We questioned their heart on Tuesday. We questioned their physicality on Wednesday.
On Saturday night, Mark Pope and Kentucky basketball gave us all the answer.
After watching his team go into Bud Walton Arena, survive a halftime brawl, endure a disastrous officiating stretch that erased their lead, and still walk out with a win, Kentucky’s head coach delivered the line that should be printed on t-shirts tomorrow morning.
"Toughness is measured by what it takes to break you," Pope said after the game to Tom Leach. "We've certainly been self-destructive at times... these guys just come back. Don't miss it, this is just not everything, but it's something worth paying attention to."
'What it takes to break you'
Think about what it would have taken to break this team tonight.
- Getting shoved by Arkansas players in the first half? Didn't break them.
- Three technical fouls in 39 seconds that handed Arkansas the lead? Didn't break them.
- A deafening "White Out" crowd smelling blood? Didn't break them.
"We heard all the stuff," Pope admitted, referencing the criticism about the team's physicality after the Vanderbilt loss. Kentucky showed they were willing to meet force with an even greater force: "I am proud of the way the guys responded."
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Silencing the narrative
Pope noted that after the Vanderbilt game, the team had a choice: Was that performance who they are, or was it a fluke?
"It just felt like we get to decide if it was an anomaly or a trend," Pope said. "For the time being, it was an anomaly."
Kentucky didn't just win a basketball game tonight. They proved that they aren't fragile. They proved that you can punch them, you can T them up, and you can scream at them, but you can't break them.
And as we head into February, that kind of toughness matters more than any box score stat.