Everything Mark Pope said after Kentucky basketball’s defensive disaster at Ole Miss
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Game day: No. 25 Ole Miss 98, No. 14 Kentucky 84
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Mississippi in Oxford, Miss.
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Kentucky men’s basketball — and Mark Pope specifically — have some major questions to answer on the defensive end.
That much is clear after UK’s latest game, a 98-84 road loss to Ole Miss on Tuesday night.
Kentucky never led in the contest, and it allowed the hosts to score on more than 62% of their possessions, to the tune of 1.42 points per possession.
No. 14 Kentucky — now 15-7 overall and 4-5 in SEC games — has lost four of its last five games, and this current slide has seen the Cats drop below .500 in conference play. No. 25 Ole Miss, now 17-6 overall and 6-4 in SEC games, had 24 assists against just one turnover against the Cats.
The 98 points scored by Ole Miss represented the most points the program has scored against Kentucky on the hardwood.
Kentucky wasted a special individual effort from fifth-year center Amari Williams in the heavy road defeat. Williams went for a triple-double with 12 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. This marked the first triple-double by a UK player in nearly a decade, and only the fourth triple-double in Kentucky program history.
Despite Williams’ performance, the Wildcats were very much second best on the night. Pope’s squad — playing again without experienced guards Lamont Butler and Kerr Kriisa — trailed by 23 points at halftime and was down at least 11 points for the final 28:43 of the game.
A potential reprieve does await UK on Saturday afternoon: The Wildcats will host South Carolina at Rupp Arena. The Gamecocks — who are still the only SEC team without a win in league play — have the week off before coming to Lexington.
But for now, Kentucky must sit with a whole lot of defensive shortcomings.
On Tuesday night, Pope met with reporters in Mississippi to break down the Ole Miss game and where the Wildcats go from here. Here’s everything that Pope said.
Opening statement.
Congrats to Ole Miss. I thought they played really, really well. They made big shots. They hurt us in a lot of different ways. And it was a big win for them. These are all important games …
We’re dealing with some frustration right now, but we’ll continue to get better. Hit us with questions.
Question about Kentucky struggling to create quality offense.
They’re a really good defense, and they do a nice job. I think they are one or two in our league right now, and their switching was problematic for us and it was hard for us to find a rhythm. I didn’t help the guys enough to try and find answers.
But, against that defense, we still shoot 50% from the field for the game, and are 21 (assists) and eight (turnovers), which is what we want.
For us, the biggest frustration we’re feeling right now is on the defensive end and I’m doing a poor job of finding answers for that right now.
Question about Ole Miss only having one turnover in the game.
My guys are playing hard, I’m doing a poor job with our team defensively right now. It’s a credit to Ole Miss and it’s a real issue for me and I’ve got to figure out how to help our team have more of a presence.
Question about the ESPN broadcast reporting that Kentucky had a bad pregame shootaround.
No, I felt like we were trying to find a nice focus for us, and our guys do that consistently.
Question about Kentucky not taking enough 3-pointers.
There’s a bunch of things that are frustrating about that. One, it’s a credit to Ole Miss of course, always first. Two, for us it’s a struggle to find ways to get downhill. Their switching defense contributes to that.
Our lack of pace right now has been a little bit troublesome for us. We’re trying to work on a lot of things, and so our pace is suffering right now, and that hurts us a little bit.
That’s certainly a sign of something we’d like to do better. With that said, where we’re really feeling the onus of the issue right now is trying to figure out this defensive side of the ball.
Question about how Kentucky closes out on 3-point shooters.
It usually ends up being all of the above, is actually the truth. We’ve played against two teams back-to-back now where their bigs have really shot it tremendously well against us, and that’s problematic for us.
The solutions are complicated sometimes. And I’m doing a poor job of finding the right ones.
Question about Collin Chandler and Travis Perry getting significant playing time recently against veteran SEC opponents.
They’re really good players. Collin and Travis are really good players, and Trent (Noah) also. They’re really, really talented, good players, and certainly they don’t have a ton of experience, but they’re good players and they’re going to get better every single second they’re out on the floor.
It’s a little bit of a painful process for us right now, but that’s growing. We have a lot of faith in those guys. They’re making contributions, and they’ll continue to make bigger and bigger contributions.
Question about opponents taking a high volume of 3-pointers against Kentucky in SEC play.
I’d like it to be zero, if we can get that. That would be my preference.
We’re stretching a little bit right now and trying to find answers. That’s really the truth. We went through a section where we were having a tough time on the glass, and the we went through a segment where we were really struggling at the rim and fouling.
Then right now, we’re struggling with a segment where we’re really struggling guarding the 3-point line. All that boils down to me in the sense of like I’ve got to figure out schematically how our players are capable of doing this.
We’re clearly chasing our tails a little bit right now, but we’ll find answers. We have the right group, but it’s certainly a tough stretch for us right now, for sure.
Question about how Pope balances the UK team performance with Amari Williams making program history with a triple-double.
Well, they’re both true. Listen, in challenging times, things are still true. All the things are still true. And the truth is Amari, we’re asking him to do so much and he’s raising up and doing it.
He has triple-double in less than 26 minutes. That’s remarkable, especially as a player his size. To be a 10-assist guy on the road in a game where we desperately needed him to be a playmaker for us right now …
He’s playing amazing basketball and he’s really stretching and he’s really growing and I’m super proud of it.
And we also have a ton of frustration. Both those things are actually true at the same time.
Question about Lamont Butler and Kerr Kriisa’s injury recoveries.
I don’t know. Right now, we have to figure this out with the guys we have. Like, that’s the job, is we have to figure this out with the guys we have.
That’s what we’re focused on and that’s the job.
Question about if Kentucky can take any positives from the second half in which the Wildcats outscored Ole Miss by nine points.
Yes. … Come on, this is Kentucky. We don’t do moral victories at all. But, we also will try and build on things that we do well. I thought we had some pace in the second half. It was much better, and we did it by sharing the ball.
Ole Miss missed a couple shots for us, and so we got to get out in transition. That’s really important. After a make or a miss, we’ve got to find our way back into transition, that’s really important for us. So that was a positive.
You know, we probably went through our whole playbook of different defensive options. It’s hard to take too much because you’re nursing a lead and so (Ole Miss) plays different, but at least we got some reps doing different things. We’ll get better at those. We’ll grow there.
We have a resilient group and a group that cares and this was one of those nights where you could just kind of have walked away, and our guys didn’t do that. That’s clearly a standard that we’ll never accept dipping below, but nonetheless I’m proud of the guys for that.
It’s hard to find positives, but there are certainly some. We’ll continue to expound on the things the guys did well. We’re in a tough spot right now as a team, and we’re searching for answers.
It’s not going to get easier. This is the job. I’m glad I get to do this with these guys and we’re going to go find answers and we’re going to have unbelievable success as we go.
But this is certainly a hard space for us right now.
This story was originally published February 4, 2025 at 10:53 PM.
