensive end and he has a ton of room to grow but he’s able to catch and move from time to time.  You guys think about this.  I have Trent Noah.  I know Trent didn’t make any shots tonight but I have Trent Noah guarding Jason Edwards, their leading scorer, a microwave score, a like 5 foot 11 jet guard for 4 to 5 minute stretches during the course of this game.  If you would have asked me at the beginning of the season if that was going to be the game plan I would have said, no, never.  But, it’s been forced on us and these guys are stepping up into doing it.  I thought Trent Noah gave us a really special defensive effort, I thought he was really great.  And Koby Brea, you know, I mean, Koby Brea is all bloodied, you know he got popped in the mouth.  He took a little slight Texas defensive vacation, but he was back to his former self defensively tonight.  I thought that was really special getting hands on balls.  You know, Otega Oweh is the ringleader.  We’re getting better defensively.  We’re understanding ourselves better.  We are communicating better, we are locked in together a little better. I thought the guys had a terrific defensive performance in the second half.  

Q Mark, staying on defense with Jaxson and Lamont out.  What is kind of the biggest challenge for you in coming up with game plans?  

MARK POPE: Well, the point of attack is the biggest thing.  Lamont was such a, he’s, Lamont is a really special point of attack defender.  So, we can’t replace that.  That’s just a massive challenge for us to try to figure out.  And then, you know, when Lamont was out, Jax became our point of attack defender and he was pretty functional.  He was putting together great performances.  So, losing the point of attack defender has been super complicated.  And then what happens is, because you lose that defender it pushes everybody up the scale a notch.  So, you don’t only lose that one spot, now your match ups are all, you know we were looking at the matchups.  We spent a lot of time as a staff arguing.  By the way, huge kudos to coach Alvin Brooks and Jason Hart who put together the scout today.  They are doing an unbelievable job.  They deserve a ton of credit.  But we spent more time than we should have arguing about matchups.  Like, how are we going to match up with these guys on the perimeter?  So, losing those guys, that’s the biggest thing of the point of attack play and the kind of bettering understanding how defense works together.  If and when we get them back, we’re going to be better.  They are going to come back to a better group and we are actually going to be functioning at a higher level.  

Q Mark, to circle back to Collin for a second.  I know he had a bit more of a unique off-season and some other guys and you are familiar with the return to play process.  You’ve done that at BYU many times before. But just for him to have a night like tonight, the personal gratification that only gives him, but also for you and your coaching staff to know that the process was followed and he can produce something like this.  Can you just speak to that and what that might portend for him going in the future?  

MARK POPE: Yeah, Collin and I talk a lot.  He’s a really really special young man.  My goodness, you know, he’s as good as they come as a human being.  The conversation we kept having was we know exactly where he’s going to end up.  He’s an incredibly special talent.  Like he’s a really special talent.  We know where he’s going to end up.  It’s just a matter of like, we don’t know how the zigzag path is going to get you there.  Right?  And he’s been working so hard to come and fresh every day.  It’s been really fun to watch these three freshmen.  Because they’ve all been had the whole world thrust upon them and they’d all responded, right, at different places of the season.  I think it bodes well for where we’re going.  Collin Chandler has a skill set that’s unique to our team.  We get all of our guys back or not; he still has a space on this team this year.  The more comfortable he gets on the floor where he can do some things on the court that are unique for us that are going to be really impactful.  He can be a guy that you watch down the stretch once we get to tournament play that is a difference maker. 

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