Mark Pope on the state of Kentucky's locker room after third loss: 'The game will beat it out of you'

For the third time this season, Kentucky played a ranked opponent. For the third time this season, the Cats lost, falling 67-64 to No. 16 North Carolina. Ready or not, opportunity No. 4 is coming up fast, vs. No. 11 Gonzaga in Nashville on Friday.

No one would describe tonight’s game as pretty, but it was close, tied nine times with 16 lead changes. Every time it looked like Kentucky was ready to pull away, North Carolina would push back, sometimes literally to get a rebound. The Tar Heels outrebounded Kentucky 41-30, 20-8 on the offensive glass, leading to 22 second-chance points. Poor shooting also doomed the Cats. Kentucky made just 1-13 threes, a low in the Mark Pope era, and went over ten minutes in the second half without a field goal. Even then, they still led by one, but North Carolina hit five of its last seven shots to steal the win, its first over Kentucky in Rupp Arena since 2007.

Throughout the offseason and preseason, we heard how competitive this Kentucky team was, to the point that they were breaking chairs during game nights at Mark Pope’s house. Yet, the Cats have failed all three of their biggest tests. What gives? Pope told Tom Leach that he thinks his team wants to play well, but the fact that they keep losing big games shows that not everyone has bought into the process just yet.

“We had some devastated guys in the locker room. These guys want to do this. They want to figure it out. They want to get it done. 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.”

As a former player, Pope knows what it’s like to be in a losing locker room. Right now, he thinks this squad is still trying to figure out what to do with the emotions of a loss. He wants it to bring them together instead of driving them apart.

“You’ve gotta listen to the game. I mean, if you’re humble and you listen to the game, then you learn, and you get better. And if you take the pain and you internalize it, then it can burn inside you and can actually forge a bond; it can also destroy you, and so that’s the trick for us. We’ve got to use it as fuel, and we’ve got to get better. It’s our responsibility. It’s our job.

“That’s what this team is supposed to be, and I think we can. I have a ton of confidence in these guys’ character, and I believe that we’re going to play way better. We’ve just got to get there.”

For better or worse, Kentucky’s next test is just a few days away, vs. a 7-1 Gonzaga team in Nashville. After taking a beat to grieve another bad loss, Pope is ready to get back to work and build on the good things he saw tonight (there were actually some, Andrija Jelavic’s play being one of them).

“Yeah, that’s your job as a pro, right? You can’t allow [losses to snowball]. We’ve got to go through the grieving process and get back to work. I do think that we are making some strides in certain areas, and I thought we had some positive play from several guys. I feel like we found a little bit of ourselves in this game. 

“So, there is no safety net right now. We just have to get better. We will continue focusing on that, and we need guys to step up and give us great efforts, and I’m excited about the games we have ahead. Why play if you are not playing great teams? So, I’m excited about it.”

I need a bit before I can use that adjective to describe my feelings about what’s coming up on Friday night.

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