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Mark Pope has Andrew Carr deliver opening message of Kentucky's post-Duke press conference

On3 imageby: Andrew Graham11/13/24AndrewEdGraham
NCAA Basketball: Bucknell at Kentucky
Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

Following his third win as the Kentucky head coach and easily the biggest yet with a victory over Top 10-ranked Duke, Mark Pope zigged where others might zag. Rather than beginning his postgame press conference with his own remarks, he let one of his players, Andrew Carr, open things up.

It’s a practice that Pope apparently often deployed at his previous stop, BYU, and one he evidently looks to bring to his alma mater. And it was a chance for Carr to take the pedestal after Kentucky picked up a monumental win early in the season.

“All the fans, Kentucky fans that were able to show out tonight, it was an incredible atmosphere. It’s called Catlanta for a reason and it was really special for us out there and then also, just an unbelievable game. It was a true team effort and I felt like it was really special for us,” Carr said.

He continued, explaining how the message of togetherness that Pope instilled in the team steeled them for a second-half comeback.

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At the half, Kentucky trailed by nine points and the offense was not so much the problem, as the Wildcats scored 37 but gave up 46 in the first frame. In the second half? Duke scored just 26 points as Kentucky outscored its opponent 40-26 to pull ahead and win a big early season test.

“Not everything was going our way, especially in the first half and coming in at halftime and coach always talks about just turning in to each other and the people that matter, the people in the locker room,” Carr said. “And the closer we get, it’s harder and harder to break us. So I felt like we did an unbelievable job of being resilient tonight and then really special way to come out with the win and Otega [Oweh] made an unbelievable play at the end of the game to kind of seal it with the offensive rebound. Again, shoutout to the UK fans and appreciate it.”