Mark Pope explains why Kentucky basketball struggled to rebound in loss to Georgia

Kentucky basketball put up another clunker Tuesday night in Athens.

Mark Pope’s UK team fell behind by 13 points at halftime and eventually lost by that same margin, 82-69, to Georgia in the Wildcats’ first SEC road game of the season.

UK, now 12-3 overall and 1-1 in league games, shot just 24% on 3-pointers and shot 19 fewer free throws compared to Georgia. Fifth-year guard Lamont Butler led the Wildcats with 20 points.

Georgia, now 13-2 overall and 1-1 in SEC play, got 17 points from five-star freshman forward Asa Newell, the bulk of which came in the second half. Former UK men’s basketball commit Somto Cyril, also a freshman, delivered in a big way for the Bulldogs. Cyril fouled out of Tuesday’s game, but he recorded six points and a game-high eight rebounds. He was a plus-13 in 18 minutes on the court.

Just days after UK opened SEC play with a high-energy, high-scoring home win over a top-10 Florida team — which looks even better now after the Gators throttled previously unbeaten Tennessee by 30 points — the Wildcats looked out of sorts against Georgia.

The challenge only grows from here as Pope’s squad next travels to play No. 14 Mississippi State (14-1 overall, 2-0 in the SEC) on Saturday night in Starkville.

But for now, Kentucky fans will have to deal with UK’s second true road loss of the season.

Afterward, Pope met with reporters at Stegeman Coliseum in Athens to recap the defeat, which marked Kentucky’s third straight loss at UGA.

Here’s everything Pope said:

Opening statement

... I know it’s a big win for (Georgia)... Congratulations to those guys. We’re disappointed with our performance tonight. A lot of things that we’ve got to work on.

Question about Kentucky basketball trailing by double digits in the first half against high-major teams.

The second 10-minute stretch (of first halves) has been really problematic for us. The first 10 minutes are OK, (we are) in there, guys are starting out well. And then it’s that second 10 minutes and maybe some little rotational stuff.

Maybe we’re being a little over sensitive to foul stuff. You know, maybe it’s where the issues in the game are really starting to seep in. But yeah, it’s something that we’re super conscious of. We had some much better success in that segment last game, but man, we just couldn’t reproduce it tonight.

Question about Kentucky continuing to allow a high amount of offensive rebounds.

They had 15 today. And it’s back-to-back games where we gave up 15 offensive rebounds, and that’s, you know, that’s... That’s a bell we got to ring. That’s just, it’s unacceptable for us, and it’s a sign of distraction... There were so many uncharacteristic plays on the court tonight, and those are, for us as a deciding team, as a decision-making team, those are manifestations of some distraction.

And us rooting that out and getting better at focusing on a moment, on the moment. — and exactly what’s happening — is the space where you, part of it is building habits. So we’re working on that really hard. Sometimes when you start on a project, you take 10 steps backwards before you make progress, and it feels like that’s what we’ve done.

It’s almost like the more we talk about, the more we drill it, the more of a challenge it is. And that’s a nuanced conversation among the staff that we have to kind of figure out. But clearly that’s a major, major issue for us, is this glass, especially in a game that’s, as just slow paced as this is and holding the ball... Our ball-screen defense in the point of attack was so much better. It really kept us out of rotation. And then we, you know, we had so many possessions where we had guys taking really tough shots, and we either foul them unnecessarily, or we didn’t come up with a rebound. And it wasn’t a rotation issue.

So that’s going to be, you know, that’s probably one of the things where we have to figure out how we can, in that moment, where we can be insanely hyper-focused.

Question about Jaxson Robinson’s recent offensive struggles.

It just is the ebb and flow of the game. That’s all it is. Jaxson’s been doing this for a long time. He’s a shot maker. The most important thing for Jaxson, for all our guys, is that we don’t actually carry that baggage around. We’re a free-shooting team, meaning that we don’t carry the outcome of makes and misses with us. We’re staying so hyper-focused on the parts of the game that are more controllable, and that’s an issue for all of our guys right now, you know, is us.

... We’ve played two true road games, and both of them have been, you know, spaces where we’re a little distractible. And so that’s a mountain we got to climb. There’s no reason to hide from that. We get another chance on Saturday in a massive game, really challenging game. This game and this league is going to keep throwing challenges. We’ve got to go answer them.

Question about the free-throw disparity between Georgia and Kentucky.

Listen, that doesn’t have anything to do with this game, man. Like, you know, we leave all that stuff. We’re working on the next play. We’re going to go control the stuff we can control, and we can control enough factors in this game to win the game. That will always be true, and so we refuse to be distracted by that.

Question about if Kentucky comes out with the right mentality to begin games because the team has pulled off several second-half comebacks this season.

We’re starting the game well. So they’re starting games well. It’s like I said... It’s that eight to four minute segment, I’m sorry, like the 12 to four minute segment, that’s been a little bit problematic for us. And so, you know, we’re doing some deep dives into, like, tandems that work on the floor, but there’s something in there that’s just been troublesome for us.

I don’t know if it’s scheme, flow, lineup. We’re still digging into that. We’ll find (it). Like I said, I thought we made great progress, you know, last game, and it was hard for us this game.

Question about what Georgia did defensively to affect Kentucky’s offense.

Well, you know, we got a little weird. They came to the game. It got pretty slow... Probably what I was feeling the most was, we lost us a little bit in transition... It was so hard to actually get a defensive rebound where it wasn’t a foul, it was actually a rebound. The times we did, which we had several possessions, from that kind of 10 minute to four minute stretch in the second half, like, we became Georgia, and that’s not actually us.

Like, we play, we’re going to play and the whole game’s connected together. And, like I said... There was a lot in the game to get us distracted, and we just couldn’t stay focused.

Question about if Kentucky was able to successfully transition from one major SEC win against Florida to facing another tough SEC game against Georgia.

I don’t know. I’m not sure how much to read into it. You know, the cadence of the game was so different. The flow of the game, the challenge of the game, was so different. Some of the outcomes were the same, which is certainly disappointing. But, that’s going to be, I don’t know if we’re going to have an actual answer to that.

It’s just going to be something that we’re going to have to continue to focus on the entire season long...

Question about if he or UK associate coach Mark Fox felt any emotions with returning to coach at Georgia.

Well, I know for (Fox) it was. I mean, (Fox) is one of the best to ever do it here in Georgia. He had an unbelievable run, an unbelievable tenure, and he’s so beloved here and I think all of us are carrying it a little heavy that we couldn’t deliver this for him.

This story was originally published January 7, 2025 at 11:27 PM.

Cameron Drummond

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-242-5257

Cameron Drummond works as a sports reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader with a focus on Kentucky men’s basketball recruiting and the UK men’s basketball team, horse racing, soccer and other sports in Central Kentucky. Drummond is a second-generation American who was born and raised in Texas, before graduating from Indiana University. He is a fluent Spanish speaker who previously worked as a community news reporter in Austin, Texas. Support my work with a digital subscription