Mark Pope's MVP in the win over #1 Purdue might surprise Kentucky fans

Here is what Coach Pope had to say about Chandler: "Yeah, he was the highlight for the whole game for me. I would give him the MVP of the game. That's the defining feature, if this team wants to do something historic, that's what we need. And we need to champion it, and we need to take pride in it, and we need to be like, yes, that was me. He was unbelievable. He played 15 minutes, he was a +15. He was +1 per minute, that's a ridiculous ratio for anything over six or seven minutes of play. He had a ridiculously spectacular dunk. I have so much confidence in him to make the right decision on offense and so much confidence in him to be incredibly defensively sound with great energy, and you have guys like that, it makes you feel good as a coach because good things are going to happen when he's on the floor. You know, the dunk was spectacular, but he had two elite level full speed cuts where he hit roll late that broke it open and our bigs finally started rolling. The whole first half, one of the things we were stuck on was we couldn't get our bigs to roll. I think partly some fatigue and just the head spinning because of the deal. He really got us started. And then everyone else saw how that felt, the roll guys and live ball, ball handlers. You got Mo making that play, Jasper making that play, and DA making that play. It was contagious. He had a massive impact on the game."

Chandler might not have scored a ton of points, but his impact was felt in other ways that led to the Wildcats' win over the #1 team in college basketball. The sophomore guard is going to have a big impact for the Wildcats this season, and it will translate to points at some point.

Winning teams have players who are willing to help the team win without scoring, and Chandler is one of those players for this elite Kentucky team.