‘I hate every bit of it.’ But Kentucky can learn from exhibition loss to Hoyas
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky lost 84-70 to Georgetown; defense collapsed, offense failed to click.
- Injuries sidelined top guards Lowe and Aberdeen, exposing perimeter liability.
- Coach Pope ordered film sessions and practice focus to correct defensive breakdowns.
Perhaps everyone got a little too carried away by this Kentucky basketball team’s first performance against outside competition?
Because the Wildcats’ second look at someone other than themselves left much to be desired.
Less than a week after manhandling the No. 1 team in the country, UK dropped its first exhibition game in 11 years. And it was never really close toward the end.
The Georgetown Hoyas came into Rupp Arena on Thursday night and left the building with an 84-70 victory over the No. 9-ranked Cats, who never settled into a rhythm and never seriously threatened the visitors in the second half.
It was Kentucky’s first loss in an exhibition game since the 2014-15 team’s summer trip to the Bahamas. It was the program’s first defeat in a preseason game since Team Nike beat Tubby Smith’s 2002-03 Wildcats a week before that season began.
It was like someone let the air out of Rupp, six days after the place was rocking for Kentucky’s 78-65 victory over top-ranked Purdue. For Mark Pope’s Wildcats, it was downright ugly.
“I hate every bit of it,” Pope said afterward, speaking with a voice that was as hoarse as it’s been during his tenure as UK’s coach. “But if we treat it right, it will serve us well.”
Before these Wildcats move on, they’ll have to take a closer look at all that went wrong.
“We got film tomorrow morning,” junior forward Mouhamed Dioubate said. “It’s gonna be a long film session.”
It won’t be pretty.
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Georgetown — picked to finish sixth in the Big East and not projected as an NCAA Tournament team this season — took the lead for good midway through the first half and led by double digits for the final 17:31 of the game.
Coach Ed Cooley’s team bullied the Wildcats on both ends of the floor. The Hoyas got to the basket at will, shooting 55.4% from the field, 65% on 2-point shots and outscoring Kentucky 38-24 in the paint. Malik Mack, Georgetown’s all-Big East point guard, led the team with 22 points. He was 7 for 9 on 2s.
“It was just something that I saw throughout the game,” Mack said. “When I have a lane, I feel like I’m quick enough to get to the basket. So it wasn’t something that I planned on doing going into the game, but just the opportunities I saw — what the defense was giving me.”
The defense gave him — and the rest of the Hoyas — a lot.
That wasn’t what Pope wanted to see. The coach often lamented his team’s defense last season — his first in the Kentucky job — and has made improvement on that end of the floor priority No. 1 going into this one.
The Cats were playing without their top two point guard options — starter Jaland Lowe and backup Denzel Aberdeen, who will also start under normal circumstances and is viewed as a key to UK’s defensive improvement — due to injury. Both are expected to return to the court soon, possibly in time for the regular-season opener against Nicholls on Tuesday night.
Both were missed against the Hoyas.
“That’s not an excuse for the way we played on defense,” Dioubate said. “… We gotta just bring that dog (mentality), and we didn’t bring it today.”
Dioubate, who had 13 points and tied a team high with seven rebounds, sounded eager to watch that film Friday morning. So did Otega Oweh, the Cats’ leading scorer with 17 points.
Asked if he thought other teams might try to push this Kentucky squad around — like so many foes did last season — the senior guard offered a straightforward reply.
“I hope so,” he said. “I feel like teams are gonna try a whole lot of stuff. But we’re gonna learn from this. That’s fine if other teams want to do that, but we’re gonna learn from this, for sure.”
Lessons learned were the key theme among the UK players who spoke after this one.
The most important lesson?
“We can’t take no team for granted,” Dioubate said. “At the end of the day, we’re all basketball players — Division I basketball players — and being at Kentucky, we understand, like, we got to get the mentality that everyone wants to beat us. We’re the program everyone wants to beat. So there’s no days off here. That’s the mentality for it. No days off. No matter who we play. At all.”
Georgetown came into Rupp wanting to walk out with a victory.
Six nights earlier, Purdue coach Matt Painter acknowledged that the Boilermakers didn’t prep much for that exhibition game, concentrating on themselves instead.
“I’d be lying to you if I say we didn’t prepare,” Cooley said Thursday night. “Like, if you don’t prepare, don’t expect to win.”
A little while later …
“I thought our preparation really helped us,” he said. “If we came in here without a scout, we would’ve got beat by a hundred. I mean, they can put 100, 110 points on you like that. They’re one of the fastest teams we’ve prepared for in a long, long time.”
They might be. But that wasn’t the case against the Hoyas.
Kentucky shot just 33.3% from the floor. The Cats were 7 for 30 from 3-point range — a pitiful 23.3% — and even worse in the second half, when they managed to go 0 for 13 from deep.
Some of UK’s younger players had a rough go of it.
Collin Chandler, apparently the No. 3 point guard option on this team, got the start in place of Lowe and Aberdeen. He had 11 points and three assists. He also had five turnovers.
Freshman guard Jasper Johnson, the team’s leading scorer in the win over Purdue, went 3 for 10 from the floor and 1 for 6 from deep.
“Jasper Johnson was put under real duress tonight, which is exactly what he needs,” Pope said. “That’s how you grow and get better.”
Sophomore guard Kam Williams, who’s expected to be one of the team’s top 3-point shooters this season, was 0 for 5 from the field — all long-range attempts — and was held scoreless in 24 minutes.
“Kam Williams got a chance to kind of feel the physicality of the game,” Pope said. “And he’s going to really grow from that.”
It’s clear these Cats still have a lot of growing to do. Luckily for them, there will be a lot of time to do it.
But if that victory over Purdue raised the already sky-high expectations around this bunch, the loss to Georgetown should temper them, at least a bit. The real games begin next week. The first big one — the rivalry game at No. 11 Louisville — is set for Nov. 11.
That’s less than two weeks from now. And these Cats clearly have a lot of work to do.
“I’ll be honest with you, this is painful. We’re not going to sleep,” Pope said. “This is never acceptable here. It’s the worst thing in the world. And I’m really grateful for it — that it’s happening now, because it gives us a chance to try and learn and grow. We need to do that. We can.
“I got unbelievably competitive guys. I have beautiful guys. And they care. And they’re smart. And we’ll really, really learn and grow from this. So, in that sense, I couldn’t ask for anything better. You know, in a terribly awful, painful exhibition game.”
