Mark Pope has gone from terrified to terrifying.
Pope, who called the challenge of completely rebuilding Kentucky’s roster in his first year at his alma mater “terrifying” but “an incredible opportunity,” coached the third-seeded Wildcats to an 84-75 win over sixth-seeded Illinois in the Midwest Region, sending the program to its first Sweet Sixteen since 2019.
Koby Brea scored 23 points and a ball-hawking defense made 14 steals as the Wildcats advanced to face Tennessee in Indianapolis on Friday.
Kentucky beat the Volunteers twice this season during SEC play.
“From day one, our focus was winning a national championship,” said 6-foot-2 senior guard Lamont Butler, a transfer from San Diego State. “So, any way possible we are going to do that. The expectation here at Kentucky is to win. And we got a bunch of winners here and we want to continue that tradition.”
Sunday in Milwaukee, they took the next step in impressive fashion.
Otega Oweh, a 6-foot-4 junior wing, scored 15 points and Butler, playing with an injured shoulder and ankle, added 14. Kentucky scored an eye-popping 26 points off Illini turnovers, with much of its defensive pressure starting with Butler.
“Lamont Butler is spending his whole lifetime talking about what he makes happen, and that’s a champion’s heart,” Pope said. “And he doesn’t spend any time talking about what happened to him. He talks about all the stuff he makes happen. When you have a guy like that leading your crew like that, it’s pretty special.”
The last eight minutes of the first half gave Illinois hope. The first eight of the second saw Kentucky snatch it away.
Leading 37-32 at halftime, the Wildcats opened the second half with a 10-0 run, seizing control of the game. UK outscored Illinois 18-7 in the first 5:11 after halftime, coming up with three takeaways in that stretch.
“We opened the half with turnovers,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said. “You can’t give a team 26 points after turnovers. They turned it over five (times). You just can’t do that in this type of game and expect to win.”
Illinois cut it to 74-68 with 1:36 to play, but that would be as close as it could get.
While former Kentucky coaches John Calipari and Rick Pitino dominated Saturday’s headlines — with Calipari’s Arkansas squad advancing over Pitino and St. John’s — Pope stole the show Sunday.
And he did it with a remade roster in a pressure-filled job that can be a monster.
“It’s a terrifying process, especially as a first-year coach,” Pope, who won an NCAA title as a player at UK in 1996, said during the week. “It’s an incredible opportunity also. The terrifying part is that you have zero players on your roster and you’re expected to go win huge. The exciting part is that you get to start from scratch and kind of really hand-select every single piece to try and fit together, and so there’s no – you’re not forcing any square pegs into round holes.”
None of the players who took the floor in last season’’s stunning first-round loss to 14th-seeded Oakland — what turned out to be Calipari’s final game at Kentucky — returned. Pope restocked with additions from the transfer portal, including seven players with experience in the NCAA Tournament.
The Wildcats promptly won 10 of their first 11 games, including wins over ranked foes Duke and Gonzaga. The lone defeat was 70-66 at Clemson. Pope had put together a squad with talent and experience — and more than a touch of hunger for postseason success.
As the season went on, it developed deeper on-court chemistry.
That is starting to show, and at the right time.
“The game is so taxing and the season is so taxing. Everything that all these players, our team, Illinois, everybody goes through, it’s so taxing,” Pope said. “Our guys find strength in each other. There were a couple of well-executed plays, but mostly it was our energy that our guys brought into the beginning of the second half and their intensity that was really important.”
The Wildcats blitzed Troy 76-57 in the first round, forcing 11 turnovers and running away with the game in the second half. They followed a similar script Sunday – serving notice that they, once again, are a team to be feared.
“We fight for one another,” said Amari Williams, a 6-foot-10 senior transfer from Drexel. “We play ‘together basketball.’ I feel like we gelled a lot throughout the year, even from the first time we were seeing each other in June. Just knowing that and knowing how together we are, that’s really the reason why we made that possible.”
