Saturday night belonged to John Calipari, but I’d still rather have Mark Pope as UK coach
READ MORE
Game day: Arkansas 89, No. 12 Kentucky 79
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Arkansas in Rupp Arena.
Expand All
I know, I know, John Calipari won. He got his revenge. He got the last laugh. He came into the hallowed house of his former employer, with boos raining down all around, and beat the greatest tradition in the history of college basketball. He deserved the win.
If I’m a Kentucky basketball fan, I’d still rather have Mark Pope as my coach.
Saturday was one game. Arkansas’ 89-79 win over Kentucky at Rupp Arena counts as one win in the Razorbacks’ ledger just as it counts as one loss on the Kentucky side of the standings. Calipari didn’t end up living in Fayetteville because of one game at Kentucky. It was because of a series of games. And Pope shouldn’t be judged on one game, either.
Let’s be honest, Arkansas played out of its minds Saturday. In a make-or-miss game, the Razorbacks were shooting a chilly 24.8 percent from 3-point range against SEC competition this season. They made 52 percent at Rupp. They took 25 shots from beyond the arc. They made 13. Your postgame analysis doesn’t need to dig deeper than that.
Give Calipari all the credit. His Razorbacks rose to the occasion. Despite his denials, you know he wanted desperately to win in the same building where he had coached 15 seasons, where he’d led Kentucky to a national championship before his fan base soured on his job performance to the point it was time to move on.
“We just needed a win,” Calipari said Saturday. “It didn’t matter who it was against.”
Of course it mattered.
Still, Arkansas is now 2-6 in the league. It jumped from 59th to 47th in the NCAA NET rankings. If the Razorbacks can continue to shoot like they did in Rupp, they will be hard to handle the last half of the conference schedule. I’m guessing they can’t.
You can argue that Pope was outcoached Saturday, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Arkansas attacked Kentucky’s weakness. The visitors’ unexpected 3-point success opened the driving lanes for D.J. Wagner, the former Kentucky point guard who scored all 17 of his points in the second half and was the key to the game.
Pope didn’t have an answer. Then again, his options were limited. Point guard Lamont Butler, among the nation’s best defenders, missed his second straight game with a shoulder injury. His backup, Kerr Kriisa, hasn’t played since Dec. 7 after undergoing foot surgery. That’s left Pope with freshmen Travis Perry and Collin Chandler, who were probably just as surprised as the 21,266 in attendance to find themselves on the floor at the same time in the second half.
Amari Williams has done good work as a 7-foot point center, feeding teammates for buckets when not scoring on his own. Williams can’t guard the opposing point guard, however. And with Kentucky 89th in the defensive computer rankings, Pope has failed to consistently figure it out on that end of the floor.
Where Kentucky basketball goes from here
With all that said, I’d still want Pope standing in front of my bench. He might be 52 years old, but he’s still a young head coach growing into the job. He knows the job. He knew how much Saturday’s game meant to Big Blue Nation. He admitted afterward that the players in his locker room were hurting, that they know what it means to wear the Kentucky jersey.
Pope is still where the game is headed. More reliance on analytics. More reliance on the transfer portal. More reliance on experienced rosters. If you want to succeed these days, you’d better have — as Alabama coach Nate Oats refers to himself — a “basketball junkie” as your head coach. And Mark Pope is a basketball junkie.
So time now to shake Saturday off. Even the most emotional loss counts as one loss. There are 10 games left in the regular season, beginning with a trip to No. 23-ranked Ole Miss on Tuesday. That’s the same Ole Miss responsible for Alabama’s lone conference loss, by the way.
My advice: Give John Calipari his flowers. It was his night. For the nights to come, I’ll take Mark Pope.
