All of Kentucky's losses have one thing in common(besides the other team scoring more points).

[ukfan1622]

I was thinking about this after the Arkansas game and my thoughts became more clear after watching an Aaron Torres podcast about Kentucky. And before anybody says it I will : Aaron Torres is annoying as Hell; I wish he'd take a valium or something but he is one of the more knowledgeable sports talking heads that I know about. I will warn everybody now...this post will say something negative about Mark Pope. Nobody on this board is a bigger fan of Mark Pope but there is a problem with this team and it's not injuries or athleticism.

Some of our losses came in part because the other team played lights out basketball against us and the Cats didn't play their best, especially late in the game. Guys like Wagner are making step back threes against us like they are layups. That's not bad defense because a step back three is unstoppable but it's low percentage shot if your last name isn't Doncic or Curry. But lets' be clear: teams playing above their heads against Kentucky is not a new thing and the Wildcats need to step up their game and win anyway. That's what Bluebloods are supposed to do.

But there is one common thing that is mostly responsible for ALL of our losses and it's entirely on Mark Pope and I don't know if it can be corrected but I hope there's a fix. A few people have mentioned his calm demeanor and it might be a factor. The one thing that has happened in every single loss is that the Cats played a significant portion of the game with less intensity than the other team. I don't know if our players aren't tough enough or don't want it enough but the end it is the job of the coach to make sure his teams play with intensity and with their heads in the game. That means playing hard defense, fighting for every loose ball and rebound, and always knowing where the ball and other players are(that eliminates stupid turnovers). I get tired of the cliche that the winning team just wanted it more but that was exactly the case yesterday against Arkansas. I love Mark Pope but there's no reason to bury my head in the sand and not recognize the fact that his team just hasn't shown up ready to play in too many games this season. Pope has to figure out a way to get his team to play hard all game and then everything will be fine. Can he do it? I don't know but I hope so because if he can't he's at the wrong place.

Anybody else have any thoughts on the problems and solutions or if you thing there aren't any problems or solutions?

 

[Basscat1987]

Dude this one thing you’re saying is the common denominator with our losses is an opinion based answer. I thought u were going to give us some numbers

 

[ukfan1622]

Dude this one thing you’re saying is the common denominator with our losses is an opinion based answer. I thought u were going to give us some numbers

I don't know why you thought that; I'm not a math guy. Mark Pope was a Rhodes Scholar and a stats freak so I'd never think I knew something like that he didn't know. I posted my opinion to see of others agreed or had different opinions. It is a discussion forum. Of course it's an opinion. Guilty as charged.

 

[Soupbean]

I’ve made this point a few times myself. At any point in any given game the team most likely making a run is the one guarding the other with more aggression. The adhesion factor. Watch who’s guarding the other especially on the perimeter with more adhesion and less space and the one who is right and making the other uncomfortable has a great chance to win.

You can talk all the X and Os or substitutions patterns, or metrics all you want but it comes down 75% to simply the above.

When teams lay off we a run out stuff and we are really good. When teams extend their D and don’t let us run our stuff we don’t get the space to shoot the shots we want. The antedote to that is to space and break the D down on the dive but we’re not built for that.

Without Butler we’re also not built to guard with aggression and disruption like others do us so we lose that battle sometimes and it kills us

As you mentioned in also a little worried Coach is not a hard nosed mentality coach that is committed to that style on the defensive side of the ball. He’s trying to find the scheme adjustments when most of the time it’s just LETS GET IN THEIR SPACE and that is the fix.

You can play stay in front of your man defense and with the our offense out score 60-70% of opponents. But you can’t be championship level without a more aggressive style of defense an more players who can do that.

There just isn’t that much difference between all teams talent anymore so the aggressors can win any given game Just guarding harder than the other guys.

 

[ukwazoo]

Cal doesn't have a calm demeanor and I saw his teams sleepwalk through tons of games. We just need a defensive coach to help out.

 

[Larry Skaggs]

I don't know why you thought that; I'm not a math guy. Mark Pope was a Rhodes Scholar and a stats freak so I'd never think I knew something like that he didn't know. I posted my opinion to see of others agreed or had different opinions. It is a discussion forum. Of course it's an opinion. Guilty as charged.

Mark Pope was not a Rhodes Scholar. He transferred to UK from the University of Washington and always had a scholarship.

When Rod Rhodes transferred to USC, Pitino gave his scholarship to Cameron Mills, who was a walk-on up to that point

 

[chasingwildcat]

We never performed good defense

We just can not guard anybody and hope the opposite will be cold from 3 point line

Duke, Zaga, TN were not good 3pt shooting team or just cold at games against us, and they lost. We went on miracle to win in a very small margin. Zaga almost made no three in 2nd half, which was a miracle and rarely happened. Duke now improves a lot in 3PT shooting and if we play with them again, we will probably be beaten by 10 in neutral court

And Arkansas is hot from 3PT line, and then we lose. They make blowout to us. Arkansas is hot from three in first half and then you can not guard them in 2PT line as well. It is natural.

Our defense is pathetic, pathetic, can not be forgiven as we are the worst defensive team in P5. If we can perform defense just ranked around 50, we may only lose 3 games and remaining in the talk of 1 seed.

In remaining SEC games, no cupcake teams remaining. We can not guard anybody, all we hope is that opposite is very cold, we shoot very well and win in a small margin. It is somewhat miracle to win games given this kind of pathetic defense.

S16 will be miracle. We could be beaten by anybody given this defense. And it seems that the defense can not be fixed at least in this season.

What is the difference between this season and last season, expect this season we have more experience, but last season had more talent. We can win high quality game in our hot and opposite's cold night, but we can also be beaten by an "average team" in first or second round given our pathetic defense

 

[Dontworryboutit23]

We never performed good defense

We just can not guard anybody and hope the opposite will be cold from 3 point line

Duke, Zaga, TN were not good 3pt shooting team or just cold at games against us, and they lost. We went on miracle to win in a very small margin. Zaga almost made no three in 2nd half, which was a miracle and rarely happened. Duke now improves a lot in 3PT shooting and if we play with them again, we will probably be beaten by 10 in neutral court

And Arkansas is hot from 3PT line, and then we lose. They make blowout to us. Arkansas is hot from three in first half and then you can not guard them in 2PT line as well. It is natural.

Our defense is pathetic, pathetic, can not be forgiven as we are the worst defensive team in P5. If we can perform defense just ranked around 50, we may only lose 3 games and remaining in the talk of 1 seed.

In remaining SEC games, no cupcake teams remaining. We can not guard anybody, all we hope is that opposite is very cold, we shoot very well and win in a small margin. It is somewhat miracle to win games given this kind of pathetic defense.

S16 will be miracle. We could be beaten by anybody given this defense. And it seems that the defense can not be fixed at least in this season.

What is the difference between this season and last season, expect this season we have more experience, but last season had more talent. We can win high quality game in our hot and opposite's cold night, but we can also be beaten by an "average team" in first or second round given our pathetic defense

Kentucky is not the worst defense in P5 man

 

[chasingwildcat]

Kentucky is not the worst defense in P5 man

prob worst in sec at least.

I think this kentucky team can make success in this season's big12 (Pope's previous league), but in SEC, the season is almost done if defense remains this bad (and seems to remain the same since sec plays), we just hope opposite getting cold (not because of defended by us) to win a game

 

[ukfan1622]

Mark Pope was not a Rhodes Scholar.

I think you might be wrong about that and being a Rhodes Scholar has nothing to do with whether you're on athletic scholarship in college and it has nothing to do with sports. Being a Rhodes Scholar means you got admitted to graduate school at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It's the most exclusive graduate school in the world; regular straight A students need not apply as only the brightest of the straight A students get admitted so it's quite the academic honor.

 

[ukfan1622]

We never performed good defense

We just can not guard anybody and hope the opposite will be cold from 3 point line

Duke, Zaga, TN were not good 3pt shooting team or just cold at games against us, and they lost. We went on miracle to win in a very small margin. Zaga almost made no three in 2nd half, which was a miracle and rarely happened. Duke now improves a lot in 3PT shooting and if we play with them again, we will probably be beaten by 10 in neutral court

And Arkansas is hot from 3PT line, and then we lose. They make blowout to us. Arkansas is hot from three in first half and then you can not guard them in 2PT line as well. It is natural.

Our defense is pathetic, pathetic, can not be forgiven as we are the worst defensive team in P5. If we can perform defense just ranked around 50, we may only lose 3 games and remaining in the talk of 1 seed.

In remaining SEC games, no cupcake teams remaining. We can not guard anybody, all we hope is that opposite is very cold, we shoot very well and win in a small margin. It is somewhat miracle to win games given this kind of pathetic defense.

S16 will be miracle. We could be beaten by anybody given this defense. And it seems that the defense can not be fixed at least in this season.

What is the difference between this season and last season, expect this season we have more experience, but last season had more talent. We can win high quality game in our hot and opposite's cold night, but we can also be beaten by an "average team" in first or second round given our pathetic defense

So if I've interpreted your opinion right we are just bad and there is nothing that can be done about it?

 

[chasingwildcat]

So if I've interpreted your opinion right we are just bad and there is nothing that can be done about it?

If defense is not improved before tournament, yes, we are done. May win some "big games" but may also lose to many "average teams". We should improve our defense to top 50 level to make some serious discussions about deep tournament run. I am fine with Georgia, Clemson, Alabama, Vandy, OSU loss, but this Arkansas lose really downgrade my expectation.

Because this shows that any team with some toughness, even if they are outside the top 50, can pull off an upset against us if they get hot, given our terrible defense.

If we can lose to Arkansas at home, then we are indeed capable of losing to any bubble level P5 team or a small-conference champion, because we seem to have no defense at all, and there has been no improvement in this area throughout the entire season. We can beat good teams given our hot night and their cold night, but we could also be beaten by anybody in first or second round before facing "good teams" given this defense.

Pope does not need to be too nice, if some guy on the court does not want to defense, just making some punishment. Good defense doesn't necessarily guarantee that you will beat strong teams, but it does ensure that you are unlikely to be upset by an "average team" and can smoothly advance to the Sweet 16.

 

[Catfanlou]

Mark Pope was not a Rhodes Scholar. He transferred to UK from the University of Washington and always had a scholarship.

When Rod Rhodes transferred to USC, Pitino gave his scholarship to Cameron Mills, who was a walk-on up to that point

He was nominated to be a Rhodes Scholar. My son who was a perfect four point student had several classes with. Coach Pope . Said he was one of the smartest people he had ever met .

 

[ukcatz12]

I think you might be wrong about that and being a Rhodes Scholar has nothing to do with whether you're on athletic scholarship in college and it has nothing to do with sports. Being a Rhodes Scholar means you got admitted to graduate school at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It's the most exclusive graduate school in the world; regular straight A students need not apply as only the brightest of the straight A students get admitted so it's quite the academic honor.

I believe he was a Rhodes Scholar candidate but did not make the cut. Either way, he went to Columbia med school so he's obviously a bright guy.

 

[Jsp65]

He was nominated to be a Rhodes Scholar. My son who was a perfect four point student had several classes with. Coach Pope . Said he was one of the smartest people he had ever met .

And that has zero to do with his coaching ability

 

[Rideordiewildcat]

Its been awhile since we lost Kerr so a lot of our losses we were down players that were key or at least expected to be.

 

[SkyPrince1]

Back to not playing hard.
Usually the coaches biggest weapon against that is the bench and Pope doesn't have much of one right now.
We definitely have some guys who can't bottle their own enthusiasm for game day.

 

[ukfan1622]

And that has zero to do with his coaching ability

You are right. The subject came up because I said I wouldn't presume to know more about math than a stat freak Rhodes Scholar. The point is he is a very smart guy, smarter than me and most on this board.

 

[BlueSince92]

And that has zero to do with his coaching ability

Shenanigans. There are different types of intelligence but most of them can be used for effective coaching. Pope himself is clearly intellectually gifted in more than one way. But his scholastic, analytical intelligence is something he very publicly employs as part of coaching this team.

One way he's used that was to design an offense geared to the geometry problem of making defenses guard more square feet more of the time than come into play in most offenses most of the time. Another way was the deep numeric dive he used to identify portal players with statistical quirks that fit his offense, for example people that had middlin' shooting percentages overall but had peaks in their efficiency numbers when shooting from spots on the floor that Pope wanted to have them shooting from anyway, which let him build this impressive leading-the-nation-in-marquee-wins roster in six weeks from what looked like mostly scrubs. Another way has been his application of neuroscience-based behavioral theory in motivating and grounding his squad. He's good at other aspects of coaching and has other types of coaching intelligence too, clearly. But those specific examples and many others like them are directly related to the inquisitive, analytical, scholastically-focused diligence that made Mark Pope a Rhodes scholar candidate.