Otega Oweh knew he was back days before announcement: "We had to finish business (at Kentucky)."

Mark Pope was on a plane when he got the call from Otega Oweh at the draft withdrawal deadline, the star guard telling his head coach he would continue to be his head coach for one final season at Kentucky.

He doesn’t know how the call came through, but Pope was forced to juggle those emotions — anxious about the pilot throwing him out for talking on the phone and overjoyed Oweh decided to run it back in Lexington — on the fly (literally).

“Otega called me and said, ‘Coach, let’s do this. I’m coming back.’ I was looking around, said, ‘I think the pilot is about to throw me out the plane right now.’ So I was like, ‘Otega! I gotta call you back later, but just hold that thought!'” Pope said this past weekend. “Called him back (when we landed), he said he was coming back, tears down my face. I know how excited you are and how much you want to play in that league, the dream of a lifetime.

“It was super humbling to see you do two things — one, understand how much you want to get better and how committed you are to getting better and secondly, to see how much you understand and appreciate what you have right now. It’s special stuff, man.”

Little did Pope know, Oweh had already made his decision a few days before that phone call on the plane — and when fans found out a little later. He appreciated the genuine reaction, though, both sides equally thrilled and ready to get rolling in year two together.

“It was dope, because — being honest, almost like three days before or maybe two days before, I already knew what it was, so I was just waiting for the last workout to tell him,” Oweh said in his first sit-down with the media following his draft decision. “It was great just finally getting it off my chest, just having that moment with him, talking with him, and seeing the genuine excitement.”

It was a stress-free final week of workouts for Oweh following a productive pre-draft process that included an invite to the NBA Combine in Chicago. Meeting with teams and receiving both good and bad feedback on his game, the learning experience was one he’s grateful to have gone through.

It’ll help him in the short-term at Kentucky, obviously, but down the road this time next year and beyond as he pushes all of his chips in on the NBA.

“That’s been really fun, just traveling around the world and playing against top competition. Obviously, it’s everyone’s dream to play in the NBA, so to go through the process is really fun. I was just going out there competing,” Oweh said. “I was invited to the Combine and was able to go through that, so learning all the stuff I learned there, and then being able to come back, I feel like I could definitely use those type of things in my advantage.”

What are some of the things he learned about his game that he needs to work on as a senior in Lexington? A lot of it was mental — along with some of the little things like conditioning and stamina.

“At the next level, you have to be in really good shape,” he said. “Just continuing to work on that. And then, just mentality-wise, I feel like it’s not — it wasn’t just my only dream to play in the NBA, it was a lot of other guys’ who were there working out, too. The intensity that they’re playing with, I feel like you have to keep that every single day. … Continue with my playmaking, shooting, all those things.”

There were plenty of positive takeaways, too, teams telling him his knack for scoring and the edge he played with separated him from other guards in the current draft class.

“My intensity, my motor, my ability to just rack up points throughout the game, regardless of what it is,” he continued. “And then obviously, my defense. I got a lot of good grades, for sure. … Everyone said they liked my game and what I could bring to the table. Now it’s just continuing to get better at those things.”

Any disappointment about being close to making his NBA dreams come true, but maybe not close enough yet? Oweh actually doesn’t believe that to be the case from his perspective. In fact, the feedback was good enough to hear his name called in the draft if that was truly his top priority.

He just had more he knew he wanted to accomplish in Lexington first — and pulling that off would lead to his draft stock improving along the way.

“No, not at all — because I still could have gone,” Oweh said. “It was more like, I had one more year of eligibility and I wanted to try and do the things that maybe I didn’t get to complete last year — which was win a national championship. I feel like either way, either decision I would have picked, I low-key would have been thinking about the other one because, like I said, I have one more year of eligibility and I feel like we still have so much more to complete here.”

Oweh went through the process and heard teams out on where he’d be selected. It was great feedback, but not enough to take his eyes off the prize at Kentucky.

At the end of the day, it was the unfinished business that brought him back.

“If I have one more year, then I can just go back and improve that stock. And on top of that, if I go back and we win the whole thing, everyone wins,” he said. “That was kind of the biggest thing for me. It just really felt like we had to finish business.”

Next up: banner No. 9 for Kentucky.