Mark Story: At last, Mark Pope had his whole roster -- and the Kentucky coach looked a lot wiser

Mark Story, Lexington Herald-Leader on Dec 20, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

ATLANTA — Until early Saturday afternoon, second-guessing Mark Pope had been the predominant activity of the 2025-26 Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball season.

With the Wildcats starting the season 0-4 in games vs. ranked opponents — and looking bad in doing so — the UK coach’s roster construction, how he had deployed the ample financial resources at his disposal in building his team and his overall fitness to be the coach at Kentucky had all fallen under scrutiny.

Then, in the second half of the final marquee non-conference, regular season game of the UK season, something both remarkable and completely unsurprising occurred.

In half two of UK’s CBS Sports Classic matchup with No. 22 St. John’s, Kentucky had its full roster available to Pope for the first time this season.

Suddenly, the UK head man’s coaching started looking a whole lot wiser.

Getting big lifts from the previously injured Jayden Quaintance and Jaland Lowe, Kentucky (8-4, 0-0 SEC) rallied from 32-25 down at halftime to record a 78-66 win over St. John’s (7-4, 1-0 Big East) before a heavily pro-UK crowd at the State Farm Arena.

Quaintance, appearing for the first time in a Wildcat uniform since returning from a torn ACL he suffered last February playing for Arizona State, finished with 10 points, eight rebounds and two blocked shots in 17 minutes.

“He came in with a ton of courage,” Pope said. “You come back from an injury like that, and there’s a lot of room for you to question things. But JQ is just bold and brave and fearless to the point where it makes me nervous, but (what he did) was pretty special.”

Lowe played all of seven seconds of the first half Saturday before leaving after appearing to re-aggravate the right shoulder injury that had limited him to six game appearances prior to St. John’s.

Without Lowe, UK turned in another in what has been a season filled with dysfunctional offensive showings against top-level competition.

However, when Kentucky came back out of the locker room to start half two, Lowe bounded out onto the playing court and began to work on drills that appeared to be testing the strength of his heavily-braced shoulder.

He then returned to score 13 points and dole out three assists after halftime while leading a massive UK comeback.

“You saw the impact that he can have on our team,” Pope said of Lowe. “I mean, you saw one half without (Lowe) on our team and one with. I’m voting for the half with, because he just changed the action.”

With both Lowe and Quaintance — considered two of UK’s top three players in the preseason along with returnee Otega Oweh — Kentucky played its best half of basketball this season against former Wildcat coach Rick Pitino’s Red Storm.

Quaintance gave UK a presence at the rim on both ends of the court it has not consistently had this season. At one point in the second half, he bulled his way with the ball from the foul line to the goal, then dropped it in to score. At another point, he scored on a cuff dunk off a follow shot.

“I felt great. I felt like my condition was good,” Quaintance said. “I felt good on the court. I felt like if I was able to have time to shine, I felt like I’d make it my moment. I feel like I did that tonight.”

Lowe may not be the best point guard in men’s college hoops, but he likely is the most indispensable.

“(Kentucky is) a totally different basketball team when he’s on the court,” Pitino said of Lowe.

With Quaintance anchoring the interior and Lowe running the point, UK’s component parts suddenly started to “fit.”

Oweh, who had a team-high 20 points and five rebounds, at last had some room to operate on the wings.

Tulane transfer Kam Williams — brought in to hit 3-point shots but 5 of 28 on treys prior to Saturday — got the ball from Lowe in rhythm and hit a couple of 3s en route to 11 points.

In the second half, you could at last envision Kentucky building something this season by playing complementary basketball.

Part of that was the UK defense. Continuing what began in a gritty comeback win over Indiana at Rupp Arena last Saturday, Kentucky held St. John’s to 17-of-51 shooting.

Pitino praised Pope, a big man on Ricky P.’s 1996 NCAA title team at Kentucky, for making an in-season adjustment in how the current Cats are playing.

“I think Mark did a brilliant thing. You know, he came in to this season thinking he had this great shooting team, and it’s obvious that it’s probably just an average shooting team,” Pitino said. “So he said, ‘I’m changing the whole mindset. We’re going to be a physical team. We’re going to be a tough team.’ It was brilliant.”

It was certainly striking how much wiser Mark Pope’s coaching looked Saturday in the second half — when he finally had all his most talented players on the court together.

____