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.

 

[BlueWorldOrder74]

I think the one common thread is simply athleticism. We have little, other teams have more. We are overall slow laterally, can’t stop anyone from getting by. We play below the rim as a group, even Amari. This is something that can’t be fixed.

 

[TTTblue24]

Chandler, Perry, & Carr CANNOT be on the floor at the same time for longer than a 2 minute stretch if that. And if chandler is getting minutes over Noah and/or more minutes than Noah then we are in trouble for sure. Noah has produced in his very limited time while popes fascination with chandler and even Perry to an extent is puzzling. I promise Noah can backup JR at point and I bet he has less TOs than Perry as well, while being a better shooter. But pope has got to be aware of game situation and lineups, thought when we were 18-12 the sub pattern killed all momentum.

 

[SkyPrince1]

I think the one common thread is simply athleticism. We have little, other teams have more. We are overall slow laterally, can’t stop anyone from getting by. We play below the rim as a group, even Amari. This is something that can’t be fixed.

I'm sure Pope has learned a lot about future roster construction from his first season in the SEC.
This UK team is built like a West Coast team.

 

[chasingwildcat]

I'm sure Pope has learned a lot about future roster construction from his first season in the SEC.
This UK team is built like a West Coast team.

This UK team can have bigger success in BIG12 (Pope's past league), but SEC needs athleticism.

We are cupcake in defensive part in SEC, can guard no one

 

[sportspm]

Don’t over judge the team for this loss. Arkansas is actually one of the most “talented” teams in the college basketball. The fact that they are 2-6 is actually because of poor coaching. Wagner was supposed to be a one and done. Davis was one of the highest regarded in the transfer portal, arguably the best player on a previous final four team. How many players do they have that will play in the NBA? How many does UK have? They finally played to their potential one game, where they were highly motivated. I fully expect them to lose their next game at Texas, probably shoot 25% from three in that one.
If Butler doesn’t return, then we may not make it very far in the tournament, but I still feel Pope has exceeded expectations year 1, and the future is much brighter here than the way it was heading with 🐄

 

[CBBCrazy]

Chandler, Perry, & Carr CANNOT be on the floor at the same time for longer than a 2 minute stretch if that. And if chandler is getting minutes over Noah and/or more minutes than Noah then we are in trouble for sure. Noah has produced in his very limited time while popes fascination with chandler and even Perry to an extent is puzzling. I promise Noah can backup JR at point and I bet he has less TOs than Perry as well, while being a better shooter. But pope has got to be aware of game situation and lineups, thought when we were 18-12 the sub pattern killed all momentum.

I agree, a lot of our problems stem from the substitution pattern. He pulled a red hot Robinson at the five minute mark when he was lighting up the hogs. How do you lose your wind or legs five minutes in? He is hell bent on playing his golden boy when he couldn't score in double figures in a lay up line. He either is over thinking or underthinking with some of these lineups. We have a tough stretch of games to go, I could see this thing going real bad unless we get healthy. This Dean Smith outscore you ball can turn bad quickly with a few so so shooting games. jmo

 

[JimBR]

I agree, a lot of our problems stem from the substitution pattern. He pulled a red hot Robinson at the five minute mark when he was lighting up the hogs. How do you lose your wind or legs five minutes in? He is hell bent on playing his golden boy when he couldn't score in double figures in a lay up line. He either is over thinking or underthinking with some of these lineups. We have a tough stretch of games to go, I could see this thing going real bad unless we get healthy. This Dean Smith outscore you ball can turn bad quickly with a few so so shooting games. jmo

I wonder if it would be possible for the core strong players to play 35 minutes in the games where we need them without a significant drop off in production?
The defense is much better when Butler plays. The hogs could get by our guys then throw it back for an open 3, which unfortunately they hit a high enough percent to win.

 

[rick64]

So CCC was too intense and demonstrative with his on court antics and screaming which drove most of us crazy, but Pope is not intense enough?? There's just no making BBN happy.

 

[GoAndRunIsGoneAndDone]

We started the year with good depth., two experienced point guards and a solid PF, Big 10 transfer in Carr. Butler is a difference maker. Kerr is an experienced pg with good ball handling skills. Early on, Carr was our best big that could spell Amari at the 5 when needed. Garrison is gonna be good but not there yet and is a soph playing limited minutes in a new system. Our depth now comes from 3 freshmen with very limited PT and none are studs athletically...although Chandler has potential...and a soph in Garrison. We have to choose between playing freshmen or wearing ourselves down in games. We rely heavily on the 5 spot in this offense. Carr was the guy that could rest Amari best. Lots of responsibility at the 5 and I can't see anyone other than Garrison filling that role with Carr out. In no way, is Noah an sec PG. If we have to use him to run point, we're in real trouble. Bad enough with Jax out of position and Perry resting him. The bright side is that our freshmen and Garrison are improving with PT. IF, we get Butler and Carr back and healthy, we are better because of that. Big IF, though.

Name one team in the country(not named Auburn) that could win in the sec without 3 critical players and frosh as subs. IMHO, Pope is doing a fantastic job playing the hand he's been dealt, so far. We really need a couple of young guys to step up hugely. It's possible.

 

[Bluesnky]

“Out coached” and “the players don’t care” was a tired refrain after every loss when Cal was here and still is. We don’t have our best player and have no point guard (same guy). Things were pretty great when everyone was healthy but it turns out we had little margin for injury. We could be a very bad team if Butler is not healthy the rest of the season.

 

[bucsrule8872]

Clemson, OSU, UGA, Vandy, and Arkansas all wanted it more than we did. They played with more intensity.

Clemson, UGA, and Vandy needed the wins for their resume and were at home.

OSU had their back against the wall. They needed a big win. They had been struggling.

Arkansas wanted to beat us badly. They were fighting for their coach. They were fighting to prove BBN wrong. They had a ton of bulletin board material to feed their fire.

They had three former players that wanted to show up their former team. Most of the time, players in that situation will play better than usual. Remember Robinson going off against A&M? Bradshaw played better than normal against us in the OSU game as well.

For our former players and recruits at Arkansas, it was their Super Bowl. It is highly unlikely they will ever play a game like that again.

Lots of people on here are stat driven people. I get it. Stats are very important in sports.

But so is emotion. People play this game and people get fired up and perform above their typical stats in certain games. And sometimes they play below them.

You can analyze it until the cows come home, but to me it boils down to how hard these teams play against us and our players not being able to match that intensity.

 

[ManitouDan]

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.

I cant believe your rock solid post didnt get 35 " likes" . A very well worded precise post , well done friend . You must know the game pretty darn well.

 

[Soupbean]

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.

Its not that we cant do anything about it but clearly Popes hands are tied some due to the limitations of his guys to guard. We have two guys on the team who can get our with real ball pressure, Butler and now Chandler has shown signs that he has the atheltic ability and will to do it. The problem with Chandler is he still lacks a little confidence on the offensive end so its a tough call to give him more minutes.

But when this game is 75% a battle of simple BALL PRESSURE and we have the limitations we have, then Coash was right in his post game soul searching . . . yes we HAVE to be more creative and try other things. Change looks, more zone, more blitz traps, just differnt looks to slow the momentum of the other guys.

Our problem on the offensive side is the same. When teams give us space we light them up. When they take away that space with on the ball pressure we struggle with less movement and struggle to get the shots we need. And just like on Defense we lack the weapons to break down the pressure with dribble penetration. Again we have one two guys (Butler and Oweh) and Butler is out that can do that. Robinson just cant or wont do it. He dribbles in one spot never tries to beat his man to create space and rotation.

 

[chasingwildcat]

Its not that we cant do anything about it but clearly Popes hands are tied some due to the limitations of his guys to guard. We have two guys on the team who can get our with real ball pressure, Butler and now Chandler has shown signs that he has the atheltic ability and will to do it. The problem with Chandler is he still lacks a little confidence on the offensive end so its a tough call to give him more minutes.

But when this game is 75% a battle of simple BALL PRESSURE and we have the limitations we have, then Coash was right in his post game soul searching . . . yes we HAVE to be more creative and try other things. Change looks, more zone, more blitz traps, just differnt looks to slow the momentum of the other guys.

Our problem on the offensive side is the same. When teams give us space we light them up. When they take away that space with on the ball pressure we struggle with less movement and struggle to get the shots we need. And just like on Defense we lack the weapons to break down the pressure with dribble penetration. Again we have one two guys (Butler and Oweh) and Butler is out that can do that. Robinson just cant or wont do it. He dribbles in one spot never tries to beat his man to create space and rotation.

We lack a go-to guy like Mark Sears, Lainer, or Hubbard, who can create offense on his own when our set plays aren't working. As a result, we can only rely on team offense to win games, but this approach is highly unstable. This is the main issue with our offense. Missing Lainer really hurts the prospect of this team

 

[Soupbean]

I cant believe your rock solid post didnt get 35 " likes" . A very well worded precise post , well done friend . You must know the game pretty darn well.

Thanks but I could have summed it up much simpler. We lose the battle of ball pressure on both ends due just due to our limitations. Some of it can be our effort, will or lack of physical attitude at times but the bigger issue is we dont have the horses to match up ball pressure wise. Butler and Oweh are out only guys with Chandler showing some ability now. Butler is out and its hard to play Chandler more until he gets more confident on the offensive side. So in that sense Pope is handcuffed. But I still worry a little about whether Coach recruits to that ability and mentality on the defensive side when he's also looking for the offensive pieces he needs. And just whether his nice buy demeanor plays a part as well over the need for some bull dog sometimes.

I just think we try to overthink it sometimes looking for answers when 80% of the time its just simply they are creating more ball pressure than we are so how do we fix that. And to coaches defense the answer is not that easy.

 

[Bluesnky]

Thanks but I could have summed it up much simpler. We lose the battle of ball pressure on both ends due just due to our limitations. Some of it can be our effort, will or lack of physical attitude at times but the bigger issue is we dont have the horses to match up ball pressure wise. Butler and Oweh are out only guys with Chandler showing some ability now. Butler is out and its hard to play Chandler more until he gets more confident on the offensive side. So in that sense Pope is handcuffed. But I still worry a little about whether Coach recruits to that ability and mentality on the defensive side when he's also looking for the offensive pieces he needs. And just whether his nice buy demeanor plays a part as well over the need for some bull dog sometimes.

I just think we try to overthink it sometimes looking for answers when 80% of the time its just simply they are creating more ball pressure than we are so how do we fix that. And to coaches defense the answer is not that easy.

Very well said, and with Butler and Kriisa both out our next best ball handling guard makes DJ Wagner look like Tyler Ulis in terms of ball pressure. We still managed to put up good percentages when we weren’t coughing it up, which bodes well if we can either get Butler back or find some workaround. But who can work around not having a PG as a midseason adjustment? It’s hard to do well.

 

[jwphelps]

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?

The sloppy turnovers are troublesome. I would like to see the defense change up a bit more, just to make the other team think more.

 

[CBBCrazy]

I wonder if it would be possible for the core strong players to play 35 minutes in the games where we need them without a significant drop off in production?
The defense is much better when Butler plays. The hogs could get by our guys then throw it back for an open 3, which unfortunately they hit a high enough percent to win.

Arkansas had 4 players play these minutes. 38+37+34+ & 34+ minutes and kicked our rear. Did you see any cramping up on that side? Neither did I.

 

[ManitouDan]

Arkansas had 4 players play these minutes. 38+37+34+ & 34+ minutes and kicked our rear. Did you see any cramping up on that side? Neither did I.

Good point , with the number of TV timeouts, reviews , team TO's etc it doesnt take a well conditioned player to play 36 minutes , one of the great weaknesses of many teams , they play 3-4 HARD and they are completely gassed . I think conditioning , old school conditioning , is a thing of the past and really hurts teams. Let the studs play , rest my (old) ass . I used to get off the bus at the Ky side of the bridge , walk across bridge to the YMCA in Ohio to play for 2-3-4-5 hours on a school day . Bus was free transportation to get me close to a gym where guys played hard , you lose you set .

 

[ManitouDan]

Furthermore our HS team was ranked in the top 20 in the 80s , we had a week midseason where we went back and did Pre-season conditioning ( snow cancelled school for a week) , showed up at the gym , NEVER got the ball rack out .. you ran sprints and ran the gym steps , gym holds 3500 . Wasnt easy .

 

[ManitouDan]

But to get back on point it takes a desire , either natural or trained , coached, to apply heavy ball pressure , we are getting pushed out of sets by ball pressure AND off the ball pressure , teams are overplaying the crap out of us because with Butler out who is going to put it on the floor and create or score , Oweh and ?? . Without Butler we are severely limited in our offensive approach .. we have to keep going backdoor but the spacing has to good where the passer has a lane to actually get it to the guy doing the back door cut . Violently .. ha ha