Mark Pope left ‘searching for answers’ after Kentucky’s ugliest loss of the season so far
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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’s latest basketball road trip ended with a 98-84 loss to Ole Miss.
The final score was a generous assessment of the Wildcats’ showing Tuesday night in Oxford.
For the real story of UK’s latest loss — its fourth in the past five games — start at the beginning. And that beginning ran counter to everything that is known about Mark Pope’s team.
These Wildcats excel on the offensive end. They came into this matchup ranked third nationally in offensive efficiency and third nationally in points per game.
Against the No. 25 Rebels, they couldn’t buy a bucket for much of the first half.
Ole Miss scored 16 seconds into the game and led the rest of the way, the 14th-ranked Wildcats simply trying their best to keep up in the beginning.
They didn’t keep up for very long.
That ultra-efficient offense that Kentucky fans have enjoyed all season was largely missing in the first half. Possession after possession, the Cats were smothered by the Rebels’ defensive approach, often settling for shots that were contested, off balance or both, with most of those failing to find their target.
By halftime, Kentucky had shot 12-for-31 from the field. The Cats were just 7-for-21 inside the arc. At times, they couldn’t get a shot off at all. UK committed two shot-clock violations in the first nine minutes and a 10-second violation not long after that.
“They’re a really good defense, and they do a nice job,” Pope said afterward of an Ole Miss team that was ranked No. 11 nationally defensively coming into the game. “… Their switching was problematic for us, and it was hard for us to find a rhythm.”
And that wasn’t even the half of it.
Kentucky’s offense wasn’t the biggest issue Tuesday night.
“For us, the biggest frustration we’re feeling right now is on the defensive end,” Pope said. “And I’m doing a poor job of finding answers to that right now.”
While the Wildcats’ scoring attack was largely lacking at the beginning, the team’s defense was nowhere to be found.
Ole Miss scored at will in the first half. While it seemed like every UK shot attempt was contested, the feeling inside the gym was that every time the Rebels put one up, there were no Wildcats in the vicinity. They had combined to shoot 19-for-60 from 3-point range over the past three games. By halftime, they had shot 9-for-17 from deep.
And, at that point, Ole Miss led 54-31, which was Kentucky’s biggest halftime deficit since Feb. 16, 2013 — the date that those Cats played their first game after star center Nerlens Noel was lost to a season-ending injury and trailed Tennessee by 24 points at the break. Those Cats lost that game by 30.
These Cats found some offensive answers right off the bat out of halftime.
Kentucky made adjustments, and a series of cuts to the rim helped them go 6-for-6 — all dunks and layups — to start the second half. But on the other end of the court, it was the same story.
Ole Miss canned 3-pointers on its first two possessions out of the break. And by the time UK finally missed its first shot of the second half — on its seventh attempt of the period — the Cats’ deficit had actually grown to 25 points.
Otega Oweh, who was ultimately UK’s leading scorer with a career-high 24 points, summed up the night in nine words.
“On the defensive end, we just didn’t get stops,” he said.
Pope shed a lot more specific light on the situation after the loss, but it’s clear this Kentucky team is still looking for a way forward amid an unfortunate injury situation that has brought a promising season to a grinding halt.
Kentucky, once again, was playing without veteran point guards Lamont Butler and Kerr Kriisa.
Since Butler injured his shoulder in a win over Texas A&M three weeks ago, the Cats have dropped four of five games, the last two with him sidelined completely. It’s been more than eight weeks since Kriisa suffered a fractured foot in a win over Gonzaga.
Those two guys made Kentucky’s offense go. Without them, the pace has come in fits and starts, and it was completely lacking for the biggest parts of Tuesday’s game.
“Our lack of pace right now has been a little bit troublesome for us,” Pope said. “We’re dealing with, you know, 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.”
Freshman guards Collin Chandler and Travis Perry have both filled in with meaningful minutes over the past three games, but they’re freshmen, trying to play in this unforgiving version of the SEC, which offers up an NCAA Tournament-caliber opponent pretty much every night.
“They’re really, really talented, good players,” Pope said. “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. And it’s a little bit of a painful process for us right now, but that’s growing. But we have a lot of faith in those guys, and they’re making contributions.
“And they’ll continue to make bigger and bigger contributions.”
The brunt of the playmaking work on offense and perimeter work on defense has fallen on a collection of veteran guards who have primarily been off-the-ball scorers and help defenders in the past.
On Tuesday, the Wildcats forced just one Ole Miss turnover. For the entire game. No one involved — on either side — could recall, with certainty, being part of a night like that. Rebels coach Chris Beard was fairly sure one of his teams at Angelo State, a Division II school, had done it.
“I’m doing a poor job with our team defensively right now,” Pope said of the lone turnover.
The Rebels had 24 assists, by the way.
Butler’s presence is obviously missed.
“He’s one of the best point guards in college basketball,” Beard said. “He brings another dynamic to their team. There’s no denying that.”
There’s also no clear picture of when Butler will return. Pope’s comments over the weekend made it sound as if UK’s starting point guard would give it a go sometime relatively soon, but he might not be 100% for the rest of the season, even if he can play. There’s been no indication when (or if) Kriisa, who had surgery on his foot about eight weeks ago, will return for the Cats.
“I don’t know,” Pope said of their status after Tuesday night’s loss. “Right now, we have to figure this out with the guys we have. Like, that’s the job. We have to figure this out with the guys we have, and that’s what we’re focused on. And that’s the job.”
It’s going to be a difficult one.
Kentucky has accumulated enough of a season-long résumé to have plenty of room for error, as far as the NCAA Tournament is concerned. The Cats were still considered a 3 seed by several prominent bracketologists heading into Tuesday night. One game — on the road, against a Top 25 team — won’t do much to change that.
But they’re obviously trending in the wrong direction, and — even if they can figure out how to play better with Butler on the sidelines — opposing teams are getting more and more film of them playing without both veteran point guards.
The first half in Oxford was — competitively speaking — the low point of Kentucky’s season.
The Cats have fallen in first-half holes before — and even climbed out of a few — but this one was especially bad.
The loss to Ohio State in Madison Square Garden back in December wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t as ugly as what happened in Mississippi.
The loss at Georgia gave pause. But the Cats were at least within striking distance in that one. In this one, they trailed by 27 points in the second half and played 75% of the game down double digits.
What happened Saturday night in Rupp Arena — an 89-79 loss to Arkansas in John Calipari’s return to Lexington — was an unforgettable low that some fans won’t get over for a long time (if they ever do). Emotions aside, the beating Ole Miss put on Kentucky was much worse, from a purely basketball perspective.
After the loss, Pope was flanked by Oweh on one side and Amari Williams on the other. Oweh had just set a new career high in scoring. That was never even mentioned. Williams had just recorded only the fourth triple-double in UK basketball history — 12 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists — and no one wanted to talk much about that either.
“I mean, it’s a good achievement to have,” Williams said when prompted directly. “But I would have traded it for the win, for sure. That’s all I got to say about it, really. Just wish we went out there and played better defense as a team. Individually, too.”
They’ll get more chances. This SEC gauntlet is only halfway finished. And the Cats are 4-5 in the league, with nine games remaining in the regular season and no clear fixes in sight.
“We’re in a tough spot right now as a team, and we’re searching for answers,” Pope said. “And it’s not going to get easier. This is the job. And 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, hard space for us right now.”
This story was originally published February 4, 2025 at 11:28 PM.
