This may be an 'SMH team,' says Mark Pope, but Kentucky 'just continues to inspire'

If you’ve watched this Kentucky team play at all this season, odds are good you’ve either shaken your head in disbelief at something crazy the Wildcats were able to pull off or in anger and confusion at something they did to put themselves in a losing position. Many times those feelings have come in the same game with both miraculous comebacks and disastrous collapses. If we’re going for nicknames here, “The Unpredictables” has a nice ring to it.

The latest example? Going down to Fayetteville and beating John Calipari on his home floor as a firm underdog — the Arkansas -7.5 line not doing fan pessimism justice, especially leaving that 25-point loss at Vanderbilt earlier in the week. Why not make 10 of 11 baskets to open things and take a 13-point lead just two segments in? Who says this team can’t start quickly?!

Mark Pope sees the humor in it all, calling it an SMH group — shake my head.

“I don’t think it says much about me as a coach, but I think it says a lot about our guys,” Pope said of his team’s ability to respond to adversity, no matter how unlikely it feels in real time. “You know, I think we’re an SMH team right now, shake my head, a little bit in a beautiful way.”

As that acronym and those words came out of his mouth, Otega Oweh and Malachi Moreno let out a small laugh and shook their own heads at Pope for throwing way-too-old lingo out for the world to hear — not up to date with the current times, in their eyes.

We’ve all been there with kids these days. It was all in good fun.

“Like, I love every — is that too old, like 10 years ago? Sorry, I’m dated,” he said. “The Pope girls, they’re supposed to keep me more up to date, but I love it.”

Jokes aside, as frustrating as things have been at times, Pope is just grateful to be experiencing it all with these guys. They’ve been criticized and given up on outside that locker room, but inside, there is belief. They haven’t fallen for the doubt and, as we’ve seen plenty, the fight has been worthwhile.

That’s how you get Indiana, St. John’s, Mississippi State, LSU, Tennessee and Arkansas — plus more to come, hopefully.

“I’m really blessed to be able to coach these guys. And they just keep finding a way to fight back,” Pope said. “And it doesn’t matter how much is — you know, we talked about this a couple of days ago. We talked about, you know, everybody has feelings, and feelings are important, so we’re going to go do our job. We’re going to go be great.

“And these guys are, they just continue to inspire.”

Anyone who wants to doubt their ability to create something special the rest of the way? That’s up to them, but it’s not going to impact anything these Wildcats do.

When they want to play that way, Pope wants to coach for them even harder and accomplish it all together.

“Man, they’re just like, ‘Heap it on, like, heap on the hate and hate and all the other stuff,'” he said. “These guys keep answering the bell, and it’s pretty fun to be a part of, man. It is awesome. It’s awesome.

“In that sense, we’ll see. I think we have a great future this season, and I think we’re going to win a lot of games and have an epic run. And maybe the story about this team is going to be even more important than what they’re doing right now. It’s pretty awesome.”