Everything Mark Pope said after Kentucky men’s basketball lost to North Carolina
A full transcript of Kentucky men’s basketball coach Mark Pope’s press conference following a 67-64 loss to North Carolina on Tuesday at Rupp Arena.
Some questions have been edited for content and clarity.
Q: What did you see in your guys’ initial defense, and how frustrating was it to not come up with rebounds after getting those stops?
Mark Pope: It’s a huge part of the game. We’re actually one of the best-percentage defensive rebounding teams in the country, and credit to North Carolina. They were elite on the glass. They have size and length, and their front line really dominated us. They had 12 offensive rebounds just with their starting three, four and five. And we were really poor at our second hit and so that was really frustrating. It’s hard to win a game when you give up 20 offensive rebounds.
Q Obviously, second half just struggling to shoot the ball. I think it was over 10 minute scoring drought. When you look at all three of the losses this season, we’ve seen those scoring droughts. And basketball is a game of a runs sometimes. But why does this team seem to struggle with scoring so frequently for long periods of time against ranked teams?
Pope: We really haven’t, it hasn’t been a huge scoring issue. Tonight, it was for sure. It’s going to be hard for us to win scoring 64 points. It’s uncommon for us to be 1 from 13 from 3. That’s not really who we are. More disappointing is the eight assists. That’s really frustrating. I thought in the second half our decision-making was poor. And caught up in the moment trying to make – we still have, are on a steep learning curve trying to figure out how to make plays for our teammates. We shoot it well when we actually do that, and we don’t, we don’t.
Q The first couple of questions have kind of addressed it. Like you said, nine turnovers, eight assists, 20 offensive rebounds, just 13 3s. At this point in the season, what are you most concerned with and in which area?
Pope: Well, I’m really frustrated with the rebounding tonight. Like I said, that’s credit to North Carolina and it’s uncharacteristic for us. It just hasn’t been us, but we just got crushed on the glass. It’s very, very disappointing tonight for sure. But I don’t think that’s who we are. I’m really frustrated with the eight (turnovers) and nine (assists), that’s not who we’ve been either. But the MP4T stuff is a little bit of a trend right now that’s concerning and we have to find a way to break through and have the discipline to do it. We probably had a little fatigue on the floor, which I’m gonna have to find a way to kind of dig deeper into this rotation to get some quality minutes. That’s going to be something really important to us as we move forward. There’s a lot we have to learn.
Q: With Gonzaga coming up and Indiana, St. John’s within the next four games. How do you fragment and put those into different sections so that this loss doesn’t end up snowballing and the previous losses?
Pope: Yeah, that’s your job as a pro, right? You can’t allow that. We’ve got to go through the grieving process and get back to work. I do think that we are making some strides in certain areas. I thought we had some positive play from several guys. You know, I feel like we found a little bit of ourselves in this game. And so, there’s no safety net right now. We just have to get better. We’lll continue focusing on that and we need guys to step up and give us great efforts, and I’m excited about the games we have ahead. Why play if you are not playing great teams? So I’m excited about it.
Q Mark, you talked about the offensive rebounds that UNC got. Was there anything they were doing in particular that helped them excel?
Pope: Well, our ball screen coverage was not great. It was poor, our pick-up point was way too high. We were a little too passive. Rarely at the point of the screen. We’re a little bit overzealous and overconfident in our belief in what we can actually accomplish. Defensively we are putting ourselves in harm’s way. That resulted in a lot of rotation stuff with some rebounding. And then just the size also. We had a lot of times where we put a body on a body and just rested in that space instead of getting a second hit. The second hit is so important. We did a poor job there, surprisingly. Like I said we’ve been a really good defensive team.
Q You talked about a little bit about the scoring droughts. What do you have to do differently in a 10-minute drought like you had tonight without a bucket? What has to happen to break that, to get the lid off? You talked about needing playmaking, how much are some of those guys that are injured going to help when they get back with that on the second part?
Pope: So, yes. There’s several things that can help you. One, pace of the game can really help you. Two, having a couple of guys. places you can go that you really trust to go find you a basket. Three, just simple things like catching the ball with two hands. It’s really hard, you have a wide-open layup under the basket and you just drop the ball out of bounds. There’s some inconceivable things that just happen because of the flow of the game. I wish it was one thing that you do, but it’s just a grouping of things where we just need to get better and get more solid and we’ve got to find a balance between me meddling with the game and the guys feeling the game. But all of that is part of it. It’s a struggle for us right now that is all on the foundation of this MP4T vibe.
Q Mark, I just wanted to follow up on. You said, we found a bit of ourselves tonight. Can you elaborate?
Pope: I think Jela gave us some good minutes, I was proud of him. I think he gave us some solid minutes. I think Kam, with a really complicated matchup, I thought Kam had some positive minutes for us. So I liked that. I thought Otega’s effort was terrific tonight. Minus some fatigue plays, I thought he was really solid. So there were some positive signs for sure. Thanks guys.