Kentucky’s 1995-96 national championship team was one of the best we’ll ever see in the world of college basketball. Mark Pope, serving as team captain, was there to witness every second of it. 30 years later, he’s now coaching the Wildcats, and there are a couple of players on his current team that remind him of his former teammates from back in the day.

During his weekly radio show on Monday, Pope received a question from the text line by way of Jimmer from Lebanon, KY: “Pick a player from this year’s team that reminds you of a player from that team.”

Pope was quick with his first answer, linking Otega Oweh, the SEC Player of the Week, to three-time NBA All-Star Antoine Walker. Pope wasn’t comparing the two in terms of size (Oweh is a 6-foot-4 guard, Walker was a 6-foot-8 forward) or abilities, prefacing his response by saying that Oweh and Walker have “different skillsets, different personalities”, but in terms of their ability to make their mark on the game, he sees plenty of parallels.

“There’s something similar between Otega Oweh and Antoine Walker,” Pope told Tom Leach. “There’s just something similar in terms of their impact on the game and their reliability, especially as Antoine got a little bit older… It’s more of some type of feel of impact on the game than it is specific, but there’s some similarity there.”

But Pope wasn’t done with the comparisons there. He offered up another one and attached some lore to it. From the angle of being someone who wants to take on the big moment, Pope sees similarities between sophomore guard Collin Chandler and former ‘Cat Jeff Sheppard.

“I’ve told this story recently, but we’re playing at Arkansas (in 1995-96)… It was Shep’s freshman year, I believe — no, it was his sophomore year, and we were still trying to work out a point guard situation. We were bouncing around before Anthony Epps really took control of the team, and it was the last few seconds of the game. Was a huge game, CBS game, and Coach (Rick) Pitino called a play. There’s 10 seconds left, Shep working the point. Shep turns down the play, goes by his guy, shoots a pull-up jumper that I can’t remember if it got deflected or not, misses it. Game over.

“And we walked in the locker room, and Coach P was just super composed, as you can imagine, not emotional, and he was tearing into everybody. And then he got to Shep, and he was like, ‘If you ever turn down a play call ever. You’ll walk all the way back to Peachtree, Georgia, and you will never wear this jersey again… And I love the fact that you had the courage to do it.’ Paraphrasing, but that was the message.”

Sheppard certainly learned from that mistake, too. A couple of years later, he went on to help Kentucky win the 1998 national championship under head coach Tubby Smith. Sheppard was named the NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player that year after scoring 27 points in the semifinal and 16 more in the championship game.

Chandler, on the other hand, doesn’t need more time to turn in that kind of big-moment player — he already is one right now. Chandler has come up clutch again and again in recent weeks for Kentucky down the stretch, including in Saturday’s win over Tennessee, when he hit the go-ahead three-pointer with 33 seconds left that gave Kentucky a two-point lead.

On top of that, Chandler was the one who found Malachi Moreno with a full-court pass for a buzzer-beating game-winner against LSU. Chandler grabbed the steal in the first game against Tennessee on the road that led to Oweh’s go-ahead layup. Chandler also poured in 14 points during the second half in a close win over Texas, hit a late three to finish off Ole Miss, and nailed a turnaround jumper to do the same against Arkansas.

“There’s something about this Collin Chandler that is like, let me go,” Pope said. “Let me go take the moment. Let me go do it.”

Walker and Sheppard were both national champions during their times at Kentucky. It sure would be nice if Oweh and Chandler could be compared to them from that perspective by doing the same thing.