UK basketball coach Mark Pope explains why the Wildcats lost at home to Arkansas, Calipari

On an emotionally charged night inside Rupp Arena, it was the home team that faltered.

Mark Pope’s 12th-ranked Kentucky Wildcats suffered their second straight home defeat and their third loss in four games Saturday night, 89-79, to Arkansas.

The return of former UK head coach John Calipari with the Razorbacks was the dominant storyline before, during and after the contest, but UK’s poor play over the course of 40 minutes also deserves plenty of scrutiny.

Despite 22 points from fifth-year big man Amari Williams and 20 points from fifth-year guard Jaxson Robinson, the Cats were very much beaten at their own game by the Hogs.

UK made only 10 3-pointers (three less than Arkansas), shot just 50% from the foul line (9-for-18), committed 14 turnovers and decisively lost the fast-break points battle 18-5. The Wildcats had 11 assists on 30 made baskets, and never led in the second half of the game.

Now, 15-6 overall and 4-4 in SEC play, Kentucky is clearly suffering from the effects of being without its top two point guards and from fifth-year forward Andrew Carr’s ongoing back injury.

Afterward, Pope met with media members at Rupp Arena to discuss everything from the event at Rupp Arena, from Calipari’s return to what the Wildcats need to do to remain contenders in the SEC this season.

Opening statement

Congrats to Arkansas. I thought they played great basketball tonight. Played really tough, really hard. Our guys are pretty disappointed. Complicated stretch for us, but I thought for most of the night we showed a ton of fight and we have a good group. I’ll take questions.

Question about Arkansas’ 3-point shooting ability.

I thought they shot them really well. I thought they did a nice job. They posed a bunch of difficult problems for us and they did a good job getting downhill, getting open. They made ball screen coverage with pick and pop complicated sometimes. I thought Davis did a nice job being really aggressive in two-man game coming off floppies and they really did a terrific job making shots tonight.

Question about Andrew Carr’s health and UK’s substitution patterns.

I thought Andrew made some steps forward tonight. I was proud of him. It’s the first time he ever had any contact in the game where you could feel his presence a little bit. And yeah, trying to figure out this guard rotation right now.

Normally I’ve gone to sub one of these three guards out to start the rotation earlier. There was a little bit of high intensity to this game but it was a little bit slower pace-wise. I thought we could withstand it. I probably needed to start that rotation a little bit earlier. It did feel like we ended up with three tired guys all at the same time. That’s hard.

Question about the Rupp Arena crowd for the Arkansas game.

There’s just nowhere like it. There’s just nowhere like it. It never ceases to amaze me. It was unbelievable. So much juice in the gym. It’s BBN and a place like no other.

Question about if Pope considered playing a defensive zone against Arkansas.

You know, it’s a little complicated proposition. It’s almost a full 0.15 points per possession better against zone this year than they are against man. And then also with the feel they had making shots, that gets really complicated. If I could have run it back, I think I would have taken a more aggressive posture probably and taken some more risk defensively and maybe even rather gone zone.

But that’s something that we are going to have to continually work on. We’re navigating some roster situations right now that had me feeling a little constricted and I probably need to be more bold regardless and take some more shots and be aggressive. If I could run it back I would probably take some more risks there. Even more than a zone.

Question about if Pope thought his players were distracted by the outside attention on John Calipari’s return.

I don’t think so. This is every game, right? That’s the beauty of Kentucky, right? It’s every night is the biggest game ever. If we go on the road, it’s the biggest game ever and we are really blessed to have the greatest fan base in the world and so every night here is the biggest game ever. I think our guys are pretty used to that.

Question about Kentucky’s recent turnover issues.

I think it’s us. I‘m trying to figure out how to navigate. We have a bunch of guys that are stretching right now to figure out how to play out of position and to make it work. Credit to our guys, man, they are really stretching. And we will get better at it. It’s almost like we started a new season. We are two games into a new season a little bit for our team and we are going to learn some new ways to attack this and we will get better at it. And I can help us get better at it.

The turnovers were a little bit of an issue. Not just the 14 turnovers but the turnovers that led to fast-break points were problematic for us tonight. We’re navigating the space, is not unique to us, it’s everybody. We are navigating this space trying to keep it super super simple so that we can stay aggressive with guys playing new roles. Where we can also be aggressive and adjust. Those two things sometimes fight against each other and I didn’t do the best job finding answers for that tonight and that’s going to be an ongoing process. Like I said 100 times, our guys are great at learning and we will continue to learn and we’ll figure this part out too.

Question about the play of Arkansas guard Johnell Davis.

No. This was his best game for sure but I think he’s grown into it. He’s getting a chance now to be the ball-dominant guy that he’s used to being.

He’s three games in, right? To being able to be a ball dominant guy. I expect him to be more and more dangerous as the season goes on. I think that as he fills in the space. He’s a terrific player.

Question about why Trent Noah didn’t play against Arkansas.

Trent is actually super interesting to me. With Drew coming back and Ansley playing so well. I wonder if there is some space for Trent, actually at the three and I think that something to explore. As we kind of reconfigure everything we are doing right now on the fly, he’s played well and there’s definitely space for him and it’s my job to find the right space.

Question about Kentucky’s recent lack of lineup consistency.

I don’t think that’s an anomaly. I think everybody in the league is dealing with stuff like that. And it’s a challenge for us, certainly, but it’s a challenge for everybody. Like I said, that’s somewhere we will continue to make progress.

Question about Arkansas got on a scoring run to begin the second half that created separation on the scoreboard.

I was disappointed, as I reflect back, we’ve been an unbelievable team coming out of halftime. This was really our first poor run coming out of halftime. Something we talked about as a staff after we met. You always are evaluating energy, where energy sits. We are kind of reflecting on what we did at halftime. It might have had us come out, we came out not operating like we do after halftime. And sometimes it’s just an anomaly, sometimes you just have a game like that.

That is concerning to me because that’s been a staple with us, we come out at halftime and we’re great. We were disappointing tonight and that’s a space where we’ve had great success and I think we’re pretty good about. I’m not sure the answer on that. You know, I think you reflect about everything. About the weight guys are carrying, about the energy and about the conversation, the adjustments at halftime, really truthfully it was maybe just poor adjustments on my part. Sometimes you make an adjustment that looks great schematically but somehow it’s an energy stealer from your team and we will consider all of those things. That was really disappointing and was an important part of the game for sure.

Question about Lamont Butler’s ongoing injury.

I just don’t know. I’m not sure. We are trying to just navigate the space. There’s a lot to it (that) I’m not going to share because it’s his stuff. We are trying to figure out how to proceed right now. We will see, I would tell you more, but we just really genuinely don’t know yet.

We’ll figure out more in the next couple of weeks. I would assume at some point we are going to take another shot at this and see how it goes and we will kind of play it by ear.

Question about the strength of the SEC this season resulting in good teams, like UK, having more losses than usual.

Yeah. One of the things that’s beautiful about this league guys, listen, my guys were hurting, my guys were really hurting in the locker room. They know what this building means, they know what this jersey means. They see everything and hear everything and they know what matters. They’re getting a up hand, up close look at how much it means to the people they are playing for. I have a locker room that’s down tonight, not down, down is not the right word. Like, hurt, as we have all season long. We talked after the game just very briefly about this game and about our job, right, how it is very much, like we have to move to the next game, there can’t be carryover.

This grieving process that we go through and for our guys they care so much, it really is a grieving process, a five-step process. It has to happen fast, it has to happen in the next 12 hours or 16 hours and we will have some time to spend tomorrow where we can help each other do it because we’re going on the road to another top 25 team. It’s the greatest thing in the world that that we get to do it, it’s the best thing in the world. It’s super painful right now. We can’t indulge in this for very long. It just makes it all complicated, you know, if there’s anything about tonight it was just kinda all kind of complicated, conflicting, upside down, twisted up feelings, with everybody in BBN. Certainly our guys had that come out of this game and we have to race to clarity and race to the next one. Because that’s what this league is for sure. We are a really good team.

We are dealing with some roster changes right now that are complicated. We are really good team. We have guys that are really really competing. We’ve got some guys that are growing and actually in the process, because they need to step up and be better for us and have guys in the process doing that and we are all doing it all while playing great teams and having two or three successes and having some setbacks and it’s awesome. You know, this is a journey for us. This is not a coronation, this is a journey. And we’re going to earn our way through it and there’s going to be some pain on the way and certainly, for my guys tonight it was super painful. Thanks guys.

This story was originally published February 2, 2025 at 2:15 AM.

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