Kentucky got outplayed again, and it starts at the top

Mark Pope’s comments last week about the team being “out of character” before the Louisville game sounded like a coach trying to explain a flat performance in a rivalry game without stirring panic. He mentioned a “bad pregame experience” and a group that wasn’t locked in for its first true road test of the season. The vague and unusual admission raised eyebrows, only for Pope to downplay the comment after beating Eastern Illinois on Friday night. He even deflected with a Taylor Swift reference, which was weird.

The Big Blue Nation wanted to move on from the loss to Louisville and Pope’s bizarre explanation of whatever happened behind closed doors, but when those warning signs were followed by a second straight no-show on a big stage, the storyline changed.

A troubling pattern

Kentucky‘s loss in the Champions Classic wasn’t about missed shots or Michigan State getting hot. However, the lack of perimeter defense contributed to the Spartans hitting 11 of 22 from deep. The loss was about Kentucky looking disorganized, uninspired, and unprepared again.

When a team starts slow at Louisville and then sleepwalks into Madison Square Garden a week later with the same lethargy, the same blown assignments, and the same lack of urgency, that falls on the head coach. He built the roster, and it’s his job to coach them up to win basketball games. It’s unrealistic to expect him to win every game, but it’s unacceptable for his team, considered one of the best on paper in the preseason, to get drilled in its first two meaningful games.

Louisville led by 20 in its first win over Kentucky since 2020 last Tuesday. Michigan State’s lead got as high as 24 late in the Garden. Kentucky didn’t just get outplayed by those teams; they got out-competed and out-coached, and that’s the part Pope has to answer for.

After a long wait for Pope to emerge from the locker room, he said in his postgame press conference, “It’s a work in progress. I got to do a better job. My messaging is not resonating with the guys right now, and that is my responsibility. We’re not playing like our teams play, and that’s my communication issue, so it’s a place we can all work on.”

What is Kentucky?

That’s the question now. They’re five games and two high-profile matchups into Pope’s second season, and it’s still unclear what Kentucky is. They certainly aren’t a physical team. That’s clear. They aren’t a defensive team. They aren’t a grind-it-out team. And when the shots stop falling and the spacing disappears, they aren’t a team that can create offense. Pope wants Kentucky to take 30 threes per game, but did he get any shooters?

The injury to Jaland Lowe, the team’s natural point guard, adds to the problems, but his absence is not an excuse. Kentucky has gotten exposed in two losses before Thanksgiving. The Wildcats didn’t look confident or cohesive in either. ESPN’s Kris Budden overheard them “barking at each other” in the second half of the Champions Classic.

ESPN's @KrisBudden reports that Kentucky's players were "barking at each other" in the timeout down 14, prompting Mark Pope to step and tell them to get on the same page.

— Tyler Thompson (@MrsTylerKSR) November 19, 2025

When things went well against the three inferior teams, Kentucky scored in bunches and looked electric in Rupp Arena. But when fighting in the same weight class, the Wildcats don’t know where to turn when they take a punch. There’s no calming presence, no alpha dog, and no consistent identity of who they want to be.

Until this group finds its identity, some toughness, and a will to win, nights like Louisville and Michigan State are going to keep happening. Pope needs to figure this thing out in a hurry.

“We’re not in this for each other right now, the way that we need for our team to be able to be competitive,” Pope told Tom Leach in the postgame radio interview, part of a very short conversation about the loss. His comments were brief and disappointing, furthering the concerns around his grasp of the team and the situation.