Mark Pope’s Kentucky basketball squad picked up a valuable SEC win on Wednesday night inside Rupp Arena.

Without a trio of injured fifth-year guards, UK used a strong second-half defensive performance to coast past Vanderbilt 82-61 in Lexington.

The Wildcats got major contributions, as usual, from junior guard Otega Oweh (20 points) and fifth-year center Amari Williams (17 points and six rebounds). But the Cats also got a welcomed surprise from freshman guard Collin Chandler, who had a career night with seven points, six rebounds and two steals.

Now 18-8 overall and 7-6 in SEC play, UK is back in the win column ahead of an arduous task on Saturday night: UK is set to travel to play No. 4 Alabama, with the Crimson Tide fresh off a terrible defensive showing in a loss at No. 15 Missouri, also on Wednesday night.

But before the renewal of another “chess match” between Pope and Nate Oats, there was plenty for Pope to dissect from UK’s win over Vanderbilt.

Here’s everything that Pope said after Kentucky got back in the win column against the Commodores.

Opening statement

Man, this Vanderbilt team is doing an unbelievable job. You know, they were picked preseason, I think, last or close to last. They are just playing hard and executing well and the pieces fit together well. Mark (Byington) is doing an incredible job coaching them.

They beat us at their place. Yeah, this was a great response by our guys. I’m really incredibly proud of our guys. We are learning as fast as we can with this new roster. We’ve got a bunch of guys stepping up and I thought they did a great job.

Before we move on, I hate asking people for things, but I’m going to do it because it’s just so important. I’m going to say this out here and then in the radio show. Giving supplies and giving donations of cash to the people of Eastern Kentucky is really important right now. The website is UKathletics.com/floodrelief…

Question about Andrew Carr returning to full health and what it does for Kentucky.

It means a lot. For the last month we’ve felt like we’ve been without three of our leaders in Lamont (Butler), Jaxson (Robinson) and Andrew. He’s been working so hard to find his way back. I thought he was brilliant, he really did look like his old physical, attacking self. The last two days were the first time where he had back-to-back, essentially, full practices. I think he felt much better jumping back into the starting lineup.

I thought he was really, really good tonight. We all know this Andrew Carr that performed tonight against a really imposing frontline. This is a terrific defensive team. This is a really special Vanderbilt defensive team, and I thought he was terrific. And I also want to give some major, major kudos to Ansley Almonor. I talked to Ansley yesterday, told him that I was going to start Andrew. And Ansley, he’s been playing incredible basketball, he’s one of the most lethal shooters in our league.

He’s also been fighting like crazy and he was like, ‘Coach, let’s go man. If this can help Andrew, let’s go.’

And then Ansley comes off the bench and goes 3-for-5. I mean, he just doesn’t skip a beat. It’s a really beautiful thing to have guys on your team like Ansley Almonor that are just doing whatever it takes and playing elite level basketball, again, like he did tonight. I’m happy for both those guys.

Question about what Collin Chandler showed in practice before his big game.

I thought Collin gave us a massive boost tonight energy-wise. You know, he is a two-two-two guy. Two assists, two turnovers, two steals. Right? Just the energy and intensity.

Collin has a really special burst. Collin Chandler, you know, we talk about these bamboo trees. You guys know the deal about these bamboo trees. So, if you think about a bamboo forest. I think the Guinness Book of World Records is 36 inches in a day. I think 35 inches in a day. What happens is they grow over time and they grow these massive networks of roots and they grow and grow and grow and you don’t see it. Right?

And all of a sudden, they shoot up out of the ground and they are growing almost a yard a day which is almost incomprehensible. That’s a little bit of Collin Chandler. He’s been growing big time roots. The plays he’s made today, he’s been making in practice. He is going to help us in a huge way as we move down the stretch. I was really proud of him tonight.

Question about Amari Williams setting the tone with physicality.

Amari decided he wasn’t passing the ball tonight. But that was the only thing. I mean, guys, we are witnessing and seeing all of these metrics right now where Amari is top-five all time in the SEC in terms of PAR per 40 minutes. Top-five all time. Like that’s insane, we are witnessing him do.

He is a unique player and he’s just getting more and more confident and more and more comfortable. He’s getting more conflict around the rim where he’s, you know, he was not unstoppable at the rim early in the season because he would get rushed. Right? Now he’s like, Yep, I’m just going to go to work down here and I’m going to get to two feet and I thought he was brilliant tonight.

To the point to where he’s making some tough shots. That last kind of jump hook he made over his right shoulder from like eight or nine feet was, that was a world-class play and he’s making it look easy. You know, we’re in the process of witnessing just an incredible analytics guy right now in terms of what he’s doing. It’s fun to coach him. Man, I’m really proud of him. He’s grown so much and he’s taken on so much and he’s like, give me more, give me more, let’s keep getting better.

Question about the confidence that Wednesday’s win gives to a new-look UK team.

We are a work in progress. It’s a brand-new season, right? I think it will give them a lot of confidence. You know, what was fun is we had such huge contributions from everybody. This was a team that beat us down there and this is a really good team, this is a team that we respect a lot. This is a team that poses real problems for us.

They did what they do. You know, 99 is still banging 3s and that’s problematic for us. You know, 30 made his first 3 in nine games. But I thought our guys were really talented.

I thought Otega Oweh was unbelievable tonight on both sides of the ball. He continues, you talk about guys that are putting together special seasons. My goodness, Otega Oweh was spectacular tonight. I think it should give our guys a lot of confidence and we needed, you know I’m happy for our guys that they get this little injection of energy. Right?

Positive energy, like OK, we’ve got a brand-new team. Game one. We played well but we didn’t finish the way we wanted to. Game two we played really well. Now we’ve got the epic challenge of all challenges going to Alabama and seeing if we can deal with that insanity down there and it’s going to be fun and it’s fun to grow this group.

Question about Pope motivating his team by showing them USA-Canada hockey highlights.

We didn’t actually show that because I was worried some of our guys might take it a little too literally. But we thought about it, we really thought about it. It was pretty incredible.

Question about UK’s growth on defense and how much better the Wildcats can get on that end.

Well, there’s a lot of room for improvement because we’re not great. We are getting better. With this new group, we’re getting better.

I thought Travis Perry had a really really hard job tonight. I thought he stood in there admirably. I’m talking about on the defensive end. And Collin Chandler I thought was really really good on the defensive end and he has a ton of room to grow, but he’s able to catch and move from time to time. You guys think about this. I have Trent Noah. I know Trent didn’t make any shots tonight but I have Trent Noah guarding Jason Edwards, their leading scorer, a microwave scorer, a like 5-foot-11 jet guard for four- to five-minute stretches during the course of this game.

If you would have asked me at the beginning of the season if that was going to be the game plan I would have said, no, never. But, it’s been forced on us and these guys are stepping up into doing it. I thought Trent Noah gave us a really special defensive effort, I thought he was really great. And Koby Brea, you know, I mean, Koby Brea is all bloodied, you know he got popped in the mouth. He took a little slight Texas defensive vacation, but he was back to his former self defensively tonight.

I thought that was really special getting hands on balls. You know, Otega Oweh is the ringleader. We’re getting better defensively. We’re understanding ourselves better. We are communicating better, we are locked in together a little better. I thought the guys had a terrific defensive performance in the second half.

Question about Kentucky’s defensive approach without Lamont Butler and Jaxson Robinson.

Well, the point of attack is the biggest thing. Lamont was such a, he’s, Lamont is a really special point of attack defender. So, we can’t replace that. That’s just a massive challenge for us to try to figure out. And then, you know, when Lamont was out, Jax became our point of attack defender and he was pretty functional. He was putting together great performances.

So, losing the point of attack defender has been super complicated. And then what happens is, because you lose that defender it pushes everybody up the scale a notch. So, you don’t only lose that one spot, now your match ups are all, you know we were looking at the matchups. We spent a lot of time as a staff arguing. By the way, huge kudos to coach Alvin Brooks and Jason Hart who put together the scout today. They are doing an unbelievable job. They deserve a ton of credit.

But we spent more time than we should have arguing about matchups. Like, how are we going to match up with these guys on the perimeter? So, losing those guys, that’s the biggest thing of the point of attack play and the kind of bettering understanding how defense works together. If and when we get them back, we’re going to be better. They are going to come back to a better group and we are actually going to be functioning at a higher level.

Another question about Collin Chandler’s performance and what it means for the future.

Yeah, Collin and I talk a lot. He’s a really really special young man. My goodness, you know, he’s as good as they come as a human being. The conversation we kept having was we know exactly where he’s going to end up. He’s an incredibly special talent. Like he’s a really special talent. We know where he’s going to end up.

It’s just a matter of like, we don’t know how the zigzag path is going to get you there. Right? And he’s been working so hard to come in fresh every day. It’s been really fun to watch these three freshmen. Because they’ve all been had the whole world thrust upon them and they’ve all responded, right, at different places of the season. I think it bodes well for where we’re going.