After another shockingly bad performance against Alabama, Mark Pope was a coach searching for answers. He spoke with Tom Leach and said that Kentucky was "unrecognizable." For whatever reason, the team Mark Pope sees in practice is not the team that shows up on game day, and there is only one person who is going to get the blame for that: Mark Pope.
Fair or unfair, the head coach is going to get all the credit for a win, as Pope did against Duke last year, and all the hate after a loss.
Mark Pope is searching for answers in the way Kentucky basketball plays
Kentucky has not made plays for each other; they don't have great shooters, and they are just not built to keep getting down. Yet in 7 games against Power 4 teams, they have been down double-digits in 6 of them. "We only had 9 assists… It’s just not the way we play. It is unrecognizable from the way these guys practice," Pope said.
The way they play is not who they seem to be in practice. In games, especially against good competition, they just do not share the ball. They do not look for each other, and they do not talk on defense. When asked how Pope and his staff can get the guys to play as they do in practice, Pope didn't seem to have an answer:
"Just keep pushing, do it better."
Those assists numbers are also hampered by just terrible shooting. Kentucky was just 4-19 from 3, and 25-59 from the field. You are not going to win a game against a team like Alabama when you can't make easy shots. Alabama was 15-38 from deep, they were +33 from the 3-point line.
When your answer is to just "do it better," then you are in trouble. You need something more than just keep doing the same thing, but better. Obviously, what you have been doing is not working. What you have been trying with lineups isn't working, and we keep seeing more of the same.
Mark Pope needs to see more fight and physicality
Kentucky was out-hustled by Alabama, but they were also out-rebounded and were physically weaker. "I was disappointed with our physicality. Our game has to start there." That is why you see lineups with Brandon Garrison and Jayden Quaintance, or Malachi Moreno and Jayden Quaintance, but that is not the answer.
There is just no way Brandon Garrison and Jayden Quaintance should be on the floor together against an Alabama team that is a good 3-point shooting team. They do not have the foot speed to stay in front of the smaller guards, and offensively, neither of them can space the floor. Kentucky watched Alabama time and time again get wide-open looks and collapse on Kentucky's drives, and nothing changed.
And worse, even with those lineups, they still lost the rebounding battle.
Something now has to change if Kentucky is to make it to the NCAA tournament, something that was not even a thought before the season.