Vicky Graff Photo
Kentucky had more turnovers, especially in key situations, than normal which led to few shots and less scoring.
The Cats had defensive lapses at the wrong time and also seemed lethargic too much of the game in Saturday’s 74-69 loss at Vanderbilt.
Coach Mark Pope senses that his team has been trending the wrong way the last few weeks partially due to injuries to Andrew Carr, who did not play Saturday, and Lamont Butler, who is playing but is nowhere close to 100 percent healthy.
“That’s the good thing about this league, it’s going to challenge you in different ways every night,” Pope said. “The biggest challenge tonight for us was just, we gave them the ball.
“We just kept giving them the ball. Which, [we’re] one of the top ball protection teams in the country. There are some spaces in the game where you feel like you have some confidence where you’ve kind of proven yourselves. But, when you start leaking there the game gets super hard.
“But I was really proud of our guys for adjusting some other things. And Vanderbilt made us pay, for our dedication to try and keep this team off the [foul] line and handle them in transition and handle their penetration. You’re going to give up some things, and they answered the bell by going to those things, and those guys delivered in big moments.”
Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington now has wins over Tennessee and Kentucky in eight days and has the Commodores clearly in NCAA Tournament contention.
Saturday’s win was also the second straight court-storming game for Vandy — which will cost the Commodores a $500,000 fine that ironically has to be paid to Kentucky.
“Our guys played well and then giving a ton of credit to our student section, giving a ton of credit to our fans, they were really supportive in the second half, and we need all the support we can get,” Byington said after the win.
“And in the first half, they were loud. So when you’re trying to build something, you have belief with everybody, and everybody’s important. Everybody in that arena that had that V on, and that was saying anchor down, they helped us win.”
9 Responses
This team really misses Carr.
This team should still be playing better without Carr. They came in with a ton of experience and should be improving as a team at this point in the season. This team doesn’t seem to have that urgency or willingness to impose their will on other team. We should be a better ball passing team and be able to get to the rim easier than we do. We actually only had 2 players that were willing to Ball entire game. We should have a better developed bench by now. This team is a very fragile team, and I don’t see how we can get the W in K-ville with recent play. IMO Pope needs to do less talking, more coaching, and hold this team to higher level of accountability than he has.B
Exactly
Go cheer for Cal, for crying sake. Pope is doing fine as a coach. It’s a long season and there’s plenty time to get better when they are healthy. I believe in Pope and the cats will get it done to get better.
I believe in Pope and this first year was stacked against him. It’s the end of January and 9 other SEC teams have better conference records than we do. Carr and Kriisa are most likely out for the season. If we win half of the games we have left, Pope has overachieved.
Then everything is fine.
Barry I thought 10-8 in SEC play would be great for this team. Have not changed my mind
The way things are now, I will be tickled with 9-9.
Echoing everything u said, Big Kahuna! Our problems are not about Carr being out–nor any other one player being out–although a certain few being out would be worse scenarios than others—but the point is, we didn’t lose this game to Vandy because Carr was out–although he definitely could have helped, but based on the effort the team gave and the product they delivered, I’m not convinced they would have won this game WITH CARR. Our problems with this team are bigger than Carr or any other one individual–they to way beyond that. And this is where it’s time for Pope to get a handle on this team, and assert a little more control and a little more sense of urgency–IDK–I don’t have alot of clear answers, because this team is a bit of an enigma–its just like a patchwork team that was thrown together as if one day u overslept and were running late for work, and u had to get up, and throw yourself together in a matter of 15-20 mins to race to work ASAP. And I don’t say that as a slam on Pope–there was no choice–it was all he could do–remember, people, this is what happens when a coach abruptly leaves your program out of the blue, and takes most of the current players, and the entire next year’s recruiting class with him! We were left with nobody in the cupboard except Travis Perry! We had no team. So Pope was tasked with putting together a team in 6 weeks! We are just going to have to "survive" getting thru this first season, and try to have patience until the days come where Pope is putting together HIS OWN RECRUITING CLASS, AND HAS TIME TO DO IT! And then at that point, he can begin building his teams more the way he wants, more suited to the style that he wants to implement here. I believe that will begin next year with the class he has brought in thus far with Lewis, Johnson, and Moreno. And then from there, Pope will have time already put in here that he will be able to learn from and hopefully be able to use to figure out new ways to make his teams better. I do agree though that he, as a coach, needs to be showing more toughness and demanding more out of his guys–at this point, the fans have bought in that Pope is all class, and the nicest guy in the world, and he has shown that he loves BBN, and HE IS BBN—-but as much as I love that, being a nice guy doesn’t win u games. Theres no doubt this team is soft, and I think a great deal of Pope’s approach as a coach is too soft too. I mean, u don’t want to overdo the psychological end of it. Its great to be able to succeed in that aspect of it–but alot of bball, and sports in general, requires some passion, some toughness, some fire, some competitive juice and spirit! I would like to see Pope get a little crazy every now and then–after the game is over, u can go back to being a nice guy–but during the game, u gotta instill in your own players some of that competitive fire and passion! This SAT FEB 1ST would be a great time to bring that out!!