Mark Pope was not happy after Friday night's loss. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky has had some historic wins during coach Mark Pope’s first season but Friday night at the Southeastern Conference Tournament it was on the wrong side of history.
Alabama defeated the Wildcats 99-70. That’s the most lopsided SEC Tournament loss ever by Kentucky and also allowed Alabama to become only the third team ever to beat UK three times in a single season. The other two were Tennessee (1978-79) and Florida (2013-14).
“We’ve kind of established ourselves as a top 10 program in the country over these last four or five years,” said Alabama coach Nate Oats. “Kentucky is good. We’re also good. It’s going to happen. I mean, hopefully there’s some other teams we can rattle off some winning streaks against.”
Kentucky had only lost seven SEC tourney games by double digits before Alabama blasted Pope’s team. None of those losses, though, have been by 20 points or more and it has been 12 years since UK suffered a double digit loss in SEC tourney history.
If all that was not bad enough, it was also Kentucky’s biggest loss since falling 118-84 to Duke in 2018.
“This Kentucky team, they’ve got a lot of injuries. They’re not at full strength. We know that, so… “ Oats said. “But it’s nice to get three of ’em. We had the home and away with them this year. They were a lot closer to full strength, I think they had everybody at their place. That was a big win.
“Now that they’re kind of down, especially in their backcourt, I thought our guards really took advantage of the fact that they were a little bit thin in the backcourt.”
Kentucky was really thin in the backcourt with point guard Lamont Butler out with an injury and then Otega Oweh took an elbow to the face that left him needing stitches the first half when he played only eight minutes.
Kentucky players said not having Butler was no excuse for getting beat the way the Cats did.
“Lamont is a big piece to our team. We did miss him out there. It’s not like we haven’t played that team before without Lamont. I don’t really feel like that’s why the outcome was the way it was,” UK center Amari Williams said.
Williams said Alabama’s ball pressure on him was not anything he has not seen previously this season.
“A lot of teams have pressured me from the top. Was still able to get into our action. Obviously I didn’t get the guards shots and get them open. It’s not nothing I haven’t seen before,” Williams said.
Kentucky forward Andrew Carr said having Oweh miss most of the first half was no excuse, either.
“I’d just say that’s what we’ve done all season. We faced a lot of adversity and we just continue to try to be fresh every single play, every possession,” Carr said. “Nothing new for us. We were trying to make sure we turned inwards, towards each other, in that moment.”
Kentucky will find out tonight when, who and where it will play in the NCAA Tournament. Pope hopes his team has a hard time accepting what happened against Alabama.
“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,” Pope said. “I hope it’s really hard.”
20 Responses
Hard telling how many sec championships, ncaa championships and overall victories UK would have if Pitino would’ve never left. Man does he have St. Johns playing ball.
We would have at least 12-15 championships. I’d say a championship at least every 2-3 years hell we went to 3 straight with his players.
Yep, but Pitino was his own worst enemy. He thought he was a basketball god until his time in Boston proved otherwise.
If Pitino would have stayed, he would have had his mistress on a restaurant table in Lexington. Not to mention hookers in Wildcat Lodge. No Thanks. I believe "fans" would accept cheating now days just to win games.
Pastor Jimmy…..have you never done any indiscrete behavior in the past? I don’t believe Pitino has ever been called a serial abuser. UK wants and expects to stay and play at a very high level and compete for every title out there. Pope has shown that he might belong here but this team has lost too many games we shouldn’t have and his long term status is TBD. Pitino and many others including some in the SEC could have done better even with this talent level. Pitino and Pearl were my first 2 choices to be considered. Pope has had to deal with a lot of injuries but the opposing teams resumes could care less about that. A bench still hasn’t been developed, and we have a few players that seem to be satisfied with just showing up and not for the uniform they are inside. Pope has some responsibility here, and he does need to toughen up which has often been mentioned on this site. Are we going to be None and done or what in the big dance?
Like him or not pearl is a coach
Pitino and Pearl’s bankrupt morals align with 80% of Kentuckians. So nothing surprises me.
Jimmy your talking from an orange to an apple.
How did faith work out for you 79 in that 29 point loss to Bama. The worse loss ever in the tournament. My not a snowball chance in hell was A LOT closer assessment.
I believe in forgiveness.
Pitino will get King CALcified on a restaurant table and show him who is the Godfather of college basketball coaches.
I’ll take Pitino anyday, but I know that’s not going to happen. Pope will get it done in time, after this season is done he’ll have more time to revaluate what needs to be done to get us there.
I think so to cats
Lets just be honest with ourselves for a second… This team is soft. You can make any excuse you want to for them but the more I watch the more I’m convinced this team is extra soft. Its turned into the Kentucky effect. I’ve never seen a organization that always seems to have the injury bug. Even when Cal was the coach they were at least soft freshman these guys are playing 2-3 games missing 2-3 games like Butler. How does someone miss games come back play a couple games then miss more. Carr had his back injury Kerr is out for the year Amari Williams missed a couple of games. I’ve never seen a basketball team have so many injuries. With experienced players it just baffles me. So if you want to know whats wrong with this team its that they are very very soft. Period
I knew you, I, and a few others have known this most of the season. Butler couldn’t play last game but day later declared eligible for playoffs? We have players that look the part but don’t play it. Williams and Carr should be more effective inside but seem to only turn it on for a half of a game. I think Carr has babied his back too much and Pope has done some enabling with accepting the softness. Almonor and Garrison….what can you say? They only show up occasionally.
Exactly. It doesn’t make sense that 2 games someone’s hurt then 2 games they play then 2 games they are hurt again. These guys are milking the cow dry. They want to go out and spend there NIL money. Money is more important than basketball to anybody. These guys get large paychecks and playing basketball is just something to do in the mean time and between time. College sports is where I’ve always hung my hat but since NIL I care less and less about it and it makes me sick that money took away my favorite past time. Coaches like Pearl and Pitino are going to win regardless of any circumstances. You could throw them in the jungle and they would gain weight from eating Tigers and lions. They are winners. Pope is a good guy but is he too good of a guy? Players will walk all over him. Oh you have the sniffles you can sit out of practice. You shoulder hurts? Miss a couple of games. I like Pope but like I say we will know exactly what we have next year and the year after. He’s definitely not a culture changer. But if he needs to recruit tougher guys to compete in the SEC. I rememeber when everyone said Broome will be out for the rest of the season at Auburn the next game he was back out there. If that was one of our guys they would have been done for the year. We have injuries like a football team.
Can’t disagree
I thought not holding one’s own court against Arkansas was a tell tale game. I figured they’d hit some shots they normally don’t, but you’ve got to be tougher than that.
Arkansas was tougher than us and that’s the only reason they won that game. We were much better on paper. But that’s what this team is made of Paper!
Can’t disagree