Mark Pope says Kentucky starting to 'earn' their confidence

The Kentucky Wildcats were on the road once again on Saturday as they headed to Knoxville to take on the rival #24 Tennessee Volunteers. Once again, it was another game that saw Kentucky dig themselves a big first half hole, and their confidence in them never wavered. The Wildcats were down by as much as 17 in the first half, before using yet another second-half comeback for a win.

In the last two games before facing Tennessee, Kentucky faced big first-half deficits, and still came out with big comeback wins thanks to their impressive team mindset. Throughout the season, this Kentucky team has faced a lot of hardships, including criticism from their own fans. But, in the last three games, they have turned it all into confidence. Even despite continuing to come out to slow starts, the Wildcats are not giving up. Head coach Mark Pope talked after the game about how as a team, you have to take all of the hardships and turn it into confidence, and that's exactly what this team continues to do.

"I think you have to earn confidence. You don't just get it, you have to earn it," Pope said after Kentucky's 80-78 win at Tennessee. "You got to go do the gritty, hard, miserable work of earning confidence. And you have to take the heat and take the hate, and these guys, all of us, have had a lot of stuff cast on us, for sure, and you got to look it straight in the eye and go earn it." Pope then added that his team continuing to have better second-half play provides him with plenty of confidence in his guys to get it done. "I'm breathing a little bit more in the first half because they've given me so much confidence about what they do in the second half. ...We we actually felt great going to halftime down 11. It's first time we've only been down 11 in like, a month, right? So it feels like we won the first half, which is weird, but it's the Kentucky way right now. ..."It gives you so much confidence as a group that you can walk in the locker room and nobody's sideways, like, Yep, this is what we do, and we'll come out and win the second half. And these guys have proved to do it, man. What it says about these guys resilience and toughness--I hope nobody's missing it."

Kentucky did just that for their third-straight game involving a major comeback. After going down as much as 17 points in the first half, then taking an 11-point deficit into halftime, the Wildcats climbed back, staying with the Volunteers closely in the last 10 minutes of the game, before taking their first lead of the game with 34 seconds left and escaping with the massive comeback win. Massive is really an understatement, but it is, because Kentucky desperately needs as many quality wins as they can get for their NCAA Tournament hopes, and now, they have picked up their second-straight Quad 1 win. The Wildcats used big second-halves from multiple players, including Mo Dioubate comig up huge on the glass, and Otega Oweh with his scoring, but especially so for Denzel Aberdeen who had 18 of his 22 points in the final half.

Now, Kentucky has two big resume wins under their belt as they get ready to continue what is seen as the toughest remaining schedule in college basketball.