Mark Pope began his press conference with congratulations for Louisville, but quickly turned to a brutally honest assessment of his own team, calling the performance “extremely poorly” and an “incredibly disappointing” product for Kentucky basketball.
But the entire game —and Kentucky’s core issue —was summed up by one stat line.
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Louisville had 20 assists and 6 turnovers. Kentucky had 14 assists and 14 turnovers.
“The 20 to 6 compared to the 14-14 tells the really the whole story of the game,” Pope said.
The Wildcats were “sticky with the ball,” as Pope put it, and completely abandoned their offensive principles. The result was a 20-point deficit and a final score that wasn’t as close as it looked. The Cats were able to get it to 4, but bad shot selection and bad defense allowed the Cardinals to end on an 8-4 spurt over the last 3 minutes.
How Kentucky got “punished”
Pope was clear that this wasn’t just a bad shooting night; it was a failure of execution that led to a confession you hate to hear, but know it is true:
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“We’re going to lose a 20-to-6, 14-to-14 game. We’re just going to lose it,” Pope said. “And… we got punished for not playing it the right way.”
That punishment was clear. Louisville scored 19 points off turnovers and had 11 steals, constantly hounding Kentucky’s primary scorers. Otega Oweh, who finished with 5 turnovers on 4-for-13 shooting, was a primary target of the Cardinals’ defense.
“I thought they were physical with them. I thought they brought a crowd. They did everything we didn’t do,” Pope said of the plan against Oweh. “They were really good at bringing a crowd and… making them play through multiple defenders.”
Kentucky has a tune-up against Wright State on Friday, and it is really needed after the overall display put on tape last night. The good news is they still were in the game after playing so badly for long stretches. So, if you are a silver lining kind of fan, there you go.
