Kentucky treats Georgetown loss as 'learning lesson' -- but valuing 0-0 start entering regular season

Kentucky got punched in the mouth to wrap up the exhibition schedule against Georgetown, the Wildcats quickly coming back to earth following a feel-good win over No. 1 Purdue that saw Mark Pope‘s group look like world beaters. Shorthanded, sure, but it’s never acceptable to lose at Rupp Arena — especially in such convincing fashion — as the second-year coach made clear.

Horrific defensively with disastrous ball movement and worse shot-making, there was a whole lot of spooky on Halloween Eve. All of it kept Pope up that night.

“I’ll be honest with you, this is painful. We’re not going to sleep,” he said after the 84-70 loss. “This is never acceptable here. It’s the worst thing in the world, and I’m really grateful that it’s happening now, because it gives us a chance to try and learn and grow, and we need to do that.”

How have the days since been for the Wildcats, knowing you got humbled on your home floor, but also remain 0-0 with the regular season set to begin?

“It’s a learning lesson. I mean, you can’t win every game, but for sure you’re gonna try to,” Jasper Johnson said Monday. “I know we have things that we need to work on, working on some things and practice with our prep, but it’s a good lesson that we learned, for sure.”

“I feel like everybody was just shocked just because we came out with that big-time win (against Purdue),” Brandon Garrison added. “But that’s just proving that everybody will give us their best shot. With practice and film, we got a little chewed out and stuff, obviously, but practice was normal. We worked on the stuff that we watched in film that we needed to work on.

“Other than that, we washed that film away and focused on Nicholls State. Obviously, it gets real (Tuesday) night.”

Looking big picture, through the win over Purdue and loss to Georgetown, the Wildcats learned more about themselves than they could have against lesser competition like we’ve seen in the past — there aren’t many takeaways from hundred-point exhibition wins. It’s certainly better than weeks and weeks of practice with nothing but intrasquad scrimmages up to this point.

They already had a grasp on team identity and goals within reach — the biggest possible, obviously, as the Wildcats push for banner No. 9 — but the two exhibitions helped them paint the picture with both extremes.

“It’s been great, playing the exhibition games is a chance to go out and compete versus other players,” Johnson said. “I know it kind of gets repetitive in the summer competing in practice with the same teammates, knowing what we’re doing and stuff like that. But it is great to get out there and play versus other people and learn what we need to work on, see things that we’re good at and see things that work and see things that don’t.

“But it’s just all a part of the game of basketball. You can grow from a lot of different things and I feel like it was a good feeling to go out there and compete versus other players.”

“It was great,” Garrison added. “We played a number one team, and then we played another great team in the Big East — a physical team. So I feel like those games are gonna help us with these openers we got, and with the season that we’re about to have. I feel like we needed those games just to see where we’re at, and just playing great talent, I would say.”

Some of the greatest teams in the history of Kentucky basketball took early exhibition losses and used them as fuel going into legendary seasons. Pope’s own 1996 national championship team suffered one of those losses during a foreign trip, only to emerge as a juggernaut when the real fans started.

Did Pope share similar messaging with his guys after taking one on the chin against Georgetown? Not exactly — he was too focused on stressing the importance of winning at home, something they failed to do.

“No matter what, we have to come out and protect home court,” Johnson told KSR. “I know that it’s a tradition and the fans deserve to see better performances than what we gave. But we’re definitely gonna move on from that, try to get better, learn from the game and try to compete at the high level every time.”

As a Lexington native with deep University of Kentucky roots, he knows more than anybody losses like that just don’t happen for the Wildcats. Johnson expects more from himself personally and the team as a whole.

“I was definitely disappointed in myself,” he continued. “I mean, me being from the city, I feel like I let them down going out there and losing the game like that. But just talking to Coach Pope, he just told me not to do that and try to move on, but still keep that fire in your heart for next game.

“It definitely was a hurting feeling for me, personally, because I’m from here. Going out like that was never something I would have imagined.”

The biggest thing he learned about his team going into the regular season with summer, training camp, Big Blue Madness, Blue-White and the pair of exhibitions? He wouldn’t trade his group for any other in college basketball.

The Wildcats are closer to the team that steamrolled the top-ranked Boilermakers, not what fans saw against the Hoyas. And that latter experience only helps the team know what will get them beat on any given night — the blueprint is right there with the Purdue matchup.

Keep the fire and watch the wins stack up, hopefully en route to No. 9.

“I mean, it’s something that comes with the game of basketball, highs and lows. Can’t get too high, can’t get too low, but you just always gotta stay motivated,” Johnson said. “I know we’re — I still think we’re the best team in the country, so every team’s gonna come out and give us their best shot. We just gotta be ready for it.”

That starts tonight when the Wildcats host Nicholls at Rupp Arena at 7 p.m. ET, live on SEC Network+.