I'm not sure I agree. We had injuries, yes. Butler was beyond banged up, yes. But his production in the last two games was still pretty darned good. Not sure his health changes that much. Carr's back is what it was. It happens. Again, I don't think it really had much to do with his play. Losing JR hurt, for sure. I don't think, when healthy, we were a top 4/5 team. More like borderline top 10. The Duke win and both Tennessee wins is what everyone hangs their hat on to prove that point. Duke isn't even close to the team we beat back in Nov.
I've said it a bunch, I think Pope did a good job building a roster and coaching the team this year. But I think we will get those same results if he continually runs it back with that same type roster construction. Gotta upgrade talent. Can't go into next season with Otega being your best player. Can't replace Carr with another Carr prototype. That will max Pope's UK career at about 5 yrs and he'll be remembered for being "10 Loss Tubby" instead of Early Cal/Rick.
Injuries happen. Yes.
But you can't ignore the fact that Carr's play diminished and was much more up & down (probably depending on how his back felt that day) after he hurt it.
Butler did play well the last couple of games, but he still missed 9 games and played a few more at a diminished level. We didn't have our backup PG the last 27 games. And our 2nd leading scorer (maybe top scorer in SEC play) missed the final 10 games.
BTW, there was also the Florida win, and even @ Miss St (@ any top 25 team) was good too.
Sure Brea was able to fill in for Robinson most games. But that meant someone needed to fill in to Brea's role off the bench. And I'm sorry, but even with his improvement, Chandler, and Noah were not ready. Not their fault's, they weren't supposed to be relied upon that much this year. So the difference wasn't in the starting 5, it was in the bench. Perry, Chandler, Noah, Almonor, Garrison is not close to what Kerr, Brea, Chandler, Almonor, Garrison would have been. We were still probably 1 quality 4/5 type player away from being a team to win 6 in a row in March/April, but healthy I have no doubt we would have been a 2 seed with a shot at a 1 seed.