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What can you say after a beatdown like the one Kentucky took from Alabama in the SEC Tournament Friday night?
Here is how Kentucky coach Mark Pope handled his late-night postgame press conference.
Q. How hard is it to just flush tonight and start anew now that the NCAAs are right around the corner?
MARK POPE: I hope it’s really hard ’cause this is not okay for us. I hope it’s really hard. But we’re here to do hard things. Like, that’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re chasing, is hard things.
I hope it’s really hard, and I hope we do it.
Q. The turnovers, do you think it had more to do with what they were doing defensively or what you were not doing offensively?
MARK POPE: Always give credit to the opponent, for sure. They played a great game. I was disappointed. The whole night, we were a little stagnant in terms of playing in the character of the way that we play.
Tons of credit to Alabama. Some disappointment in our response to the moment.
Q. 30 minutes for Travis Perry tonight. Is this you got to get him as much experience as you can with the Lamont situation?
MARK POPE: I thought Travis competed hard. He’s probably our next best option at the point to just give us some options to have any type of play calling or diversity to what we do at all right now.
There weren’t a ton of options there. I thought he competed really hard.
Q. 5-19 on threes. Obviously low on both attempts and makes. Why was it so difficult? Seemed like not a whole lot of open looks either.
MARK POPE: Yeah, again, we’ve talked about it all year long. Our capacity to earn shots for each other. It would have taken a Herculean focus on that tonight. We just didn’t have it.
I thought we competed. I thought we had a good competitive spirit in the first half. I thought it was really challenging for us in the second half.
Q. The craziest SEC we’ve ever seen. How does that prepare you more for the NCAA as opposed to this having been a typical conference year?
MARK POPE: We talked about it since the beginning. It’s either going to tear you to shreds, or it’s going to make you better. I think either team is going to decide which is going to be their path.
If you had the fortitude and togetherness to make it, it can make you better. So that’s the challenge.
Q. A night after Otega had the game that he had, tonight with five turnovers and eight points, how important is he, and how different are you guys when he doesn’t play to the level he did last night?
MARK POPE: Yeah, every guy on this team is really important. We need great efforts. When we’re good, we have everybody playing well.
Otega battled through a bunch of stuff tonight. He’s one of the guys that we really rely on. We rely on every single guy on our team.
4 Responses
The officiating was atrocious, but the real issues were they face guarded us off the 3 point arc, we missed a dozen 4 to 6 foot shots, and we could not guard Sears and Philon. We are not built to play thug ball. Pope needs to remember this when he goes looking for next year’s team in the portal.
Our bigs really got abused all night. We got out rebounded by smaller team. They shot better %’s on 2’s and 3’s and yet we were supposed to be one of the better 3 teams in the country. This game is rinse and repeat of most of the others. We have not developed a bench. We got 9 pts out of our bench and Bama got 44. It looked like maybe things had turned for Chandler and then he pulls duds in Nashville..almost as many turnovers as points. We must lead the SEC in bricks launched this year. I am still trying to figure out why Almanure and Garrison are still on the team…oh wait..my bad…Garrison did have 1 pt. These guys have shown a couple of flashes during the year but no consistency and certainly no "want to". Garrison just happy standing outside and looking to pass. We may lead the SEC also in turnovers given and have not been a good passing team all year. Wonder what Pitino would have done with this so called talent? Anyone really expecting a different result in the Big Dance?
Mike, you post stuff easy saying than done. Consider all the injuries we had only 7 games we had a full roster and that was beginning of the season. Pope gave a season that no one forseen and sec did no favorites gave us the toughest conference schedule. It’s been a joy that Pope brought back what Kentucky basketball is all about. The season is a success regardless what happens in the ncaa tournament. Go cats!!
Pope did recover a lot of feelings and memories many of us have had in past, and I hope he has a long run with us but maybe a little early to predict.