By Jamie H. Vaught
KySportsStyle.com Magazine
Less than 24 hours after No. 3 seed Kentucky defeated No. 14 Troy 76-57 Friday night in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, UK freshmen Trent Noah of Harlan County and Travis Perry of Lyon County were talking hoops with the media at a news conference Saturday afternoon in Milwaukee.
During this past season, the rookie duo had to step up and play key roles earlier than usual because of injuries suffered by their teammates.
The 6-foot-5 Noah, who had a key three-pointer in eight minutes of action against Troy, finished the regular season with an average of 10.8 minutes while hitting 17 of 38 shots for 44.7 percent. The 6-foot-1 Perry had three starts while seeing action in 28 games, averaging 9.2 minutes. Both also had an identical 2.6-point average.
After Friday night’s victory, Noah said he heard a lot from his Harlan County friends.
“People down there, all they do is bleed blue,” he said with a smile. “They watch the games, watch the replays, watch the highlights. The shot was for them. It was really cool and hopefully we can get the same result tomorrow.”
Noah was asked to describe his journey from Harlan County High School to the NCAA Tournament.
“It's definitely been a growing-up experience for sure, but I think Coach (Mark) Pope has made it really easy for us,” said Noah. “He's always instilled us with confidence, even when things weren't going well, even our players. Like Jaxson (Robinson) yesterday was sitting on the bench, he would die to be out there playing with us, but he was super encouraging. And that's what makes this really special. I feel like we're such a close family, and whenever you go out there, you can trust the brother beside you and it makes it easy for young guys like me, TP, and Collin (Chandler).”
Added Perry, “I agree with that. I think our team and coaching staff has done a great job all throughout the season in the moments where we needed us to kind of step up or they've said a lot that we're just kind of being thrown into the fire. We know we've got 15 guys there to back us up, 15 guys that believe in us, and that makes it really easy to go out there and play free and play for each other really in that moment.”
Perry added Coach Pope’s demeanor and style haven't changed much, if any, this week from the regular season while coaching under pressure at tradition-rich Kentucky.
“I don't think it really changed too much,” Perry said of Pope's coaching. “He's pretty good about being consistent with us. That's something that I think makes it easy whenever we're out there playing and getting ready to play. He's really consistent in everything that we kind of do leading up to the game.
“The main message he kind of had for us was just to take in the moment and realize that there's not many times that you get to be where you want to be in that moment. And before that game, obviously all of us, if we could pick anywhere to be in the world, we would pick right there about to play with those 15 guys about to play our first March Madness together. And that kind of puts it in perspective.
“I think he does a good job of settling us down that way, knowing if we could choose to be anywhere we would choose right there. So that kind of makes it pretty easy.”
After beating Troy, Kentucky advanced to Sunday’s second-round matchup with No. 6 seed Illinois (5:15 pm ET on CBS), which beat Xavier 86-73. UK, which has eight victories over AP Top 15 opponents, will face the Fighting Illini who played against four SEC teams earlier in the season. Illinois Coach Brad Underwood, who is making his ninth trip to the Big Dance with his third program in 12 seasons as a Division I head coach, saw his team beat Arkansas and Missouri, while dropping to Alabama and Tennessee.
Illinois -- which ranks among the top 15 offenses in the country per efficiency and are in the Top 20 in offensive rebound percentage -- is 22-12 overall and 12-8 in the Big Ten.
“Illinois is a really talented team,” said Noah. “They're very well coached and they get up a lot of threes as well. So I just think the main thing is we have to keep them off the glass. But more importantly, we just gotta do us. We gotta play our solid basketball, play our game, get out in transition, get our threes up and wedge. So, they're obviously really talented, really good ball club, but I think we just gotta focus in and do us tomorrow.”
Pope, who Friday night notched his first coaching win in the NCAA Tournament, was asked about how approaches before or after the games during the March Madness.
“Our life gets really simple right now,” he said. “Last night we dug as a scout, kind of stayed there all night. This morning met with the team, digging in on a scout this afternoon, had a really nice experience with our guys on the floor, and we'll go back and keep trying to figure out this terrific Illinois team. So in that sense, it gets really, really simple. It's one of the best parts of this year aside from recruiting, which is constantly ongoing right now. Everything else is just focused on the game. So it gets simple.”
Pope added that he was thankful to learn under Brigham Young coach Dave Rose when he was an assistant many years ago.
“I was really blessed to work for him and learn from him,” Pope said of Rose. “He talked about the blue dots on his calendar. That during the summer, he'd have like a hundred blue dots every single day. And then as you started getting into postseason, all of a sudden all the blue dots are gone and it's just hoops. So it's actually a fun time.”
# # #
Quick Predictions: UK men by 2 over Illinois and UK women by 4 over Kansas State.
Jamie H. Vaught, a longtime sports columnist in Kentucky, is the author of six books about UK basketball, including recently-published “Forever Crazy About The Cats: An Improbable Journey of a Kentucky Sportswriter Overcoming Adversity.” Now a retired college professor who taught at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College in Middlesboro., he is the editor and founder of KySportsStyle.com Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @KySportsStyle or reach him via email at KySportsStyle@gmail.com.
