Everything Mark Pope said after Kentucky basketball’s 88-46 win over Loyola

A full transcript of Kentucky coach Mark Pope’s press conference after the Wildcats beat Loyola (Maryland) 88-46 on Friday at Rupp Arena.

Some questions have been modified for length and clarity.

Mark Pope: All right guys, proud of our guys. Was a good game. This Loyola (Maryland) team is gonna have a good season. Hit me with questions, guys.

Q: Can you say something about your team’s step forward defensively after Michigan State?

Pope: I thought we were good in the gaps today. I thought we were good in the bottoms. I thought our shell principles were pretty good. We have to get better. We have to get better, and so this is an important night for us and tomorrow’s a really important practice and it’s gonna be an every-single-day grind to get better and we’re gonna get better. So we’ll make progress every day and I was proud of our guys for being really intentional about that today.

Q: Are you all right? You take losing really hard and your words in New York said ‘We’re gonna get this fixed,’ but your body language, which you talk about a lot, spoke differently and I’ve had people call me and say ‘Is he OK?’

Pope: Are you asking if I’m sick?

Q: No. Are you OK?

Pope: We need to play better. We got to get better. And we will stop at nothing to get better, and there’s nothing that will stop us from getting better. And we won’t sleep, we won’t eat, we won’t do anything until we get better. We’re gonna get better. And that’s gonna take every ounce of our soul to do it, and there is nothing that will stop us from getting better and achieving what we’re gonna achieve this year. So if you feel anything for me, feel that. I might not sleep as much; that’s great, because this is the greatest opportunity and a great group of guys, and our destiny is to do something really special, and we’re far, far from it. It’s not acceptable. So I appreciate you asking, but yeah, I’m great. This is actually my happy space right now. The determination to, like, get down in the mud and grow and do it sleeplessly and relentlessly and get better every single day and push every single button and try every single new thing —that’s actually how you build something great. And we’re in it now. We’re not leaving it. We’re in it, we’re gonna push it and we’re gonna make progress. So I’m actually better than OK. This is my heaven right here. It’s hard, but we have something really good here, and we’re gonna make sure we get there. Thanks for your concern.

Q: What’s made Kam Williams successful in plus-minus even in games when he’s not scoring?

Pope: He’s been interesting. Since the get-go in practice, his stat line has been really interesting. He just shows up in every category of the stat line. He’s got a ton of growth he’s got to do. He’s got to be more vocal. He’s got to understand us better. He’s got to be more physical. Like, the physicality of the game is something that’s haunting me right now that we’re gonna go find answers to and that’s the place where he’s gonna have to grow. He’s got to get more comfortable offensively because he’s got a huge offensive game. But he’s got a little bit of Koby Brea vibe where Koby, early in the season, was reluctant to get downhill and actually get into the dirty work of the physicality of the game in the paint. He actually was stubborn a couple of times getting downhill today. He is a stat stuffer and he does it quietly sometimes. We need him to be great, he’s going to be great by the end of the season and he’s got a long way to go.

Q: Mark, Otega in the first five minutes, 6 points, 2 steals, 1 assist, really strong rebound, hard cut in the beginning, a nice drive on his own. What did you think of his start and how personally do you think he took what happened Tuesday night in New York?

Pope: I think we all take it really personally. How can you not? Like, that’s what this is. It’s the greatest thing in the world. It’s mano e mano. There’s nowhere to hide. One of the great things about our job, it doesn’t matter what anyone says because there’s just the truth of the scoreboard. It’s just the reality for all of us. I think he took it personally, I think our whole team takes it personally. We know we are not in a great spot right now and we have to get better. It’s actually exhilarating. I was more interested in him in the second half. I felt like his first stretch in the second half wasn’t quite as solid offensively, but we saw a couple possessions of Otega Oweh defense that we haven’t seen the passion and commitment defensively. That’s where he’s going to build his game. I felt like ‘Welcome back, my friend.’ Like, let’s go with that, where you just refuse to let anybody get by you and you don’t need any help on a ball screen or a stack or anything else because you’re just so physical dealing with it. That guy is our guy. And him finding that a little bit — maybe for the first time this season — meant a lot to me. He had a couple of good moments tonight. And we’ve got to grow them. We got to grow on them. And he will, because he’s a big-time player and he’s just gonna figure it out.

Q Mark, how much of Malachi starting was a reward for what he’s done so far and how much of it may have been a message that nobody can get complacent and everybody can get replaced?

Pope: I’m not really a message guy. Everything that we do is very direct and intentional. With Mo out, we knew we had to change at the four. We were going much smaller and much less on-the-ground physicality, even though Kam has great length. So I just felt like Malachi would complement him better. Malachi has been playing well. Maybe the best story of the night, guys, the story you look for is BG’s response. He’s an 11-rebound guy, I don’t think he’s done that all season, has he? Has he been an 11-rebound guy starting? That’s the beautiful thing. You know what? If our guys – we’ve got to go hang a banner; we got to go be great; we got to go beat a good team. We have to do all of those things, right? And through all that, if our guys become guys that are like, ‘Hey, it doesn’t matter what’s done to me’ – in this sense, I’m saying starting or not starting ‘it matters what I do with it.’ Well, BG was an incredible example tonight of learning, of holding onto that lesson at least for one night. Like, ‘Hey, coach decided not to start me, and I’m going to go be unbelievable in my 20 minutes off the bench.’ And he was. He wasn’t perfect, but his effort was great, especially in the second half. The starting change was all of those things.

Q: Collin hit more 3s when that starting five was in together and hit four of them there and then Otega had that run. With the spacing that they had with Kam and Malachi out there together, is that getting back into that flow up offense that you talked about when you got here that you could get up a ton of shots and have a ton of space and run up and down the floor?

Pope: It certainly is more familiar to me for sure. But more importantly than that was just our intentionality. You know, one of my favorite plays in the first half was when Otega got downhill really hard and got to the baseline right underneath the left block and came to two feet and pivoted and pivoted and threw a brilliant hook pass to Collin in the opposite corner. The fact that he saw it, the fact that he was disciplined enough to get to two feet and the fact he was playing with huge force and aggressiveness to earn a great shot for his teammate is part of us that has been missing. I think yes, for sure, partly the space, but I think our guys intentionality is a lesson we have to embrace and we have to learn, If we’re gonna be good, we have got to be a team that is incredibly physical and forceful and aggressive to make plays for our team. I thought there was more of that than anything else in the first half and the spacing helped a little bit.

Q: How close was Mo to being able to go tonight? And then when you played BG and Malachi together, what did you see from them?

Pope: I think Mo could go if both his legs had fallen off. I just think he’s that type of person. But I’m not gonna put him out there until he’s healthy. We did it in practice yesterday. I think there’s going to be some space in some ways for those two guys to be on the floor together, I think that BG is a talented enough of defender where he can really switch one through four. I don’t think we lose anything at all. I think we gain a lot with him defensively at the four. The offensive side, we’re in the process of figuring out how we can play those two bigs together. But for a team right now that’s played, that has struggled against some physicality, there’s a chance that that could be a lineup that could help us in minutes in a game. So I was happy to get a chance to put those guys out there together.

Q: You do get so down after losses and yet you seem to recover fairly quickly back to normal. Maybe this is a better question for Lee Anne, but what is your recovery process like immediately afterwards until 24 hours later?

Pope: Well, I stunk after Michigan State. I was terrible. Listen, guys, I’m a terrible, terrible loser. I’m the worst. Maybe that disqualifies me from having this position. I hate it with a passion that’s unknown on the planet earth. I hate it. Especially here. We are representing. This jersey matters, this thing matters. And sometimes, you know, when you’re holding back all your emotion, I think that was probably more of a manifestation of me after the Michigan State game. I was so proud of myself for not saying the things that I wanted to say, actually. But we got a long slog ahead of us. And I’m hyped. I’m telling you, this is my heaven space right here. It’s ugly and it’s tough and it’s great, and it’s what I’m born to do and that’s what this group is born to do. We’re gonna hit some hard space, but bring it and let’s go. I’m actually so happy in the misery of it. I just love every second of it and I love the fact that we are in a little bit in the hole and we have to dig ourselves out. I think that’s inspiring to me. I’m so good, guys, I’m really good. I’m pissy, but I’m good.

Q How nice was it to see, especially after everything you’ve heard about your own team lately, to see those guys having fun out there and enjoying the end of this one.

Pope: It’s really important that we monitor the joy in the gym. That hasn’t been a space that’s been great for us the last 10 days. Appropriately so. There’s not a lot of joy in losing. You know, there’s no joy there. The joy is in growing and becoming something, but it’s really important. Listen, this group is going to take care of each other. We’re gonna learn to take care of each other. We are going to learn to fight for each other in a really epic way. We’re not there yet. We don’t deal with the physicality of the game well. We don’t deal with the intensity of the game well yet. Those are yets. Yet is the most powerful three-letter word in the world, right? We’re not doing those things yet, but we will. And it’s going to be fun. I can’t wait till we get there.

Q Mark, to end the Michigan State game you had 13 total assists as a team. Tonight, you got 13 assists in the first 17 minutes. What did you see from your guys tonight just playing for each other and together as a team?

Pope: Two things. One, Michigan State is a terrific defensive team, and so they didn’t allow us a lot. But we actually were so indecisive in that game that it was paralyzing. And I thought we were more free and decisive today. The way we play is incredibly demanding of making decisions. And so here, you have to make a decision, be aggressive at implementing it and then live with the outcome. And we have all kinds of methodology to buy ourselves more time to make a decision, but we don’t buy ourselves time to make a decision by freezing or stalling. And so that was really disappointing, the Michigan State game. Epically disappointing. Our guys were better tonight.

Q Mark, all of the stuff that you said or you wanted to say in New York and you didn’t, you can tell me I won’t tell anybody.

Pope: I know. You guys love that. I would be in jail, probably.

Q My question, Lee Anne is a daughter of a coach. Do you guys talk basketball at home about tough losses and wins? Or is that kind of a safe zone?

Pope: We talk a lot of hoops at the house. We talk about the guys, we talk about them as individuals. You know, Lee was in practice yesterday. It’s such a gift. I can’t tell you how much it matters, especially when I’m in a space like this where I have to be hard-driving. Like I’m gonna be hard-driving. We have to and the guys have to embrace it. So it was really great for me to sit down after practice yesterday in the corner where we come out of the tunnel and Lee was at practice and I sat down in practice and I was pretty salty. Every single one of the guys came by and stopped and gave Lee a hug and had a full-on individual one after another — it was like a train going through over the course of a half an hour — conversation about their family and their life and new haircut and their girlfriend and the whole thing. I can’t probably be that person right now. I’m never great at being that person, but Lee Anne is that person. And it matters, and having that matters. She is an incredible ally, especially for a journey like we are in right now. She’s great. She’s incredible. Thanks guys.