Uh oh, Mark Pope just compared this Kentucky team to the 1996 team

It’s hard not to get carried away after Kentucky’s 78-65 win over Purdue. Sure, it was just an exhibition, but the Cats ran the No. 1 Boilermakers off the floor — without their starting point guard Jaland Lowe and projected top 10 draft pick Jayden Quaintance. Mark Pope was careful to say that this team has a long way to go, but you could hear in his voice how special he thinks this group could be — to the point he dropped a 1996 team comparison.

Before you go put on your denim, some context. Ten Wildcats played more than 15 minutes tonight, with just four playing 20 or more (Denzel Aberdeen, Trent Noah, Andrija Jelavic, and Malachi Moreno). Pope was asked how he would distribute minutes once Lowe and Quaintance join the fold. Lowe is expected to be back in a few weeks, while Quaintance’s timeline is longer, likely by the time Kentucky starts conference play. Pope said that he plans to use Kentucky’s insane depth to push the pace even harder.

“I actually didn’t think we played as hard consistently as we can,” Pope said. “This Purdue team is great. They’re the No. 1 team in the country, and they’re going to be unbelievable, and they’re on the road. And none of us has even installed most of what we do yet. So there are all those things. But they didn’t shoot the ball particularly well tonight, and I’m hoping that part of it was just that there was somewhat of a relentless pressure and pace to the game, and so I actually felt like we didn’t play as hard as we’re going to have to play to win consistently.

“So I kind of was looking at the bench being like, I need fresh bodies. So, we’ll continue to work on our conditioning. But it’s a matter of like, how hard can how much pressure can we exert on this game every single second of the game? And that will help us defensively. It will help us offensively, because it breaks open things, just the fatigue and the unrelenting pressure.”

Kentucky rotated three and even four players in on occasion tonight. It’s not quite a platoon, but the Cats clearly used their depth as a weapon to wear the Boilermakers out. Kentucky had 15 fastbreak points to Purdue’s five, while still outscoring them by ten in the paint and outrebounding them 42-30.

Kentucky was able to win big against a veteran team, ranked No. 1 in the country, while Pope experimented with lineup combinations and substitutions. Maybe that’s why Pope brought up the 1996 team — which celebrates the 30th anniversary of its national championship this season.

“I was sitting in the office with Lee [Anne] just after I met with the team, and just looking at the box score, and I was like, ‘Man, this feels like my ’96 team in terms of this point distribution. Can you do that in ’25, ’26? Like, can we actually pull it off where we have guys who care so much about each other and so much about Kentucky that they’re willing to do this? We’re going to see. But if we can do it, it’s a really fun way to play. Man, it’s pretty special.”

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