Kentucky locker room 'a little eerie' and 'really sad,' but 'we're going to figure this out'

Kentucky is in a difficult spot, and we’re not even a week into December. Sitting at 5-3 on the year with no resume in terms of tournament seeding — the Wildcats’ best win is currently Valparaiso at No. 191, via KenPom — with things getting tougher before they get easier. There are opportunities ahead to right the ship, sure, but there are also opportunities to sink the ship, too. Three of the next four opponents are ranked, and up to this point, this group has done nothing to suggest they are ready to get into the win column against that level of competition. It’s like a G League team: too good for the bad competition, not good enough for the big leagues.

Definitely not what you’re looking for out of Mark Pope, who proudly built the most expensive team in college basketball — remember how excited he was about his “beautiful Ferrari” and how he “(couldn’t) wait to take it for a spin”?

Pope said “we had some devastated guys in the locker room” following the North Carolina loss on Tuesday.

“These guys want to do this. They want to figure it out. They want to get it done,” he said. “They want to play well. And you know, the game will beat it out of you. When we have some stubbornness and some reluctance to actually buy into exactly how we’re trying to take this, the game will beat it out of you. It’ll humble you. And so hopefully that’s the process we’re in, and hopefully we’ll grow from it.”

His Wildcats would agree with that mood description.

“It’s definitely — you know, we’re not going to lie,” Andrija Jelavic said. “We’re not worried, but we are just really sad.”

“Obviously, the locker room is a little eerie right now,” Otega Oweh added. “It’s a fresh wound.”

But they also agree with Pope’s assessment of their humility and hunger to grow from this, knowing that as ugly as this start has been, the runway is long before we even get to conference play — let alone having serious concerns about a potential postseason run.

The date on the calendar is an objective fact. At the end of the day, the first quarter of the regular season has been disappointing, but that only means there are three-quarters of it left to figure things out.

“You know, it’s December,” Jelavic said. “Of course, we don’t want to lose every game and we lost three in a row versus the ranked opponents, but we’re for sure going to be back because we’re going to learn from this. The feeling we’re feeling now, the anger, the sadness, it’s just — it’s a great motivator. Plus this amazing crowd, every seat in the arena was full. We’re definitely going to bounce back.”

“It’s still early. We still got a whole lot of season left, so it’s just a matter of us turning it around. That’s the good part about this, we still have so many more games to play, these great teams, to rewrite the narrative,” Oweh added. “We can never panic. I feel like when it’s time to panic is when it’s later in the season, and if we’re still doing this, that’s when it’s time to panic.

“Right now, we still got to show up every single day, and we can’t be dwelling on the past games. We all believe in each other, we all believe in the staff, so that’s why we’re confident that it’s going to change.”

What gives them hope that such a turnaround is possible is that they feel close to a breakthrough, a bounce or two going their way to get momentum back on their side. They don’t see things spiraling; they see them slowly coming together — albeit too slowly for now, admittedly.

It’s definitely put up or shut up time for the Wildcats, but there is overwhelming belief they’re on the former side.

“I mean, we’re very close,” Malachi Moreno said. “I really think we shouldn’t have lost any of the three ranked games that we had, but at the end of the day, we’re gonna learn from it. We’re just gonna flush this one out, and we’re gonna move on to the next one.”

“That’s the message (in the locker room). It’s a long, long season,” Oweh added. “We’re not even aiming at the conference (schedule). That’s the crazy part, we can still flip it (before then). So, obviously, we dropped the ball on these three games, but there’s still so much more hoops left.”

It continues on Friday when Kentucky heads to Nashville to take on Gonzaga. Win that one, and you can start piecing together a turnaround plan.

They’re not even going to think about the alternative.

“I’m looking forward to the Gonzaga game and this definitely means that we can be more motivated,” Jelavic said. “This game is probably going to be the toughest one so far, but like I said, we’re going to turn this into motivation and that we can change our trajectory and change our team. We’re looking really forward to it.”

“That’s the good part about it. We’ve got another opportunity soon, a couple days to change the script, write the narrative,” Oweh added. “Obviously, we wish we could have gotten this one back, but we know we gotta do better. We’re getting an opportunity to prove we’re a really good team coming out of this.”

The key to making that happen? Coming together and leaning into each other rather than trying to do it all as individuals. The latter has gotten them where they are right now with three losses in three tries against ranked competition.

They know what they have to do, now it’s just about doing it and proving it.

“In these tough times, we’re forced to lean on each other and I think that’s going to be positive for this team because in these tough times, you can’t be alone,” Jelavic said. “We’re going to lean into each other, players to players, players to coaches, coaches to coaches, and we’re going to figure this out and we’re going to turn this thing around.”