‘That’s the maturity’: Kentucky’s Mark Pope on Alex Wilkins’ in-game turnaround

I'm proud of Alex. You know, we're a next play team. It's what we do. We've been so good at it the last three years. You know, we just have this DNA in our program. We never say die. We just keep coming back and coming back and coming back. We move on to next play, next play, next play. It's something we preach and practice every single day. And, you know, Alex had a very young play on his fourth foul. He turned it over and then he bear hugged the guy who stole the ball from him. It was just an emotional outburst. and then he came and sat on the bench and sat with his teammates and was fully engaged in the game didn't get sad didn't get sold wasn't stuck up in the last moment and then came made the two winning plays of the game he had the assist to BH to essentially tie it up and then on his own it was six seconds left he raced down the court and made a game saving game tying two and that's the maturity you know it was funny i was telling him in the locker room in front of the team i'm like that's the maturity he's like no coach I'm not mature I'm just trying to I'm trying to I'm maturing and um again for him to be in a space where he's just embracing what it means to get better and be focused on getting better and being in the next play is really encouraging and he's a special player he you know I was I was curious to see if he could come out with the same intensity and focus on the defensive end and he did like he gave us a terrific effort on the defensive end And if that continues, he's going to, he's got a high ceiling.