* What Nate Oats has done at Alabama is incredible. Their program is in a great position, playing a fun style of basketball. Tough to prepare for. Every team in this league is like that in terms of preparation. This is our third straight Top 15 team at Rupp, first time that’s ever happened. Alabama is playing so fast. After your makes is when they really punish you. You might be celebrating your score, and they’ve already come back and scored on their end before you know it. Another team that’s good at offensive rebounding. Great, right? (Smiles) You know they shoot the 3s a lot, but they’re among the leaders in 2P%
* Not really surprised by what’s happening in the SEC from night to night. Seems like everyone is ranked.
* On Andrew Carr’s back… Next week there is a full week between games, so hoping that’s a chance for him to get back closer to 100%. For right now, he’s not going to be practicing. It’s not ideal, but he’s a high-IQ guy and knows what to do when he gets out there. We are confident, though, that he’s going to improve.
* On playing chess with Collin Chandler… I’m terrified of him. He lets you control the board, then all the sudden it goes really, really bad really, really fast. I don’t like it at all. (Laughs) Says they need to do a pay per view on it. Likes doing non-basketball things with the players from time to time. Thinks it’s important for players to be doing stuff like that together to create the synergy you need on the court.
* On Lamont Butler after taking a beating on Tuesday night… He’s a winner. We’ve been saying that all along, but now we’re really seeing it. He’s going to keep battling. Probably not the end of him getting beat up.
* League play has been a lot of fun, even the “Georgia disaster.” Taught us what we needed to do to play Mississippi State and Texas A&M. I’ve said it before, but I feel bad fore everyone who’s not getting to play in the SEC.
* On pace and wanting to avoid the gritty, slow-paced games… There’s beauty in every style of play. Loved watching their rebounding “autopsy” review film from A&M. It was awesome. Just as fun as watching the fast-break stuff. “I love it all.” Thinks the team is inspired by its growth in being able to win in a different way.
* Asked if he would expect this to be a high-scoring game, Pope says he thinks both teams will want to keep it as fast as possible. This could be a breakneck game, but sometimes you don’t know for sure until you get into the game. Every game takes on a life of its own.
* Asked to elaborate on their “autopsy” reviews of games, Pope says the first thing they do is focus on what they did well and show it over and over to reinforce those aspects. Sometimes in coaching you can almost gloss over those things and just focus on the problems, but it’s important to show why things were working well. And on the problem areas, they’ll get two different clips of them to show how it looks when it’s right compared to how it looks when it went wrong.
* Why the term “autopsy?” Usually that means someone died… (Laughs) Because we want to take everything from that game, bury it, and move on.
* On having veterans who are still learners… Humility is so important. It’s DNA for our team. A lot of people think confidence and humility are polar opposites, but they’re not. Arrogance and humility are, but not confidence. Confident people can be humble and know they can still get better. We’ve made huge progress in that.
