It’s easy to understand why Mark Pope isn’t making excuses, but he has plenty to make
Mark Pope was having none of it after Kentucky’s 82-78 loss to Texas on Saturday night.
His opening statement made no mention of the circumstances that were clear as day.
“We did not execute the way you need to down the stretch to win a game,” it ended.
A question about the final three minutes and change — when it all fell apart for the Wildcats, victims of a 14-1 run in crunch time — was met with a blow-by-blow recap of all that had gone wrong.
“We just didn’t execute well,” Pope reiterated, before listing all of the reasons why.
The players who weren’t on the court were never mentioned among those reasons.
A question from a Texas reporter — someone who’d seen some bad basketball from the Longhorns this season — about whether Kentucky had an “emotional letdown” four days after a huge win over No. 5 Tennessee was immediately dismissed.
“I think the guys came to battle,” Pope declared. “… I’m really, actually, proud of our guys’ effort, for sure.”
A week and a half earlier, some had questioned Kentucky’s bad body language — and even the Cats’ general effort — in an ugly loss at Ole Miss, but this night, Pope made clear, was nothing like that one.
The UK coach did say that his team’s execution at the end of the Texas loss “stunk” — his word — before quickly amending that.
“Really, it wasn’t even our execution,” Pope explained. “It was partly our execution, but our presentness was poor.”
And there, after nearly five minutes of talking, Kentucky’s coach fully arrived at the crux of the problem.
Surely the fact that the Cats were missing Lamont Butler, Kerr Kriisa and Jaxson Robinson — their top three ball-handlers, a trio of creative playmakers, as well as their top perimeter defender — was a reason the players who were still out on the court were slipping at the end, right?
“We’re not leaving any space for that,” Pope said.
The final question of the night was a variation of that one. And it got a similar response.
“Yeah, we’re just not spending any time on that,” Pope said.
It’s clear why the UK coach said what he said Saturday night. It’s just as clear that the absence of Butler, Kriisa and Robinson is an issue. It was an issue in Austin. It’s likely to remain an issue into the near future, and — quite possibly — for the rest of the season.
Pope isn’t making any excuses, because he knows excuses won’t do any good. Complaining about it won’t change the outcome of Saturday’s game. Pointing it out over and over won’t do anything to placate a fan base that Pope already understands better than any UK coach ever.
And he can’t make excuses, because he knows he can’t afford to at this point.
“The guys on the court are good players, and we’re good enough to win,” Pope said.
For now, the guys on the court are all he’s got.
But, make no mistake, there are excuses to be made.
Kentucky basketball problems
While UK has been dealing with injury issues all season — and the Cats have won some big games in spite of them — Saturday night in Texas was the first instance in which the team had to play an entire game without Butler, Kriisa and Robinson.
It got off to a decent enough start. A good one, actually.
Travis Perry made his first career start as a college player and found Ansley Almonor for an open 3-pointer in the corner on UK’s first possession. Almonor missed the shot, but it was a good scoring opportunity, and Amari Williams grabbed the offensive rebound, got fouled and nailed both free throws.
About three minutes later, Perry hit a 3-pointer to put Kentucky ahead 9-2.
The Cats had four assists in the first seven minutes and change, not bad for a team missing its top three point guards. UK led for basically the entirety of the first nine minutes.
And then when the substitutions started really cycling, the lineups got a little scrambled and the Longhorns got settled in, Kentucky hit a bit of a wall. The flow continued in fits and starts, but there were some overarching themes.
UK’s shot creation was an issue for most of the night. After those four early assists, the Cats had just six over the final 32 minutes of the game. They also committed 10 turnovers in the second half alone.
Instead of getting guys into space with open looks, many of Kentucky’s attempts were forced or contested or both.
The Cats also couldn’t buy a shot from outside. After shooting 43.6% from 3-point range with an average of 10.3 makes over the previous seven games, UK was 6-for-24 from deep in Austin.
Kentucky’s offensive efficiency rating for the game was the 10th best in its 12 SEC matchups so far. The only lesser performances were the all-systems failure in the loss at Georgia last month and the game at Vanderbilt three weeks ago. That was also a UK loss and the final game Butler tried to play with his injured shoulder before sitting out the next three. (It was, not coincidentally, Butler’s worst game as a Wildcat.)
All of these things are obviously related.
Even with an offense that relies on bigs like Williams and Brandon Garrison to generate scoring opportunities for others, it’s incredibly difficult to create open space and the good looks that come with it when your top three ball handlers are forced to watch from the bench.
Pope and his coaching staff built this roster in the vision that they hoped to play this season. It’s often worked out splendidly, with the Cats ranked as high as No. 2 nationally in offensive efficiency and still fifth in the country in that stat after Saturday’s slog.
But Kentucky simply can’t afford for all three of those players to be out at the same time. Not in this edition of the SEC, with as many as 14 teams projected to make the NCAA Tournament field and even the lesser among them featuring players — like Texas’ Tre Johnson and Tramon Mark, for instance — capable of turning on the gas and cooking you on any given night.
It’s worth pointing out that the Longhorns were missing Arthur Kaluma — their second-leading scorer and top rebounder, out with an injury, too — but covering for one important player is different than trying to play without three. Especially when that trio is listed at 1-2-3 in the position that is arguably most important to Pope’s approach, the one these Cats have been working on since June.
With those three out, there’s little to no margin for error. And while the Cats got some good fortune Saturday night — Williams making a 3-pointer topped the list — enough went wrong, too.
Will UK basketball players recover?
Koby Brea, often an offensive catalyst for Kentucky, was 0-for-6 from the field and missed all four of his 3-pointers Saturday night. He had made at least one 3-pointer in 39 consecutive games before this one. Williams, a force for most of the night, was 5-for-11 on free throws. There were ill-timed turnovers and bounces that didn’t go Kentucky’s way that led to second-chance points.
And the injuries aren’t limited to the guys on the bench.
Andrew Carr, another of Kentucky’s most important players, is clearly hurting. Going into the loss at Alabama four weeks ago — the one where he tried to play despite an injured back — Carr was averaging 11.4 points and 5.8 rebounds in 26.4 minutes per game.
Since sitting out for more than a week after that Bama loss, Carr has played in six games, averaging 5.0 points and 2.3 rebounds in only 15.0 minutes. He hasn’t surpassed his previous average in any of those categories in any of those six games. He fouled out with 4:21 left Saturday night, right before things went off the rails for Kentucky.
All of this led to some big numbers elsewhere in the box score. Brea played a season-high 35 minutes despite his offensive struggles. Perry played 28 minutes, doubling his previous career high. Fellow freshman Trent Noah played 21, also a career high.
Coming into the season, Perry and Noah were viewed as the 11th and 12th players on this UK roster. There were higher expectations for the team’s other freshman, Collin Chandler, but those were obviously too lofty. Chandler hadn’t played basketball in two years while on a mission trip, and he played only four minutes — all in the first half — Saturday night, still not quite ready for regular run in games like this.
Perry was the final starter to be subbed out in the first half against Texas and played nearly all of the final six minutes of the second half. Noah was in and out of the game in crunch time. All of that happening — in an SEC road game — would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago.
Now, it’s simply the reality of the situation. And it might be for the rest of this season.
Pope’s not making excuses, because they won’t change the hand the Cats have been dealt.
It’s not clear when Butler or Robinson will come back, and — even if and when they do — there will be valid concern that they could be right back on the sidelines at any moment. Kriisa’s return is sounding more and more unlikely by the day. He hasn’t played since Dec. 7 and has not yet returned to practice amid his recovery from foot surgery.
For now — and quite possibly for March, too — this is Pope’s team. His final words Saturday night: “We have the guys to do this, and we’re not spending any time thinking about anything else.”
He has to believe that — and, more importantly, get his players to believe it — because thinking any other way might be waving a white flag on a season that has had so many high points.
A few hours before Kentucky took the court Saturday night, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee unveiled the top teams for its 2025 bracket, as of now, and UK was listed as the No. 10 overall team and a 3 seed.
Committee chair Bubba Cunningham, the athletics director at North Carolina, noted the Cats’ injury issues and implied that leeway would be granted for some of the losses that have come as a result.
Kentucky’s road won’t get any easier. There are home games against Vanderbilt, LSU and No. 1 Auburn remaining, with road trips to No. 2 Alabama, No. 21 Missouri and Oklahoma, too. But — barring an 0-6 finish — the Cats are unlikely to fall far between now and Selection Sunday.
If they can get there in better health, the Cats have shown they can beat anybody.
Pope has to plan for the other scenario, however, and that means getting newcomers like Perry and Noah more reps in those crucial late-game situations. It means keeping the confidence of Brea and Williams and the rest of UK’s core on the upswing.
For the time being, it probably means more nights like the one in Austin. And — as Kentucky’s 12th man in October said after playing a key role in a close game in February — it means figuring out how to get better on the fly.
“I think it’s huge for us,” Noah said on Saturday night. “And that’s something that we need to continue to work on and learn from this game. I think there’s a lot of learning pieces that we can go back and figure stuff out and see how we can get a positive benefit from this tough loss.”
