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Pope Presser Video (you guessed it, he's pointing out the positive).

I like that he's not throwing kids under the bus, but I really hope he challenges them at some point (in his own way) in practice because tonight was bizarre.


A good coach leaves the negative stuff in the locker room and takes responsibility for everything that happens on the floor, unlike our previous coach.
 
I like that he's not throwing kids under the bus, but I really hope he challenges them at some point (in his own way) in practice because tonight was bizarre.


The 30 3s explanation cal wouldn’t ever think that way. Pitino is the guy who had metrics like that to measure his team offemse and defense. He wanted like 32 deflections a night in 92 and explained it similar. Kind of reminded me of that.
 
And the worse thing that could happen did. Got up 17-0 and just quit. Same in half 2. Went on another run then quit again. It’s almost impossible to change flatness during a game.
I’m confused. You said almost impossible. You said the worst thing that could happen did. Did we lose?
 
One thing I'm not liking is the loose ball efforts. No one is going after them, just waiting for them to land in their hands or something.
Other than the 2nd half of Gonzaga, it’s been that way since the WKU game. I even pointed that out in the first half of the Gonzaga game. The 50/50 balls, rebounding, and standing on offense has been problematic for a few weeks. First few weeks of the season I thought to myself we’ll never leave a game where we say we got out hustled or out coached. So far I’ve been right about the outcoached part but the effort has been putrid outside of 20 minutes in Seattle since WKU.

I guess these guys have read into their own press a little bit. It’s a different world at UK compared to where these guys came from. It is easy to get full of yourself and content. I’m afraid thy are going to have to take a lump or two in the SEC to get back that 40 minutes of dog we saw in November.
 
And the worse thing that could happen did. Got up 17-0 and just quit. Same in half 2. Went on another run then quit again. It’s almost impossible to change flatness during a game.

Pope went to the bench too long and that's how they got back into it. With butler and Kerr out he has to play guys he doesn't want to play much more though. It is what it is.
 
That defense and rebounding after going up 17-0 was identical to the lazy we saw in the first half against Gonzaga.

I understand these kids can't be 100% every game, but as someone else mentioned this is becoming a trend across multiple games. These players need to bring it every minute of the game. I'm not a coach so I'm not sure how Pope and his staff can motivate this bunch to ramp it up and keep it up, but if we see even a few minutes of this against SEC teams, especially on the road, we're going to get squashed pretty quickly.

And I'm also hoping these Cats don't take that 18-pt comeback as "meh, we came back against Gonzaga, if we get down we can just turn it on again and keep coming back". No signs yet that they will do this, but you can't simply get lazy and then just turn it on every game to recover. They did it last night again, which has me concerned that they will do it this Saturday, then again vs. OSU, then every game in the SEC.

Our weakness right now is sustained hustle. Maybe this has to do with having Krissa and Butler out as they have so much energy, or maybe not. Either way, Pope has to figure this out quickly because we can't have any lazy lapses moving into the SEC.
 
I have to give somewhat of a pass. These guys are ten games into the season and have never played together before. Could've been a case of Zags hangover and looking forward to your biggest rival. We're also severely missing our stud PG. I don't have many issues after last nights game. Yeah we should've boat raced them but I trust that Pope will teach them all about light switches. We're only going to get better as the season goes along but you can't turn it on on a whim in this conference this year.
 
It's just the three-point offense is not flowing right now. That's causing the team to bog down.
They're getting somewhat decent shots but they could be getting better shots. They need to be utilizing Williams and carr in the post to pass out of to shoot threes. I think it's the only way they should be shooting threes.
I like Otega crashing the basket the moment the ball goes inside to Williams and carr. They throw out to the two shooters and then you got three guys ready to grab that damn ball if they miss. Because they probably are going to miss LOL right now anyway. Might as well have three guys ready.
 
I fully expected us to sleep walk through this game. Coming off a big game that you had to travel to the west coast and Louisville up next would be hard to be focused. Plus add in the fact that it's close to finals week and you get what happened last night.
I couldn't help myself thinking when we kept missing 3's that we are due for a crazy hot game. I'm hoping it happens Saturday. Go Cats!
 
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