Kentucky basketball has had an up and down season, and Mark Pope believes a large portion of that is down to fatigue, but not everyone agrees, not even his own players.
Andrija Jelavic doesn't believe Mark Pope's 'fatigue excuse'
Mark Pope has been on and on about fatigue all season long. He said the team doesn't play its best when it is tired. He uses analytics to defend his rotations.
"It's production numbers. It's kind of a tool that gives us a summation of their contribution on the court. It's their offensive efficiency plus their defense efficiency and a couple other metrics in terms of kind of showing us how guys develop as they go from one minute to two minutes, three minutes to four minutes to five minutes, six minutes all the way to 10 minutes consecutive play. And so it's one of a number of things that we consider as we work on guys' rotation."
But one of his starters, Andrija Jelavic, isn't having any of it. Speaking after the loss to reporters, Jelavic had a lot to say about it. He flat-out said "No" when asked if fatigue had anything to do with the losses.
"We are all 19-21-year-old kids. We don’t have problems with playing a lot. If you can’t play two games in a week, you can’t play in the NBA. If you can’t do it here, you can’t do it at the next level."
And I think he is right. These guys are in the prime of their lives; they are young enough to play 35 minutes every 3 or 4 days. Jelavic continued, "Everyone plays at the same pace that we do. Everyone plays Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, that's not the problem."
In Mark Pope's defense, Kentucky does have the 10th most possessions per game in NCAA basketball, but you know who number 1 is? Alabama. Let's look at their roster's minutes.
Labaron Philon- 30 MPG
Amari Allen- 28 MPG
Aden Holloway- 28 MPG
Latrell Wrightsell- 27 MPG
Aiden Sherrell- 23 MPG
Houston Mallette- 23 MPG
Kentucky basketball's minutes look very similar.
Otega Oweh- 31 MPG
Denzel Aberdeen- 29 MPG
Collin Chandler- 25 MPG
Malachi Moreno- 22 MPG
Mo Dioubate- 21 MPG
Andrija Jelavic- 15 MPG
Alabama plays faster, but their guys play longer. That means either Kentucky's conditioning is worse, or the fatigue defense is shakier than Mark Pope's analytics believe.
Belief seems to be a strange thing with this Kentucky basketball team
Goose Givens said he didn't think Kentucky players felt they could beat Florida ahead of their Senior Day meeting. Mark Pope said, "I think our guys believe," after the loss. But I don't think he has a good pulse on this team if he "thinks" they believe, and they aren't even buying into his analytics-driven approach.
Maybe that is the whole issue, maybe this team just isn't buying what he is selling. It sure doesn't seem like Andrija Jelavic is.
Andrija Jelavic drops truth bomb over 'childish' play
But it wasn't just Pope's message that Jelavic seemed to have a problem with. When asked about Kentucky's on-court issues, Jelavic dropped a bomb.
"Some guys don't touch the ball for 2-3 minutes, and they just need to be mature, not be childish. Know the game will come to them and not force it."
While he didn't name names, there were several quick shots at bad times, and that has happened all season long. Maybe the early-season rumors of a locker-room divide are just true, and maybe this coaching staff is trying to hold together a team intent on ripping itself apart.
One thing I do know for sure is that on a good team, quotes like this don't come out.