Vicky Graff Photo
By LARRY VAUGHT
Okay, it might be time to panic — or at least have serious concerns — about this Kentucky basketball team.
The Cats lost 67-64 to North Carolina Tuesday night in Rupp Arena. It meant Kentucky has gone 0-3 against Louisville, Michigan State, and North Carolina, all ranked teams.
Kentucky made two of its last 16 shots, including 13 in a row when it went over 10 minutes without making a shot — UK’s longest drought in eight seasons — after Brandon Garrison made the team’s only 3 with 13:08 to play. Kentucky was also 1-for-13 from 3-point range.
Kentucky was outrebounded 41-30 and allowed 20 offensive rebounds, which led to 22 second-chance points for North Carolina. Kentucky had five second-chance points.
Former Kentucky All-American Jack Givens didn’t mince words on the UK Radio Network postgame show about what he saw and what UK fans saw based on social media reactions after another loss.
Kentucky had a 56-50 lead in the last six minutes, but just could not make the plays to get a win over a ranked team.
“I think shot selection was an issue. With a young team in terms of leading a team, you have a tendency to revert back to old habits, and for some guys, that means I have to take over a game and do it all. At this level, that will cause more problems than it solves. I thought Kentucky had two, three, or more possessions where it shot too quickly or a guy went against two or three (defenders),” Givens said.
Givens was just getting warmed up.
“I think the pressure got just a little too big for Kentucky at times in this game,” Givens said. “They are young and inexperienced in a lot of situations, and it showed. I think they played hard. You have to love the energy and effort they put out but sometimes you have to be smarter. I thought Kentucky at times did not play their smartest basketball,” Givens said.
Givens said he “didn’t even want to mention” the way North Carolina dominated the rebounding.
“I hope we can lose that rebound total. Every team Kentucky plays is going to say, ‘What? They (Carolina) had 20 offensive rebounds and 22 points.’ They are going to send everybody to the basket. That is a stat that could come back and haunt you,” Givens said.
“It’s nice to see you played hard and did a lot of things right but you knew coming in their size was going to be an issue and they got 20 offensive rebounds. That is a whole lot to overcome. You look at the shot attempts and Carolina had 11 more shot attempts.
“There just wasn’t enough rebounds that Kentucky got. Carolina had a lot of do-voers (on shots) because they got rebounds and scored. That just can’t happen.”
Freshman Malachi Moreno had nine of UK’s 30 rebounds. No other player had more than four.
“There’s more to it than just who wants it more. So I hesitate saying it looked to me like Carolina wanted that offensive rebound more than Kentucky wanted that defensive board,” Givens said. “They were the ones jumping and Kentucky was guilty of just looking and all that happens is that Carolina gets the rebounds.
“Sometimes you have to have that want-to rebound this ball and I don’t know if Kentucky had that late in the game.”
And because of that, UK lost for the first time in the Pope era when it held an opponent under 70 points and for the third time this season to a ranked foe.
17 Responses
It would be nice to have Big O "clogging up the lane" grabbing 25 rebounds. Cats went 15-30 on 3's against TTech. Then go 1-13 against a ranked team. It's hilarious that Garrison made the only 3. Ten minutes without a bucket. Pope is now 14-15 against Power 4 teams. My 7-6 prediction at Christmas looks to be coming true. Hopefully the only Alfa Ky has gets off the bench and gets going very very soon.
Jimmy, you called it right with the 6 losses. It has been said that Quaintance has been assured that he will be a top 10 pick…if he doesn't get hurt again. Those conversations are not supposed to be happening, but if they are, whoever is giving the assurance of being that pick will tell JQ to not take the floor this season…especially if money has exchanged hands. We are paying him $1.9 million to sit on the bench. Pope should have never signed him. If JQ was not on the roster, we probably would have got Caleb Wilson and maybe even the Dybantsa kid at BYU. These kids are not getting an education; they are being paid to play and that means paid to win. The same goes for Pope. Last year was the honeymoon. If he doesn't want this year to end up in divorce court, he had better start winning.
Is Pope the problem or the solution. I am casting a vote for the former at this time. So far he does not seem to be motivating or developing anyone. Our bigs are only average at best and if Wilson had hit anywhere near a normal % for him we could lost by 15-20 pts. We were told we had the talent and the coaching staff on this team. Where are they now? What do they do during the week in practice when we see they play the same every game. We do not have a leader on this team. We do not have a person that can consistently come into the paint and make a shot. We come down the court without a clue of what we are going to run and jack up contested shots too quickly. I have NEVER seen a team come into the paint or try and finish at the rim and miss shot afer shot. This has been going on ever since Pope started. I would trade our team and coaching staff right now, even up, with BYU and who would have ever thought that could be said? Pope did show a little emotion there at the 4 min mark but had not clue because it was too late. Look at all the chances we had to build on a 4 pt lead around the 10 minute and then came down and laid bricks. You can't make this stuff up. Final 4 material?? Are you serious? Purdue was certainly Fool's Gold.
If my team went 13 mins without scoring I would have called 3-4 timeouts in that stretch and chewed the players out for no effort. Your right I didn't see them run one play in over 5 mins. No timeout. No new lineups. Not having a true point guard is killing us. You have to have 3-4 PGs on your roster. We have 1 he is hurt. I said all summer when we had 12 guys and got Hawthorne and Potter that we needed another point guard or two. We got two more bigs. We have too many bigs to many small forwards and not enough speed. Potter and Hawthorne can both shoot the 3 better than most of the guys on the team. So why not play them. I know JQ is going to be back and he will be a elite rebounder and shot blocker but he is not going to help with shooting the ball. We will lose to Gonzaga and we will also lose to St Johns. Indiana is a 50/50 and we usually lose those games too. Pope is a major disappointment. Barnhart rushed and hired him. He would have never even got a chance at Tennessee or Arkansas. Why would we get him? I wanted Mark Few and everyone talked shit. I guarantee if we had mark Few we would be a much better team this year. Pope loves the bigs. His style og basketball doesn't even serve the bigs. He wants guys to come down and shoot a shot in 5-10 seconds even if it's contested that is not coaching that's called street ball.
Few didn't want the job remember
The dam that holds back defeat is definitely breaking. It may be too late to fix this meaning we will see it play out as the Billy Clyde type of disaster we hoped we would never see again. Coach Pope, you were supposed to be better than this! Now go gather the team and sing a chorus of Kumbyah.
I think Billy Clyde might be better than Pope. Billy Clyde didn't spend 22 million on a roster. Pope has the most expensive team and can't do nothing with them. He could have gotten 2-3 superstars and 10 role players. Instead he has 12 role players and 2 redshirts. What I don't understand is Hawthorne was rated higher than Johnson. Why would you redshirt Hawthorne? If anyone needs to be a redshirt it's Noah, Williams, or Johnson. Potter can shoot the 3. He might be the second or third best shooter on the team. Jelavic needs to shoot the ball more. Moreno is a good rebounder but that is literally all he can do. He's terrible at offense. Garrison is terrible at defense and rebounding but he's a little better on offense than Moreno. If you put Moreno and Garrison together you have yourself a good center. The problem is you can only play one at a time. If I need points I would go with Garrison if I need a rebound I'm going with Moreno. We also have 4 shooting guards and 1 point guard. That is what's hurting this team more than anything. You have to have a point guard that can get to the paint and make the defense collapses. Then a wise point guard will find the open man. That's something we can't do. I also don't see anyone moving on offense. It's like they just space out and stand around. They set fake picks for each other Garrison is the king of this. Before the defender even gets there he already set a screen on a ghost and then cuts to the basket. Everyone is lazy. Loose balls players don't dive they try to fall on the ball . They dont want to break a fingernail or they will be sidelined for a month. It's almost to the point where I'm getting tired of watching them. Especially after spending that much money with no results. Everyone says the same thing we have no superstars or no go to guys. Pope built a team around Oweh. Oweh isn't a scorer. Even when he averaged 16 a game last year half of his points came from the free throw line. Most times he gets bailed out by someone fouling him. I seen Aberdeen drive to the basket and throw the ball up backwards waiting for a foul call. This is piss poor basketball. If you support a bunch of millionaire 18-22 year olds. Who are soft and feel like they already made it because they don't even have to work for the money. Jump in the portal and get paid. Coaches have no loyalty. Players have no loyalty. Fans should start having no loyalty too. Make em see how it feels to play in front of nobody. It would never happen but there next home game nobody should go. This would drive the point home that people are tired of watching a bunch of lazy, entitled, soft young men playing a kids game. It's starting to get old. College sports aren't the same as they used to be. You can see it and feel it that sports have changed. Basketball isn't even supposed to be a very physical game. It's like the refs dictate the game by fouls. Bad calls. Aberdeen is trash. Garrison is trash. Lowe is a sissy. Oweh is overrated. Noah is in over his head. Chandler has potential to be great. Moreno will be very good next year if he works on his free throws and adds a couple inches to his vertical. Johnson to me was overrated in high school. He will be a good college player but he's definitely not a one and done. I can see him play 3-4 years. Like DJ Wagner. Except Wagner was much better as a freshman. Mo-D is a gun. Williams was overrated. Jelavic and Chandler have the highest ceilings on the team. JQ and his dad are liars and tried to finesse Kentucky out of alot of money. He will be ready by September first lol. It's December 3 months later and he's still not ready. Hawthorne might have the highest ceiling on the bench and he's a redshirt. He will be way better than Johnson mark my words. Potter is already as good as Garrison. He might be a better rebounder and shooter than Garrison. Pope redshirted 2 players that should get a chance if all these other guys aren't getting it done play the guys who practice the hardest.
I told everyone we would lose to North Carolina and Gonzaga and St Johns. Any team with a decent coach always beats us. We are very easy to beat now. Teams just have to drive to the rim and crash the glass and we are done. Moreno is good at rebounding but that is about all he is good at. He can't shoot the ball. He's a slow jumper which means he doesn't go into the lane and dunk on anyone. He has a credit card vertical. Garrison does nothing but watch everyone else play. What has destroyed us is someone else is hurt every week. WTF are they doing in practice to always have multiple people hurt. We have 2-3 starters out. Aberdeen needs to stop shooting 3s dang it. The same way Mo-D needs to stop shooting 3s. This is the worst shooting team I've ever seen at Kentucky. It's like Pope said give me the same player 14 times. They all play the same way soft. I'm sorry but Noah sucks. He can't play defense. Whoever he is guarding passes the ball then gets it back on a easy layup or dunk. His footwork is to slow. Oweh started playing more like himself this game but still just isn't a scoring threat if you put a good defender on him. We went over 13 mins without a basket and barley lost. That shows how bad North Carolina is too. We should have easily beat North Carolina. If we cant beat them we cant beat Gonzaga and we cant beat St Johns and maybe not Indiana at this point. We need to get Jelavic more opportunities to score. He might be the best shooter on the team. I'm talking about game situations not practice where everyone shoots over 50% from 3. I hate hearing about how great people shoot in practice. It doesn't matter if in the game they are 0-5. Williams was overrated I tried telling everyone he played 32 minutes a game for a bad team and only averaged 9 ppg. I said when he comes here and plays 10-15 mins a game and averaged about 4-5 ppg his stock will fall. Like I said Pope got a bunch of guys from other teams he thought would start or play alot of minutes. Lowe was all conference in the ACC last year and hasn't done anything. He can jump up and down and do the wave with the crowd but he can't play basketball? Soft as a cookie. I still think JQ won't play until after conference starts. Which by the time hes really game ready we could already have 10-11 losses. We are a middle tier SEC team right now. We have the worst record in the SEC besides last place South Carolina. Pope is doing a terrible job. Say what you want to say but he's doing terrible. Everyone who talked shit about Calapari this is what you wanted? Kentucky boys on the team and we can't compete with the top dogs. Pope is a average college coach. He's always been a average college coach and he's 50 something years old he will never be better than what he is right now. Let that sink in for a second. We will be a better team next year. I don't know why he is redshirting anyone now. Potter might help with the rebounding and from what I hear Hawthorne is dominating ",in practice". I have to see it to believe it. I would play Potter over Garrison and Hawthorne over Noah. Point blank period.
Kentucky is the only school in the NCAA that has 3,000,000 coaches. It’s not a wonder why no one wants to coach at Kentucky, worst fanbase in the country by a mile, at least the 5% of the fanbase that makes the other 95% look terrible. If u guys think u could do better than Pope, send in a resume. We’re only a few games into the season, give these KIDS time and the adults need to leave them alone on websites and let em play. They’ll be better by the end of the yr!!!! GO BIG BLUE!!!!!
True that why no one want to coach Ky
I really don't know what to say. I am still in shock at the way we played. I am sad, mad, disappointed and any other negative things I can think of. Just pitiful. Heck, they probably couldn't beat a high school team the way they played. I know we had 2 starters out and Quaintance, but what's new! I can't understand all the injuries. I really love Pope, (as I do all the guys), but geeze, FIX the problem and play Kentucky basketball. This losing has to end and NOW! I am getting tired of those "birds" in this town, laughing at our program. Hopefully Pope will get it turned around and soon. We have tough games coming up and the SEC soon. It seems there is some dissention within this team. They don't look happy nor enthusiastic while on the floor nor the bench. Not playing as a 'team', like it's "me me me". And that doesn't win games. So whatever the problem, Coach, YOU better get a handle on it NOW! It will be interesting after the holidays, to see who or IF any players transfer. That will answer a lot of questions. All in all, I still love the Cats as I have been a fan for over 65 of my 83 years. GO CATS!
anxious to see your feelings after Friday night
No hope with Pope, he,s not a UK coach,say what you want,it will be the same every year.He maybe a decent coach but not fotUK.
Really you judgemental pricks only love your team when they're winning? You would never make as a Chicago fan, more seasons losing than winning. I loath fans like your lot, I may live in Kentucky for the last 38 years. I support UK regardless of early season performance, I know they will find they're rhythm. It is to soon to make judgement calls on the team or, the coach. He only had three returns and, I only believe two of them were good. He assembled another roster from almost scratch again. Stop expecting the second coming from this coach, please!😮
Quaintance will not play one game for UK.
He is getting healthy and simply waiting for NBA camps to start. Chandler is there best hope for an alpha but since Ky doesn't run any plays He will never have a system to grow in and develop. One player after another trying to drive the right side of the lane just to throw up brick after brick. To overcome their desperate lack of talent Ball Movement must be used to get any open shot from anywhere they can find one. To bad KY doesn't have a system, any system. Coach Cal's teams used to come back after the holiday break and show some improvement so we will see with this bunch. NIL money has destroyed any idea of the student athlete so they should only get paid if they win.The idea of redshirting a player for proper development is now a ridiculous and naive notion. No player will be on campus one second after the first NBA scout bats their eyes at them. Start winning or no money. They are pro's now so start treating them like it. Unfortunately Coach Pope is as lost as a deer in the headlights of a loaded down Peterbilt on a snowy night coming out of Paducah. This will be Ugly as long as Coach Pope is in charge. Like we always say in KY, maybe next year. But these players will be gone next year no matter how bad they play as a team, no matter how many games they lose. Except for Chandler. He is a dreamer he will be at every church service and every practice till he graduates and becomes a pastor somewhere.
This is my opinion. I love the cats and this season is hurting. However I will wait until the end of the year to make my judgement call. We will see what happens. If we don't make the tournament it's bye bye coach. If we make the tournament and get knocked out first round or actually even second round it's bye bye coach. We just have too much talent to not not at least succeed some. However benefit of a doubt and trying to be fair I understand possibly 3 starters out. Also tough to practice properly with no full team. But many many weeks or months here to adjust so excuse cannot be used all year. But again I will make my judgement call at the final buzzer. In the meantime go cats and let's see what happens!
Fair comments Phillip
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