{"id":516327,"date":"2026-01-04T15:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T15:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/516327\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T15:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T15:52:14","slug":"for-the-first-time-this-season-mark-pope-has-no-excuses-to-fall-back-on-for-another-kentucky-no-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/516327\/","title":{"rendered":"For the first time this season, Mark Pope has no excuses to fall back on for another Kentucky no-show"},"content":{"rendered":"

The SEC Availability Report stopped you in your tracks ahead of Kentucky<\/a>\u2018s conference opener at Alabama, something that felt impossible for these Wildcats knowing their early injury luck. Key contributors were in and out all season with Jaland Lowe<\/a>\u2018s shoulder seemingly hanging on by a thread and Jayden Quaintance<\/a> waiting to make his anticipated debut coming off knee surgery. They were holding everything together with duct tape and prayers until the full roster could be healthy and available, and that finally became a reality in Tuscaloosa after a small taste in the second half against St. John\u2019s.<\/p>\n

We got a talking-to from Rick Pitino after that double-digit comeback win against the Johnnies in Atlanta, Mark Pope<\/a>\u2018s old college coach saying the media was too quick to judge Kentucky without seeing the complete product. How dare we criticize these players or the coaching for taking a couple of blowout losses against big-name competition?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you all need to learn a little bit of a lesson as writers because you\u2019re expecting Kentucky to be this great basketball team with all those injuries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To his credit, along with these players and coaches, it\u2019s technically true. It was a puzzle missing key corner and middle pieces \u2014 you couldn\u2019t see the vision without them. I\u2019ll never excuse bad effort and no heart like we saw on multiple occasions in the non-conference, but I can hear an argument on roster construction gripes and some of the grandiose takeaways. They earned the benefit of the doubt by playing like their asses were on fire at full strength in those 20 minutes against the Johnnies, followed by a 14-day holiday break between high-major opponents with all of the practice time in the world to build chemistry and install whatever you wanted on both ends to maximize that clean bill of health for the very first time as a full unit.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why I actually felt confident Kentucky was going to walk into Coleman Coliseum and leave with a victory, maybe comfortably, despite the numbers and analytics laughing at that blind hope. Bart Torvik\u00a0<\/a>predicted an 11-point win for Nate Oats and the Tide while giving the Wildcats a 20 percent chance to pull it off! If you simply stayed within a handful of perimeter makes \u2014 again, this was coming off a 16-30 effort from three against Bellarmine, competition aside \u2014 and took advantage of Alabama\u2019s defensive and rebounding woes, you could genuinely see it coming together.<\/p>\n

Then tell me beforehand Otega Oweh and Jaland Lowe would combine for 43 points on 16-32 shooting with no health setbacks, Pope having the full $22 million roster he previously described as a Ferrari waiting to be taken for a spin and his 1A and 1B summer stars finally proving it together to open SEC play. Oh, and add in the fact Oats would be forced to play Noah Williamson \u2014 previously averaging 1.1 points per game \u2014 18 minutes because his starting frontcourt would be out (Taylor Bol Bowen) or limited (Aiden Sherrell) due to injury.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m taking my chances with this group and quintupling down on that optimism. And then I\u2019ll be tucking my tail and making the sad trip of shame back to Lexington realizing how foolish it all was.<\/p>\n

Slow down the Tide from three? How about giving up 15 makes at a 40 percent clip, many wide-freaking-open with egregious execution or inexcusable scouting (or both)? Win on the glass, especially with a serious post advantage? Lose 41-37 while giving up 14 offensive rebounds. Score against one of the worst power-conference defenses in college basketball to at least turn it into a shootout? 74 total points and 34 in the first half to fall behind by as many as 21 points with shooting splits of 42\/21\/69, including 38\/22\/67 before intermission.<\/p>\n

Failure across the board, leading to Pope\u2019s fourth straight loss to Oats in four tries while falling to 1-5 on the year against ranked competition with an average margin of loss sitting at 15.6 points. They\u2019ve now trailed by 20-plus points in four of the five, pushing the total to eight games of 20-plus-point deficits since he got the Kentucky job. He\u2019s now 17-17 against high-major foes, including a 2-5 start in 2025-26.<\/p>\n

As Pitino pointed out to us basketball bennies, there was a crutch for everything up to this point, mostly in the form of your Preseason All-SEC point guard and future lottery pick forward sitting on the bench. No more, excuses gone. This was Pope\u2019s roster, built using blank checks, and the product was grossly uncompetitive. More of the same with the ball sticking, poor shot selection, inconsistent defense, and, inexplicably, a lack of want-to, constantly getting beat for 50\/50 balls. <\/p>\n

Rinse, repeat.<\/p>\n

Oats was asked about his four-game winning streak against Kentucky after the blowout and he did his best to stay respectful while also not shying away from the fact that his program has passed the winningest tradition in college basketball \u2014 especially under Pope.<\/p>\n

Remember the way John Calipari used to talk about Mark Fox at Georgia? Kinda like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cKentucky\u2019s not what everybody was hoping over there that they would be this year, but they still have a lot of talent. I think they\u2019re going to win some games,\u201d he said. \u201cThey had some injuries, and they\u2019re getting their chemistry back together. Lucky for us, fortunate for us that they don\u2019t have that many games under their belt with everybody available, and I don\u2019t think their chemistry\u2019s quite where they want it right now. But they\u2019re still good. \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like Coach Pope doesn\u2019t know what he\u2019s doing. I mean, he went in there and won a bunch of big games. So, it\u2019s not like we just beat up on a bad team. They were good last year, and they\u2019ve got a lot of talent this year. So, we\u2019ve gotten our program up to where we\u2019re competing with the best teams in the SEC. When I say competing, we\u2019ve won more championships in the SEC than anybody since we got here seven years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he went on to reveal what we all see about this group that he found glaringly obvious on film: \u201cWhen I watched them play, I didn\u2019t feel like they moved the ball great,\u201d adding, \u201cWhen they played high-major teams that were really good, their assist rate\u2019s very low.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stat-padding in buy games does not make this a Final Four contender. The win thought to be the turning point of this season where Pitino put us in timeout as media members? Well, the Johnnies just took a Quad 3 home loss to 8-6 Providence as 12.5-point favorites to earn a fifth slap on the wrist of their own this year. Oops!<\/p>\n

Is Kentucky a bad basketball team? These Wildcats do not currently have an NCAA Tournament resume, but they have plenty of time to get there with 17 more games to go. They\u2019ll probably be fine, as Oats said, once they build chemistry and stack some wins for momentum. There\u2019s too much talent there not to level out as a middle-of-the-pack team in the SEC with the league down compared to its record-shattering year in Pope\u2019s debut season. It\u2019ll be good enough to be a top 30 or 40 team in the country and punch a ticket to the Big Dance as a No. 9 seed or whatever. Maybe that leads to a magical run out of nowhere, similar to the \u201cgreat story\u201d Aaron Harrison told in 2014? The quality may not be there, but the quantity may be. <\/p>\n

But, like my dumb confidence going down to Tuscaloosa, that\u2019s based on hope more than evidence. <\/p>\n

None of this is what fans were promised this offseason and certainly not what donors thought they were paying for when gathering their nickels to fund this roster. Alabama treated Kentucky like little brother to open SEC play as Oats again coached circles around Pope \u2014 he even gave him some tips on fixing this team\u2019s problems, as demoralizing as that is.<\/a><\/p>\n

You shouldn\u2019t expect to get boatraced in your first league matchup and look for silver linings like UK won the second half or at least they cut it to single digits after falling behind by 21. That\u2019s not understanding the assignment. That\u2019s not the gold standard. That\u2019s not Kentucky basketball.<\/p>\n

At this point, though, does any of it truly shock you? That\u2019s the problem \u2014 this should never be normalized in Lexington. And for the first time this season, Pope has no excuses to fall back on. It\u2019s his full-roster beatdown to eat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The SEC Availability Report stopped you in your tracks ahead of Kentucky\u2018s conference opener at Alabama, something that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,4000],"class_list":{"0":"post-516327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-kentucky-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115837635806388280","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}