Kentucky got ugly to beat Indiana. And Mark Pope finally got his wish
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky rallied through defensive effort and offensive rebounds to beat Indiana.
- Mouhamed Dioubate and Brandon Garrison sparked a 17-2 run and momentum shift.
- Mark Pope praised grit, calling the team's relentless defense beautiful.
The ball whipping across the court in the form of lightning-quick passes from one Kentucky Wildcat to another. Movement all around, whenever the Cats had possession. Three-point flurries that came in waves. A 7-footer with soft touch finding a teammate for an easy 2.
Those were the kinds of things that led fans to fall in love with Mark Pope’s first UK basketball team.
Those are also the kind of things that have been missing from season two of the Pope era. And during the Cats’ 72-60 victory over Indiana on Saturday night — as close to a must-win game as it gets in December — those were the kind of things that remained largely absent.
The fans that packed Rupp Arena for this one fell in love with the Wildcats anyway.
“I mean, oof, we’re not a thing of beauty right now,” Pope said on the postgame podium, gritting his teeth as he finished the thought. “Actually, that’s not true. That’s not true. I actually thought it was beautiful tonight. Because the relentless force was beautiful.”
In a game Pope’s players needed to win to get the doubters off their case — even if only for a little while — these Wildcats found a way. It wasn’t the prettiest brand of basketball, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and Pope saw plenty to like about what his team did to the Hoosiers.
The best sight of all was the final score. How the Cats got there had their coach beaming with pride.
For the first 20 minutes, Kentucky’s fifth opportunity against a name-brand opponent looked like it was headed the way of the first four. Those were losses to Louisville, Michigan State, North Carolina and Gonzaga. Some were closer than others. The Cats looked bad in all of them, relative to the preseason expectations that said this team was a legitimate national title contender.
UK couldn’t hit much of anything in the first half Saturday night — 1 for 9 on 3-pointers, 32.1% from the floor — and the defense wasn’t great either. The Cats trailed by as many as nine points and went into the halftime locker room down 39-32.
The first few minutes of the second half weren’t much better. And then something happened that Pope has been trying to will into existence for the better part of the past six weeks. His Wildcats — their backs against the wall — showed some fight.
They went to the ground for loose balls. They blew up passing lanes and blocked shots at the rim. When they missed — and they did that plenty — they didn’t give up, tossing their bodies back into the mix and coming away with offensive rebounds and second-chance points.
Each time one of those gritty plays resulted in something good — and even sometimes when it ended up simply being grit for grit’s sake — the Rupp crowd roared its approval.
With 14 minutes left, the Cats were down 49-42, no momentum to speak of. And then they started stringing together those plays, throwing their bodies around and squeezing out some of the ugliest buckets of the past two seasons.
With eight minutes left, the Cats led 59-51, and Indiana never seriously threatened again.
Mouhamed Dioubate — in his return after five games on the sideline with an ankle injury — was right in the middle of it. The guy Pope plucked out of the transfer portal to play the role of UK’s resident tough guy finally looked the part against good competition.
On his 22nd birthday, Dioubate led UK with 14 points, 12 rebounds and five steals. During that 17-2 run that flipped the game on its head, he was a monster around the basket. Dioubate scored seven points in that stretch, and one sequence summed up the entire night.
After Brandon Garrison — the Wildcat who was benched by Pope for not hustling against North Carolina Central four nights earlier — fought on the offensive glass and came away with a putback to cut Indiana’s lead to 49-48, he made an even-better play on the defensive end, keeping his composure at the rim and earning a steal as his reward.
Garrison gave the ball to Jaland Lowe, and the UK point guard streaked up the court, never stopping as he shimmied his way through the IU defense into an easy layup opportunity. Lowe missed the bunny, and three of his teammates were standing on the perimeter.
In the paint at that moment? Five Indiana Hoosiers and Mo Dioubate.
The 6-foot-7, 220-pound forward fought them all. One IU player he hit went straight to the ground. The other four were left standing, but Dioubate left the scrum with the ball and put it right back off the glass and through the hoop. Cats 50, Hoosiers 49.
The UK bench was going nuts. The Rupp crowd was in hysterics. Indiana coach Darian DeVries called a timeout. As Dioubate called for more noise, Otega Oweh found him with a slap of the hands and a chest bump. Just about every other Wildcat made his way toward Garrison.
As a steady stream of teammates offered their congratulations, the 6-10 junior walked in the general direction of Pope, who was standing still on the sideline, soaking it all in. When Garrison walked past him, the Kentucky coach reached out and emphatically smacked him on the butt.
Four nights earlier, Pope stormed onto the floor to tell Garrison to “sit down” after loafing back on defense in what turned out to be a 36-point UK victory. Pope was still fuming after that win, and Garrison didn’t play the rest of the game.
“I wish I could tell you I know how every player is going to react to every confrontation or conversation I have with him, but you don’t,” Pope said Saturday night. “It’s just like your children, you don’t. So I’m left with just real pride. Like, BG’s mom should be really proud. And his inner circle should be really proud. Because there’s something inside him.”
During that 17-2 run, Garrison had the offensive rebound that led to two putback points, plus an assist and blocked shot and that steal that sparked the play that gave the Cats the lead for good.
Pope said Garrison showed up after his benching and went all out in practice. He talked about his player’s desire to make his mother proud and set an example for his young son. He said he could’ve pouted or found a corner to crawl into, but he didn’t.
“I’m super proud of him. I’m happy for him,” Pope said. “Man, our job is to win. That’s it. But those things are really special to me. They’re really special. And that’s going to be in his pocket. It’s going to be a little part of his DNA. It doesn’t mean he’s going to respond right all the time, but it means there’s a way better chance that next time — in life, in basketball, in whatever — that he’s going to have a chance to respond better. And that’s how you become a great man.”
Down seven at halftime and not much going their way, the Wildcats responded Saturday night.
The Cats didn’t shoot it a whole lot better in the second half. They finished the game at 37.9% from the floor and went just 3 for 15 from long range. But they grabbed nine offensive rebounds on their 17 misses in the second half. They beat Indiana 18-6 in second-chance points for the game, a 12-point difference in a 12-point victory.
When the offense failed against a quality opponent, yet again, they found — for the first time all season — a way to win.
“The chances of us playing a game right now where we are just firing on all cylinders and making every shot — that’s probably not where we are in our confidence and our courage and our spirit right now,” Pope said. “Right now — like to tip the needle and bring back some belief and consolidate ourselves as a team — it’s probably going to be like gross, beautiful basketball, like it was tonight.”
What the Wildcats did for much of Saturday night sure must have looked gross to any general college basketball fans who tuned in. If they didn’t have a dog in the fight, they probably found another game to watch. But it was beautiful to Pope, who’s been imploring his players to play like this when the going gets tough.
And the final score — ugly as it looked — was what the fans in Rupp Arena wanted to see, too.
Ever since that 94-59 loss to Gonzaga eight nights earlier, Pope and the Cats have been bearing the brunt of a fan base that left “disgruntled” in the dust a good while earlier. UK greats like Dan Issel and DeMarcus Cousins had publicly weighed in on this basketball team, and their assessments weren’t rosy, and they weren’t wrong.
“Listen, I don’t shy away from the truth, even when it hurts,” Pope said. “Might as well own it. So we tried to own it as a team.”
The UK coach said his team talked about those comments. They heard the boos from Kentucky fans. They were embarrassed by the product they were putting on the court, and when the first half Saturday night was just as ugly — 24 foul calls, neither team shooting well, not much to energize the fans — they talked about it some more at halftime.
What happened next won’t win any basketball beauty contests, but it was a pretty good start.
“I’m really happy with the guys, and we just got to move on to the next step,” Pope said. “We’re gonna have to embrace this personality for a while. I do think we have a chance to grow into an elite offensive team. I just don’t think it’s gonna happen tomorrow.”
