Mark Pope was not amused by Kentucky’s 82-78 loss to Texas on Saturday night, as he failed to address the obvious conditions in his opening remarks.
We didn’t perform as well as you need to in the closing minutes of a game,” it concluded.
A detailed explanation of everything that had gone wrong was given in response to a question concerning the last three minutes and change, when the Wildcats, who had been defeated 14-1 in the closing seconds, saw everything fall apart.
Pope restated, “We just didn’t execute well,” before enumerating every reason why. Among those reasons, the players who weren’t on the court were never brought up.
Four days after a decisive victory over No. 5 Tennessee, a Texas reporter who had witnessed some poor Longhorn basketball this season asked if Kentucky had experienced a “emotional letdown.” The reporter’s inquiry was promptly cut off. Pope said, “I think the guys came to battle.” “I must admit that I’m incredibly proud of our guys’ effort.”
A week and a half earlier, some had questioned Kentucky’s bad body language — and even the Cats’ general effort — in an ugly loss at Ole Miss, but this night, Pope made clear, was nothing like that one.
The UK coach did say that his team’s execution at the end of the Texas loss “stunk” — his word — before quickly amending that. “Really, it wasn’t even our execution,” Pope explained. “It was partly our execution, but our presentness was poor.”
And there, after nearly five minutes of talking, Kentucky’s coach fully arrived at the crux of the problem. Surely the fact that the Cats were missing Lamont Butler, Kerr Kriisa and Jaxson Robinson — their top three ball-handlers, a trio of creative playmakers, as well as their top perimeter defender — was a reason the players who were still out on the court were slipping at the end, right?
We’re not leaving any space for that,” Pope said. The final question of the night was a variation of that one. And it got a similar response.
“Yeah, we’re just not spending any time on that,” Pope said. It’s clear why the UK coach said what he said Saturday night. It’s just as clear that the absence of Butler, Kriisa and Robinson is an issue. It was an issue in Austin. It’s likely to remain an issue into the near future, and — quite possibly — for the rest of the season.
Pope isn’t making any excuses, because he knows excuses won’t do any good. Complaining about it won’t change the outcome of Saturday’s game. Pointing it out over and over won’t do anything to placate a fan base that Pope already understands better than any UK coach ever.
And he can’t make excuses, because he knows he can’t afford to at this point. “The guys on the court are good players, and we’re good enough to win,” Pope said. For now, the guys on the court are all he’s got. But, make no mistake, there are excuses to be made.
While UK has been dealing with injury issues all season — and the Cats have won some big games in spite of them — Saturday night in Texas was the first instance in which the team had to play an entire game without Butler, Kriisa and Robinson.
It got off to a decent enough start. A good one, actually. Travis Perry made his first career start as a college player and found Ansley Almonor for an open 3-pointer in the corner on UK’s first possession.
Almonor missed the shot, but it was a good scoring opportunity, and Amari Williams grabbed the offensive rebound, got fouled and nailed both free throws. About three minutes later, Perry hit a 3-pointer to put Kentucky ahead 9-2.
The Cats had four assists in the first seven minutes and change, not bad for a team missing its top three point guards. UK led for basically the entirety of the first nine minutes.
And then when the substitutions started really cycling, the lineups got a little scrambled and the Longhorns got settled in, Kentucky hit a bit of a wall.
The flow continued in fits and starts, but there were some overarching themes. UK’s shot creation was an issue for most of the night. After those four early assists, the Cats had just six over the final 32 minutes of the game.
They also committed 10 turnovers in the second half alone. Instead of getting guys into space with open looks, many of Kentucky’s attempts were forced or contested or both. The Cats also couldn’t buy a shot from outside.
After shooting 43.6% from 3-point range with an average of 10.3 makes over the previous seven games, UK was 6-for-24 from deep in Austin.
Kentucky’s offensive efficiency rating for the game was the 10th best in its 12 SEC matchups so far. The only lesser performances were the all-systems failure in the loss at Georgia last month and the game at Vanderbilt three weeks ago.
That was also a UK loss and the final game Butler tried to play with his injured shoulder before sitting out the next three. (It was, not coincidentally, Butler’s worst game as a Wildcat.) All of these things are obviously related.
Even with an offense that relies on bigs like Williams and Brandon Garrison to generate scoring opportunities for others, it’s incredibly difficult to create open space and the good looks that come with it when your top three ball handlers are forced to watch from the bench.
Pope and his coaching staff built this roster in the vision that they hoped to play this season. It’s often worked out splendidly, with the Cats ranked as high as No. 2 nationally in offensive efficiency and still fifth in the country in that stat after Saturday’s slog.
But Kentucky simply can’t afford for all three of those players to be out at the same time. Not in this edition of the SEC, with as many as 14 teams projected to make the NCAA Tournament field and even the lesser among them featuring players — like Texas’ Tre Johnson and Tramon Mark, for instance — capable of turning on the gas and cooking you on any given night.
It’s worth pointing out that the Longhorns were missing Arthur Kaluma — their second-leading scorer and top rebounder, out with an injury, too — but covering for one important player is different than trying to play without three.
Especially when that trio is listed at 1-2-3 in the position that is arguably most important to Pope’s approach, the one these Cats have been working on since June. With those three out, there’s little to no margin for error. And while the Cats got some good fortune Saturday night — Williams making a 3-pointer topped the list — enough went wrong, too.
