MILWAUKEE -- When Otega Oweh announced that he was taking the transfer portal from Oklahoma to Kentucky last summer, the junior guard did not generate as much buzz as some of his other new teammates.

Some wondered if he fit the offensive profile that Mark Pope needed in his first season in Lexington.

Now on the eve of a second-round NCAA Tournament matchup with Illinois on Sunday in the Midwest Regional, Oweh's sometimes unorthodox offense may be one of the most important factors to the Wildcats' chances of extending their season.

Oweh had a standout performance in the Cats' opening-round win over Troy -- becoming the first player in UK's storied history to record as many as 20 points, eight rebounds, six assists, and two steals in an NCAA Tourney game -- although his effort flew somewhat under the radar due to Big Blue's young reserves stealing the spotlight by sparking a decisive 16-0 run in the second half.

On Saturday, as Kentucky discussed its second-round matchup with the Illini, Mark Pope said the opportunity to coach Oweh has been one of the great learning experiences of his career.

Sometimes, the 6-foot-4 athletic wing does not fit exactly what the UK staff is trying to design with its Xs and Os, and that's become a good thing.

"We talk about that a lot as a staff," Pope said. "He has an unbelievable make-up ability. He's a rule breaker, but he's capable of breaking rules. And he's also growing his game, and maybe he's growing his game in a non-traditional way.

"Sometimes when things go wrong and they're not choreographed exactly the way I draw them up or I designed them or I taught them, I've learned that I just kind gotta like turn away and be, you know what, there's going to be something great with him right around the corner. And the reason that I believe that is because he keeps doing it. He keeps doing it over and over."

At one point this season, Oweh had the distinction of the longest double-figure scoring streak in P4, a run that reached 26 consecutive games. Among those were eight 20-plus scoring efforts.

Not bad for a guy who didn't appear to fit the Pope system brought in from BYU. Many analysts thought he'd be more of a defensive specialist or role player in his first year with the Cats.

"The truth is that he's able to do some things outside of the context of my normal expectation of a player of how they do it," Pope said. "And so I'm working hard to coach Otega, and Otega is also teaching me about what he can do that pushes the boundaries. And there's a give-and-take there. And I love that player-coach relationship. I actually think that's really important.

"I don't want him to only paint inside the lines because that gets to be a really boring picture, right? I want him to be respectful and diligent and trusting of the concepts that are winning concepts. But I also want his creativity and his unique athleticism.

"And that's not just jumping high or running fast, but it's contorting his body and being able to do different things that normally might not be a great play for somebody else. We're both learning together kind of where he can do that consistently and where he can't. And that process is really artistic more than it is scientific, and it's really fun."

Pope noted that it's led him to show more restraint with Oweh than he might grant other players for making a sequence of mistakes.

Case in point: In Kentucky's 83-82 win at Oklahoma in February, Oweh hit a twisting, contorted drive into the lane to beat his old team. He scored the final 18 points for the Cats in that game as Pope let him create and take over.

Two weeks later, in the SEC Tournament, Oweh beat the Sooners again with a coast-to-coast drive with under five seconds remaining, making an incredibly difficult left-handed baseline runner to give UK an 85-84 win.

Prior to that shot, he had committed two costly turnovers that jeopardized the Cats' chances of winning. Oweh was unfazed.

Said Pope: "There are times where you're like, that just went bad, and if you stayed within the confines that I draw for most guys, it wouldn't happen, but you would also lose out on the things that he can do that surprise me, right? And so it's really fun to work with guys like that."

The UK boss has learned over the course of the season that Oweh does things that maybe can't be broken down by analytics.

"The fact that he brings it every single day and wants to compete every single day, that's probably more important than any of the things that I might list on a sheet," Pope said.