Mark Pope on SEC play: 'Every night is going to be the biggest challenge of your season'

Mark Pope never fails to find the silver lining. The first-year Kentucky head coach did just that on Saturday after the Wildcats suffered a 74-69 loss to Vanderbilt on the road.

“That’s the great thing about this league. It’s such a fun, beautiful league. Every night is going to be the biggest challenge of your season,” Pope said. “It’s nice because you don’t actually have to convince your guys of that, it’s just every single game. I think every team is probably feeling some fatigue and frustration, and everyone is dealing with injuries, for sure. 

“We’re not far away. We have some real issues that we have to find some creative answers to, but we’re not far away. We did some really positive things tonight. Some things I was really proud of our guys (for).”

Kentucky certainly had promising flashes against the Commodores. The Wildcats shot 9-23 (39%) from beyond the arc in the loss. They were excellent in the first 10 minutes of the second half, taking a seven-point lead at one point despite trailing by 14 at halftime.

Nonetheless, Kentucky’s failures outweighed its successes. The team committed an uncharacteristic 17 turnovers against the Commodores. For reference, Kentucky is averaging just 10.4 turnovers per game.

Vanderbilt didn’t hesitate to capitalize on the Wildcats’ mistakes, scoring 14 points off turnovers. Moreover, the Commodores didn’t give Kentucky a chance to retaliate, only committing five turnovers in the SEC matchup.

While Mark Pope was far from pleased with his team’s performance, he also gave credit to Vanderbilt after the game.

“We took some calculated guesses at how we could sure up some space of the floor and Vanderbilt answered really well,” Pope said. “They’re capable of doing that (making 3-pointers), but I don’t think they’ve done it before.

“And that’s nice, you need to make teams do stuff they don’t commonly do, and they rung the bell in that space, for sure.”

Kentucky has now lost two games in a row, falling to Alabama in its previous game. The Wildcats are now 14-5 and 3-3 in conference play. Additionally, they dropped to No. 12 in the latest AP Top 25.

Life isn’t about to get any easier for the ‘Cats. On Tuesday, Kentucky will travel to Knoxville to face off against No. 8 Tennessee. Only four days later, the ‘Cats will host Arkansas as John Calipari makes his first appearance in Rupp Arena since leaving Kentucky this spring.