Kentucky is a poor shooting team now, but Mark Pope believes 'really dangerous' turnaround is coming

You are what your numbers say you are, and for Kentucky, that means it’s a bad shooting team with the Wildcats ranked No. 138 nationally in 3-pointers made and No. 243 in 3-point percentage. It’s even worse when you separate name-brand competition from buy games, Mark Pope‘s group now a combined 24 percent from deep against Louisville, Michigan State, North Carolina, Gonzaga and Indiana.

Individually, Brandon Garrison is the best shooter on the team against power-conference foes at 50 percent — albeit on low volume (2-4). For players with at least a dozen attempts on the season, Otega Oweh leads the way at 37.5 percent (6-16).

None of it is good, and it’s why the idea of moving forward with the tough, gritty identity of defense and physicality that helped them beat Indiana by a dozen at home may not be the worst thing in the world for these Wildcats. They only shot 20 percent from deep on 15 attempts, but hey, a win is a win, right?

“Yes, I think we can win games when we have that type of commitment to our team and that type of grit,” Pope said Monday night. “It’s not the way we want to have to win every game, but certainly I think that that’s something we should be able to fall back on. There’s a big-time safety net for us in terms of just playing every possession with all the passion we have.”

They beat the Hoosiers with heart, not skill — and certainly not shooting. And if it means playing to their strengths, that’s what Pope is going to do with these Wildcats.

“We’re just making some adjustments to try and find the space where our guys are most comfortable right now,” he said. “… We’re making some adjustments where the game’s a little more mucked up — which I don’t love aesthetically, but I love in a very spiritual way. It’s really physical and intense and combative, and I think we can exist in that type of game.”

Don’t give up on this team from the perimeter just yet, though, Pope says. If you are what your numbers say you are, then a breakthrough is coming sooner rather than later for Kentucky.

Wait, what?

Well, it’s not translating to games, but the Wildcats are still shooting lights-out in practice, several players hitting the mid-70s in terms of 3-point percentage at the Joe Craft Center. The team’s NOAH Shooting System, which tracks every shot’s arc, depth and left or right accuracy down to hundredths of an inch, continues to say this group can knock ’em down.

They may win rock fights this year and Pope is certainly glad they’ve proven they’re capable of doing so, but he still firmly believes Kentucky is going to beat teams with elite shot-making, too. It’s a matter of if, not when.

“I actually think our team really isn’t — by the end of the year, I think we’re going to be really dangerous shooting the ball. I do. I’ve never been on a team where the NOAH numbers don’t actually eventually transport their way into games. I just have never seen that. With that history, I have every expectation that this team, I think, is going to be really dangerous. I think for us, mostly it’s finding some continuity. …

“We have guys that are (making shots) consistently in the mid-70s, that have not exploded onto the scene in games yet. That’s just a matter of time.”

Until that day comes, though, Pope is happy to know these Wildcats have what they showed against the Hoosiers in them. It was ugly and scrappy and tough and all of the things — which is how you have to win games in the NCAA Tournament, at times.

It never hurts learning how to win in other ways if your way isn’t working. Effort and intensity go a long way toward those performances. He’d rather fight those battles now than never face adversity and not know what to do once you go cold in March Madness.

“I thought we took a step forward in understanding how hard we have to play to win. As we have a little bit of success, I think that the game will loosen up a little bit for us,” Pope said. “Guys will feel more confident and safe moving forward. … If we do this right, it’s going to bode well for us when we get to the latter part of the season and the postseason. We’ll be able to play insanely physical, just mucked-up games, because sometimes that’s where the game takes you.”

Make no mistake about it, though: Pope wants some shots to fall.

And he wants that to be what this team is known for at the end of the day, sooner rather than later.

“I do think that we’re going to have tremendous success shooting the ball. Right now, we’re still not quite in that space yet,” he said. “(We want to) be an elite-level, explosive scoring team. We’d like to be able to do both of those things and we’re working on getting there.”