Mark Pope provides a postgame injury update on Amari Williams after exhibition victory

While there was plenty to like about Mark Pope’s Kentucky basketball team following their second and final exhibition tuneup, a 98-67 dispatching of Minnesota State Mankato — the reigning NCAA Division II champions — on Tuesday night.

But there was an injury scare for the Wildcats early in that contest.

By the time the first TV timeout occurred, one of UK’s most experienced players had hobbled off the floor and did not return to the game.

Fifth-year center Amari Williams — a transfer portal arrival this offseason from Drexel — exited after appearing to suffer a right knee injury.

The 7-foot Williams, who started for the Cats, logged only three minutes. He went straight to the UK locker room and didn’t return to the Kentucky bench during the first half.

But Williams reemerged with the rest of his teammates following the halftime break. He walked around the court during the light shooting that occurred prior to the second half but didn’t take part in any basketball activities.

Sophomore center Brandon Garrison started for UK to begin the second half.

After the game, Pope touched on Williams’ injury, with Kentucky’s regular-season opener against Wright State now six days away.

Here’s everything Pope said after the Wildcats completed exhibition play, including his update on Williams.

Everything Mark Pope said after UK basketball’s final exhibition win

Opening statement.

A good night for us. A really good night. So much of what we needed tonight. I was really happy with it. This Minnesota State team is defending national champs. I like the way they play. I like the way they approached the game. They traveled long and hard to get here.

And so, it was good for us to have that experience. There was some flow of the game that was disappointing to us. There were some numbers in the game that we were really really excited about and it’s another chance to grow. I’m proud of our guys.

Question about Andrew Carr and Brandon Garrison.

Andrew Carr is such a elite level decider. Like he’s really a capable decision maker. One, he’s 66% two-point shooter which is pretty incredible and he shot 38% from the three last year. So, he’s really wildly efficient at making shots. He makes shots. He stacks decisions. It’s something we saw in film from him last year at Wake Forest where he is turning the ball and someone jumps in the passing lane and he can actually stack a decision where he reads it correctly, gets downhill, gets to two feet, makes another ball fake, and then finally completes a pass or play.

There’s not that many guys his size with his ability to make shots and finish shots that can stack decisions like him. He’s really special. I think he’s really really difficult to guard as a scorer and playmaker. I think he’s good in both of those areas. I thought he had a real challenge defensively.

Sometimes when you are playing undersized teams that really shoot 1 through 4 and at times 1 through 5, you know, and he’s got to race around the floor and guard smaller guys. And I thought his attention to detail on the defensive end was really terrific tonight. It was much improved from his defensive performance was much improved from our first exhibition. I was really proud of him tonight.

Question about the pace that Kerr Kriisa plays with.

He’s such an infusion of energy, right? Which is such a beautiful thing. It was a little weird for us tonight. You know, we are getting initial thrust and stymie and our transition from that original thrust into our actions was a little weird.

We spent 20 minutes on the floor without one of our traditional five, which is such an important piece for us. And so that was a little weird. Man, he’s going to be really fun and he’s really dangerous. As we feel that space more, it’s going to be fun. It was really important to get him on the court tonight so he can just be out there under the lights.

Question about Amari Williams’ injury and Williams’ style of play.

It’s key for us and key for everything we do. We run a lot through our bigs. It’s really important. He’s got a really unique skill set. I think he’s doing fine. You know, I think X-rays came back solid. But we will get some more imaging tomorrow. We are hopeful he will be back soon.

Question about Kentucky’s offensive approach and Jaxson Robinson’s three-point shooting.

You know. I wasn’t really thrilled with us in the first half from the 3-point line. I felt like it was — it happens all the time. It happens to every team I’ve ever coached. You go bang 21 and you think, we’re just gonna — you know, its like everything in the supermarket is free. Just grab it and throw it in the bag. Right?

It’s not that we did a much better job as the game went on about earning shots for each other. There is a huge difference. It might be imperceptible difference when you just isolate shots. But how you earn those shots matter. The karma of this game matters. It is wildly important. I thought we did a much better job as the game went on. About just getting back to like, hey, let’s go work on this game and let’s go fight to earn each other great shots. There’s a big difference. I thought we were better as the game went on. That’s a huge part of what we do.

Jaxson has been playing for me this way for a long time and he’s pretty comfortable. Jaxson’s not shy either. Is he? He’s not shy at all.

Question about Mark Pope’s message to his team when 3-point shots aren’t falling.

It can vary. You know, the messaging was guys, these are not the shots that we take. Again. It’s very nuanced conversation. You know, we are going to go 2-for-13 in the first nine minutes sometimes from the 3-point line. when it is shots that we are earning and we’re going to keep shooting. It’s a beautiful way to play and what BBN is going to learn is like, OK, they are going to say it’s really hard right now but it’s coming. Like, it’s coming. And there will be suddenly be a barrage of — mayhem and chaos and chaos in the gym and we just know it’s coming. Like we train that way. We study that way. We work that way.

There’s two things we talk about. One is the way we earn those shots. And the second thing is probably, you know a place where I was really disappointed was our offensive rebounding work. Our commitment to the offensive glass. I think that was a residual - that’s an energy thing. When the game gets a little weird, like our rotation got weird. Amari’s deal got weird, it felt a little weird. Our thrust was so intense that our transition out of the thrust was weird. We just didn’t perform the way we expected to perform on the offensive glass. I think we finished with six offensive rebounds, which that’s not us at all. We missed 24 threes and we only came up with six offensive rebounds.

This is not how we play. So, we got a little weird there, but that’s what we focus on. is earning for each other with a great pace and then, really really being effective on the offensive glass.

Question about statistics that got Mark Pope excited from the game.

It’s a possessions game and it’s very important to us that we have more possessions. You think about our guys. Otega Oweh. He’s ever done this before. I’m pretty sure he was 6 0 tonight. That’s incredible, right? And Kerr Kriisa. First time under the lights was a 6 0 tonight. Lamont Butler, you know, came off 0 9 and was 5 1 tonight. Those numbers are great. Andrew Carr was a 3 0 which is absolutely terrific. We were excited about.

Collin Chandler elite level playing off two feet of a 3 0. And he was unbelievable getting downhill and playing off two feet. For a rookie to be a 3 0 guy. In a game that felt weird. There wasn’t a lot of rhythm in this game. So there’s a lot of weirdness.

And for us to be 28 and 8 in this game — under 10 turnovers — is super exciting to me. And nearing 30 assists is really important for us. I’m really ecstatic about those numbers. We held them to 39% from the field although we tried to get them to 40% in the second half but we held them to 39% and that’s our goal. We want to keep teams at 39% from the field. So we did that effectively. I’m really proud of that. There’s a lot of really good stuff tonight.

Question about what Mark Pope means when he says “the karma of this game matters.”

You guys have all been around the system. BBN knows this game. We know this game. We know what it’s feels like when there’s penetration and then you come to two feet and there is a kick and extra pass and extra pass and you follow the ball and you know where it’s going to end up. You know it’s going to end up in the corner because everybody made the right play. You know that ball is going in. And it goes in at some ridiculous, insane percentage of the time. And that’s the karma of the game.

That’s one example the karma of the game. When you play this game, right? The game rewards you. It just is. It’s a living breathing thing and it’s really special. It’s partly because our guys know it. You can feel it when you’re playing and on the floor and the ball is going right. The rare occasion you end up missing that shot, if you’re playing right, you end up getting the offensive rebound. That’s just the way this game is for the most part. I can give you 100 examples of karma, how it works, but when you play it right it honors you.

Question about Otega Oweh.

Listen. He’s got a calmness about him that’s really great and physicality of the game is really special and he could hurt you in a lot of different ways. He’s just got a consistency. What’s really been brilliant is watching him grow. His game is growing every single day.

He’s doing things more consistently than he’s ever done before in his life and that’s really exciting. He’s making a contribution in every possible way.

Question about Kentucky responding to adversity during exhibition play.

Yeah. It was really important for me. We were hoping we just needed to not feel right. But we just needed to be there where we didn’t feel quite right. The guys needed to understand how we lean into fixing it but not only did they do a decent job in the course of the last six minutes of the first half were incredibly solid for our guys, six or seven minutes. They did it by leaning into us.

Right? Leaning into what we do. We never really built a happy home there tonight. But at least we kinda fought to get back to that and leaning to us is like 100 different things. I was proud of that. That is something that we will be able to talk about and get back to and talk about the poor shooting and how that ended up and how the guys attacked and be a learning experience for us and that’s what we need because we are going to have so many times in the season where — you know, we are very much an energy team and very closely monitoring the energy of this game.

And so it was important for us to get a little weird. Game one was just so easy. Everything went right the whole night long and just for us to come to the sideline and feel a little bit of frustration was really important and so that will bode well for us moving forward. It’s a terrific team.

Also, super special, this is really important guys. So, these beautiful shoes. These are incredible. Right? These are our special edition courtesy of Mark Evans. I told you he was the best in Nike, the greatest shoe ever made. Nike. And these Book Ones might actually take over. This is some type of combination of — like Apple and Nike and everything good in the world. Right? Also, they have our record 34 and 2 in 1996, conveniently Book One is Chapter 1 which is very relevant to us. Super cool, even the sole has got the old logo — it’s fire.

Am I going to get in trouble for saying that? It’s also a very large shoe. I would hand it out but none of you could wear it.

Most importantly, Devin Booker is a superstar. If you think about Devin Booker came here and played on one of the all-time great teams of Kentucky. Never started a game. Play 20 minutes a game. On a great team that ran the table except one game and he was going to be the MVP in the NBA here this year or next year or the year after. It’s incredible. He’s a great ambassador of this game and certainly a great ambassador for Kentucky.

I thought that was pretty swaggy — I thought I would show you that. It felt good. Have a great night guys.

There were lessons to be learned in UK’s exhibition finale. For the players and the fans.

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