Kentucky's Mark Pope Hilariously Plays Along With Joke About SEC Teams Winning Only 50 Percent Of Their Games

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The SEC is the best conference in college basketball. At the time of this writing, seven of the league's 16 teams are ranked inside the Top 20 of the NET rankings along with 14 teams in the conference sitting inside the Top 50. 

Some of the conference's insanely impressive resume can be marked back to the teams around the league going 185-23 during the non-conference portion of the season. Then it turned into a dog-eat-dog situation, literally, when conference play started, but some folks like ESPN's Karl Ravech can't quite comprehend that.

With teams around the conference playing against one another and the fact that there is a winner and a loser in each game, the overall record of the conference is going to be .500. I can't believe this has to be explained, but hey, even a big-time announcer like Ravech wasn't aware of this very straightforward fact.

During Alabama's win over Texas earlier in the week, Ravech stated that "since January 4 into Tuesday, the SEC teams are 82-82…there's been no ability to pull away."

That's because there is quite literally no way for teams to pull away.

Maybe Ravech was doing a bit here, or maybe he got had by a producer feeding him the statistics through his headset. Nevertheless, the SEC having a .500 record during conference play has become a running joke throughout the week, and Kentucky head coach Mark Pope loves it.

READ: Kentucky Head Coach Mark Pope Shares Phenomenal Postgame Moment With Fan In Wheelchair

During his Thursday press conference ahead of the Wildcats' matchup against Texas on Saturday, Pope was asked about the conference being only .500 since conference play started, and completely played along with the bit with a smile on his face.

"I’m kind of looking around at the other programs in the league like, ‘Guys, we’ve got to pick this up. This is embarrassing.’ And so we’ll find a way. I believe in this league," Pope joked.

Pope's Kentucky team is coming off of a big-time win over No. 5 Tennessee earlier in the week to improve to 6-5 in the SEC. 

With seven conference games left on their schedule, the Wildcats will be looking to improve their NCAA Tournament resume ahead of the SEC Tournament, that will feature teams with a lousy .500 conference record.

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets, including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016, when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.