Otega Oweh saved Kentucky's season Friday. He might have done more than that

ST. LOUIS – No one in America got a better view of March’s maddest moment so far than Mark Pope, who stood mere feet away from his leading scorer as Otega Oweh saved Kentucky’s season . He might have done even more than that.

Hands on his hips as Oweh rose and fired, Pope stood almost precisely on the spot where an invisible line could be drawn through him, Oweh and the first S in the March Madness logo at midcourt of the Enterprise Center. As an arena held its breath, Pope heard his star bark out, “That’s a bucket. ” And it was.

In what has at times been a trying, stressful season in Lexington, the player who more than any other defines the first two years of Pope’s tenure leading his alma mater delivered a moment to erase all kinds of frustration and pain. Oweh’s banked-in 3 extended into overtime No. 7 Kentucky’s 89-84 first-round NCAA Tournament win against Santa Clara on Friday.

The Wildcats (22-13) looked destined to become another high-profile victim, joining North Carolina and Wisconsin among the ranks of the upset in the opening round of this year’s tournament. Fittingly, it was the player who has now scored more points over two years than any other Wildcat — who at times might have led his coach to pull it out if, as Pope said Friday, “I had longer hair” — that delivered the defining memory of their shared season. In one shining moment, Oweh erased so much of a winter’s frustration, and rewrote Kentucky’s story in style.