In big-time college sports, there are games that a coach and a team just flat need to win for their fan base. For Mark Pope and Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball, Saturday night’s homecoming game with John Calipari and Arkansas was one of those.
That UK and Pope were outplayed and outcoached by the Razorbacks and Calipari in taking an 89-79 loss was a bitter pill for the Big Blue Nation.
Still, it was just one regular-season game.
There is history of Kentucky under a first-year head coach absorbing a home loss that distressed its fans then going on to make people forget that defeat with a stirring late-season run.
In Tubby Smith’s debut season as Kentucky head man in 1997-98, UK entered its annual intrastate hoops Armageddon with Louisville with a 10-1 record and ranked No. 4 in the country. Conversely, Denny Crum’s Cardinals came into that game 3-6 (and were on their way to a 12-20 season).
Yet, inexplicably, Crum’s struggling Cardinals hung a 79-76 loss on Smith’s Cats at Rupp Arena.
That deflating home loss in Smith’s first contest against Kentucky’s rival, however, is not what people remember about the 1997-98 Wildcats — because UK went on to win the 1998 NCAA championship.
Now, I am not suggesting that the 2024-25 Wildcats are likely to cut down the nets in San Antonio at this season’s end, or even that doing so is a realistic goal.
But it is possible for Kentucky to shake off what was a bad loss in a game that meant a lot to UK backers and produce an uplifting ending to Pope’s inaugural campaign as top Cat.
For the 2024-25 Wildcats to do that, however, there are four worrisome trends that Pope and the Cats will need to reverse:
1. Too much errant free-throw shooting. With the departure of Calipari — whose UK teams were done in by horrid foul shooting in NCAA Tournament games in multiple seasons — Kentucky backers hoped to no longer be subjected to “free-throw anxiety.”
Well, don’t look now, but the 2024-25 Wildcats have shot 66.7% or worse from the foul line in four of their first eight SEC contests — including going 9-for-18 in the loss to Arkansas.
In a league as strong as the Southeastern Conference, close games are going to be a constant. Kentucky is making it harder on itself in such games by too often not converting a high rate of its free-throw chances.
2. Not dominating at the arc. If you are looking for a stat to watch during UK games that carries predictive capacity for how the contests will turn out, monitor 3-pointers made.
Going into Tuesday night’s game at No. 25 Mississippi, Kentucky is 4-4 in SEC contests.
In the four league games Kentucky has won, the Wildcats have made more 3-pointers than their foes.
Conversely, in the four conference contests UK has lost, the Cats have made fewer 3-pointers than their opponents.
3. Lack of ball security. Over its previous three games, Kentucky has had more turnovers (43) than assists (36). That is not the norm for a Mark Pope-coached offense.
Of course, UK has played its past two games without a true point guard due to the absences of Lamont Butler (shoulder) and Kerr Kriisa (foot) due to injuries.
Since it is unclear when/if either of Kentucky’s veteran guards will return, it will be a test of Pope’s ability to innovate in whether he can find a way for the Wildcats to run offense without a point guard that mitigates the miscues.
4. The defense remains porous. In the Pomeroy Ratings, Kentucky entered this week 89th in adjusted defensive efficiency.
Other than last season’s dreadful 109th in defensive efficiency in what turned out to be Calipari’s final year wearing blue, this season is the lowest-rated Kentucky defense since the Pomeroy Ratings began in 1996-97.
According to basketball statistics maven Bart Torvik, the Kentucky defense allowed Arkansas an effective field goal percentage — adjusting field goal percentage to account for the value of 3-point shots — of 66.4 on Saturday night.
In its other seven SEC games prior to facing UK, the Razorbacks had not had an effective field goal percentage higher than 48.4.
The Kentucky defense is bad.
Obviously, the loss of Butler, a dogged on-the-ball defender, has not helped.
One does not expect a Pope-led team to feature a Kelvin Sampson-style lock-down defense. You are anticipating an elite offense and a respectable defense, one that can hopefully get stops when you need them.
Pope’s two NCAA Tournament teams at BYU in 2020-21 (23rd in adjusted offensive efficiency, 30th in defensive efficiency in the Pomeroy Ratings) and 2023-24 (14th and 68th) followed that formula.
If Kentucky is going to wash away the disappointment of Saturday’s loss to Calipari, Pope and his coaching staff are going to have to take some defensive risks in search of better outcomes.
As the venerable hoops analyst Bob Dylan might put it, when you ain’t got nothing (defensively), you ain’t got nothing to lose (in trying some different ways to get stops).
