Kentucky’s monster second half helps Pope upend Pitino, Johnnies

Mark Pope and Kentucky salvaged non-conference season Saturday, defeating St. John’s in CBS Sports Classic. (Photo by Adam Hagy/Intersport)

By Vincent Simone (@VTSimone)

ATLANTA — As college football bowl season rages on, it was pupil that turned the tables on teacher in the unofficial Rick Pitino Bowl. 

Mark Pope’s Kentucky Wildcats outscored St. John’s by a 53-34 margin in the second half, erasing a seven-point halftime deficit to defeat the Red Storm, 78-66, in the CBS Sports Classic at State Farm Arena. 

The matchup marked the first meeting between Pitino and Pope, the latter having served as the team captain on Pitino’s 1996 national champion Kentucky squad. 

St. John’s entered the CBS Sports Classic for the first time, replacing UCLA, which had taken part each year since the event’s inception in 2014. The connection between Pitino and Pope made the Johnnies the perfect replacement. 

The difference for the Wildcats? The much-anticipated season debut of sophomore forward Jayden Quaintance. The Arizona State transfer and projected Top 10 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft checked in five minutes into Saturday’s content and made an immediate impact, banking in a jumper on his first attempt and locking down the paint on the defensive end. 

Quaintance had been inactive since tearing his ACL against Kansas State in February. Earlier this week, Pope said he would be on a minutes restriction for his season debut. Quaintance finished with 10 points and eight rebounds in 17 minutes, an impressive performance for a player clearly not yet back to full strength. 

“I’ve been a competitor my whole life,” Quaintance said, reflecting on his extended time away from the court. “I was always raised as competing. That’s all I ever wanted to do. All my guys trusted me and we just were able to show out at a high level tonight.”

Jaland Lowe, another Wildcat dealing with injury woes, helped spark the second half outburst. Lowe aggravated a nagging shoulder injury early in the first half, but returned to score 13 of the Wildcats’ 53 second-half points. 

“You saw one half without J-Lowe and you saw one half with J-Lowe; I’m voting for the half with J-Lowe,” Pope said. “He changes everything we do, but we’re going to proceed with caution. He’s going to fight through this deal and he’s going to be great.”

Kentucky entered 7-4 on the season with a paltry 0-4 mark against Top 25 competition, but Saturday felt like a turning point in the Wildcats’ season. 

“We’re going to become a really explosive offensive team,” Pope said, his team slowly nursing itself back to health. “We're going to. It’s been a little bit hard. It’s been a hard path for us for 100 different reasons.”

On the other side, it was another letdown for St. John’s (8-4, 1-0 Big East), which entered Saturday ranked 22nd in the country, but has yet to earn a signature victory on the season. 

“We have a decent basketball team, nothing more than decent,” head coach Rick Pitino said. “We’ve got to take decent to good, and that means you’ve got to play two great halves defensively.”