Big Blue Nation can hardly contain itself after Mark Pope ends Sweet 16 drought in Year 1

Kentucky did a lot of winning in its 15 years under John Calipari, but Cal and the Wildcats struggled to keep that going in March over the last five years. That five-year Sweet 16 drought is the reason that Calipari is now the head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks, the reason that Mark Pope was asked to completely overhaul the program in Lexington last offseason, and the reason that Big Blue Nation is so excited about Kentucky’s 84-75 second-round win over Illinois on Sunday night. 

In his first season as the coach of Kentucky, the program that he helped lead to a national championship as the star point guard in 1996, Mark Pope has led the Wildcats to the Sweet 16. After a successful five-year run at BYU that included two NCAA Tournament appearances, Pope arrived back in Lexington still in search of his first March Madness victory as a head coach, a fact that his detractors loved to point out up until the Wildcats breezed passed Troy on Friday. 

With so many upsets in recent history, including last year’s first-round loss to 14th-seeded Oakland in Pittsburgh, many card-carrying members of Big Blue Nation spent this first weekend of March Madness holding their breath. Now, after Otega Oweh’s stellar performance on Friday and Koby Brea’s second-half shot-making on Sunday night in Milwaukee, BBN can buy its tickets to the Midwest Regional in Indianapolis next weekend and start to look ahead and wonder how far this group can go. 

And they may be hoping that this group specifically goes farther than Calipari’s Razorbacks. Coach Cal ended his own Sweet 16 streak as well, taking down Rick Pitino’s No. 2 seed St. John’s Red Storm on Saturday afternoon in Providence. 

Hope is back in Lexington, and as the confidence builds for this team and its fanbase, they get a matchup with a second-seed Tennessee team that Kentucky has already beaten twice this year. Maybe the Sweet 16 drought won’t be the only one that ends for the Wildcats.