This year’s Kentucky basketball team looked a lot like its old self on Wednesday at Oklahoma, as Lamont Butler and Jaxson Robinson made their return, and Kentucky fought to get an 83-82 win. It was great to have them back, but Mark Pope was dealt with a lot of different circumstances throughout the game.
Pope was asked about all of the things that happened throughout the game, which he referred to as ‘weirdness.’ Not only were Butler and Robinson welcomed back into the rotation, but the Wildcats were faced with a lot of foul trouble, including Bulter fouling out late in the game, as well as Robinson not returning in the second half at all after he appeared to re-injure his wrist. That really affected the flow of Kentucky all night, but that didn’t stop them from overcoming it to get the win.
The head coach talked about all of that after Kentucky’s clutch 83-82 win on the road in Norman.
“There was a lot of weirdness going into this game. We had really a roster transformation with (Lamont Butler and Jaxson Robinson) coming back, because then have two guys that are probably going out of the rotation from starting spots, and then there were other changes. (Their) first game back, health, and then the foul issues.
“We were in foul trouble, both bigs in foul trouble early in the game, and then Lamont fouled out. It was just all this stuff. We talked about this at shootaround, and we talked about it before the game, that this had all of the makings of a first round NCAA (Tournament) game
“All of the makings, all of the weirdness. There was weirdness with (Otega Oweh, Brandon Garrison, Jaxson Robinson) coming back home, it was a late start, we had this roster turnover, it was a really different environment in this gym. I thought the guys were terrific in anticipation of frustration.”
Through all of that weirdness, Kentucky responded really well in the second half, especially late to get the really clutch win behind Otega Oweh’s 28 points (23 in the second half), which included a game winning layup after a huge block by he and Brandon Garrison.
