Kentucky's big win was 'personal' after embarrassing performance against Vanderbilt Skip to main content There was plenty on the line on Saturday night in Fayetteville. The identical records of John Calipari and Mark Pope since the former left Kentucky for Arkansas were everywhere you looked on ESPN and social media. The Hogs were ascending with a star point guard. The Cats were down after a no show on Tuesday against Vanderbilt. UK needed to get off the mat to prevent Pope from starting his Kentucky tenure 0-2 against Cal. That’s exactly what the Wildcats did in a 85-77 victory in Bud Walton Arena on Saturday night. Kentucky had to get the bad tase out of their mouth after a brutal performance in Nashville. “It was definitely personal. But more of the fact that the last time we played…we didn’t really do a good job of representing Kentucky. We had to sit with that for a couple of days,” Otega Oweh told ESPN’s Dave Pasch and Fran Fraschilla in a postgame interview. “We was just eager to get back out there and it just so happened that we were playing Arkansas and the former coach at Kentucky. But it was definitely personal for us just to come out here and clean it up and set a tone.” "It was definitely personal."Otega…
Published: February 1, 2026 4:15 pm
Source: On3 — Read original