Kentucky's wheels fell off at the same time against both Louisville and Michigan State

by: Zack Geoghegan3 hours agoZGeogheganKSR

Champions Classic on 11/18/2025 - Dr. Michael Huang, Kentucky Sports Radio/On3

Kentucky’s two games against Power 4 opponents this season have gone about as poorly as possible.

An annoying loss to in-state rival Louisville last week was followed by a flat-out embarrassing performance against Michigan State on Tuesday night. UK lost those games by a combined 25 points away from Rupp Arena, negating any goodwill gained in the three blowout wins against non-P4 schools, not to mention the exhibition victory over top-ranked Purdue.

And yet, Kentucky was beating UL and MSU early on, even playing quite well through the opening eight minutes of both matchups. But for whatever reason, the wheels fell off against the Cardinals and Spartans around the exact same time in the first half.

Kentucky led Louisville 22-19 with 11:35 left until halftime and was up on Michigan State 17-14 at the 13:26 mark of that first half. UK went on to trail Louisville by as many as 18 points in the first half and went down by as many as 17 points against MSU before the intermission. Whatever momentum the ‘Cats had built up in the first two segments of those games suddenly vanished and never returned.

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The question we (and Mark Pope, for that matter) don’t know the answer to right now is why — why did Kentucky’s first half against Michigan State mirror what went down at Louisville? Why did this team completely break down, and why could Pope not fix them back up? The ‘Cats were able to make the game competitive against the Cardinals, but the Spartans proved why overcoming double-digit leads against good teams is so difficult. Getting down early has proven to be a theme of the Pope era, but he had success last season in completing the comeback. That hasn’t been the case so far in 2025-26.

Pope said after Tuesday’s loss that the identity of this team — whatever it might be — has been “stripped away”. Right now, the identity looks like a team that doesn’t quite know how to handle adversity.