Kentucky overwhelmed Division II Kentucky Wesleyan Wednesday. (Vicky Graff Photo)
This was perhaps the first time I’ve ever heard a coach say he was not happy with his team’s “spiritual effort” but that’s what Kentucky Wesleyan coach Drew Cooper said after Kentucky beat his team every way possible in a 123-52 exhibition blowout win.
“I apologized to (Kentucky) coach (Mark) Pope. I wish we put up more of a fight. I think our guys just didn’t respond to adverse situations that happened early in the game — which I don’t care what level you are — good teams need to do,” Cooper said.
“I felt we could have come out and resisted much more than we did. (Kentucky is a) very finely tuned basketball team, but I am not happy with our spiritual effort tonight, so (it was a) disappointing night for the Panthers. Like I said, I apologized to coach Pope.”
Cooper was “optimistic” his players would not be overwhelmed considering they played at Louisville, Western Kentucky and St. Louis last year. However, the coach knew his veteran players were not ready for the Rupp Arena atmosphere.
“For an exhibition, the atmosphere was extremely electric and this felt like a real college basketball game tonight,” Cooper said. “Usually when you walk out on Oct. 23 or Oct. 24 , it’s a third full or a quarter of the way full. You don’t get that college basketball feel with an exhibition game, so that was a first for us.”
Even though UK has a completely new roster, Cooper was not surprised by Kentucky’s team play. His only surprise was that UK hit only eight 3-pointers in the first half — UK made 13 in the second half.
“I wasn’t surprised because you watch BYU and you see the direction that this is going. It’s such a cliche that the sum of the parts are greater than the whole, but you’ve got really good basketball players that are bought into a system, and sacrificing individual agendas to make an extra pass or a cut-hard,” Cooper said.
“Even if they aren’t going to be the scorer in the play, they cut-hard, do things, and create opportunities for their teammates that made it very difficult. That’s kind of what we saw when we were watching BYU from the film last year, and tonight it very much resembled that.”
If that was not enough praise for Pope and UK, Cooper had more.
“I’ve had very few encounters with coaches at this level, the high-major level, that are as humble as Mark Pope. Getting to know him through this process — I ran into him in South Carolina — and I had never met him before and introduced myself to him,” Cooper said. “The way he made me feel like I was one of them. That doesn’t happen every time you go up to coaches that quite frankly make as much money as he does, and I will never forget that encounter.
“He’s just so welcoming and I really appreciate him having us. Like I said, I apologized to him, I apologized to Big Blue Nation, I thought we could have prepared much better than we did tonight.”
7 Responses
It was obvious that the Wesleyan team was outmatched from the get go. They did regroup and exposed a chink in our armor with the backdoor cuts that led to baskets. This game was not meant to be competitive; it was a discovery game for both teams. The same will be true of the Mankato game. It would be nice if Kriisa was ready to play then, but that is the beauty of being 12 deep…an illness or injury to one or even two kids won’t stop this train from reaching its next destination on time. With Kriisa being out, Almonor and Noah got more PT and showed that they can ball with the best of them. Perry will be the next kid to have a breakout game. The Duke game is meant to be competitive, but it will also be a discovery game for both teams. Will Duke’s freshmen be as good as advertised playing against grown men? Will we keep taking and making 3s? I think our defense will be the talk of this game. 3 more tune-up games to go and we will find out.
The duke game is going to be a very good indication of were we stand as a team. Usually being freshman dominated our team isn’t ready at the beginning of the year that shouldn’t be the case when you have as much experience as we do. We should be ready to show Duke who we really are. Duke is much younger than we are so we have no excuse if we lose. Like I said it will show if we are a contender or a pretender. This game will show if we will be a final 4 team or a sweet 16 team. We only have 3 freshman. 1 of those freshman are almost 21 years old. We have one of the oldest teams in college basketball. If we struggle against the better teams in our non conference schedule. What do you think we will do in our confrence? I have a good feeling about this team. I don’t think we lose double digit games. I think by tournament time we will be close to 28-30 wins. So I think we ultimately lose about 5-6 games this season. To who? Idk. If we can start league play with 1 or 2 losses were on the right track.
We do have a lot of older players, which is great, but this is still their first year playing together. It is also Pope’s first year with all of them but one. I’m not concerned about wins and losses to top 10 teams at this time of year. What I want to see is a lot of effort, desire, and fight in the team. Good teams will only get better as the season goes along, but not without effort and a will to win.
I think this team has the ingredients to become a very, very good team. Capable of beating anyone on a given night. I just want them to keep getting better and the wins will take care of themselves.
Ultimately, it is about the wins and losses, but I agree with Oldfan that the wins/losses in the first 5 to 8 games are less important than the quality of play posted in those early season games as the team reveals its character. If there is a loss to a high-quality team that occurs in a competitive game, then the loss hurts but is not necessarily indicative of a weak team or indicative that the team is NOT a great team.
Great teams play their game regardless of the opponent, and this UK team put that principle on full display the other night.
Well said Professor
I agree with Oldfan and professor, it’s a long season just get better as the season goes along toward the Sec tournament and March Madness. .
Agree with all. The first 5 to 8 real games will reveal the heart & fire in this TEAM.
Pope has instilled “#9” into these players and with #9 the goal it is a very tangible specific award if it gets done.
Just putting in time until the draft is not a goal but instead a big distraction. There is a vast difference and Pope has done a marvelous job of conveying the desire that he and the other 199) Champs want to see accomplished!
12 players will guarantee fresh legs and surely it will be “the game” for at least 3 players on any given night. They will get the most PT and the others will still fight hard even if an off night.
This will be the most exciting AND SUCCESSFUL season since the players recruited & developed by Pitino went to the FF 3X in a row and Darius Miller induced the love for UK into his 2012 amazing teammates.
EVERY player will have his special day at least once with some games having 3 or more playing their best on the same day.
UK is going to be FINE
With all eyes on # NINE