WATCH: Mark Pope's press conference after Kentucky's loss to North Carolina

Mark Pope only spoke for about six minutes after Kentucky’s 67-64 loss to North Carolina, highlighting the biggest issues anyone with two eyes could see, ranging from offensive rebounding to poor three-point shooting, and of course, that ten-plus minute scoring drought in the second half. Pope was disappointed in it all, specifically the rebounding, circling back to it a number of times.

“Well, I’m really frustrated with the rebounding tonight. Like I said, that’s credit to North Carolina and it’s uncharacteristic for us. It just hasn’t been us, but we just got crushed on the glass. It’s very, very disappointing tonight for sure. But I don’t think that’s who we are.”

I sure hope not, especially on the offensive end. Kentucky was 1-13 from three tonight, its lone make by Brandon Garrison. After that, the Cats didn’t hit a field goal for over ten minutes, a stretch that included 13 straight misses, the longest scoring drought for Kentucky in at least eight seasons. Woof.

Hit play below to hear Pope talk it all. He ends on a high note, giving some praise to Andrija Jelavic for his performance. If Kentucky had won, we’d be talking much more about Jelavic’s defense on Caleb Wilson.

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Transcript

Q Mark, offensive rebounding, let me get the stats.  20 offensive rebounds, 22-5 in second chance points. What did you see with your guys initial defense and then just how frustrating was it to not come up with those balls after getting stops? 

MARK POPE: It is a huge part of the game.  We are actually one of the best defensive rebound percentage teams in the country. Credit to North Carolina.  They were elite on the glass. They have size and length and their front line really dominated and they had 12 offensive rebounds just with their starting 3, 4, and 5. And we were really poor at our second hit and so that was really frustrating. It’s hard to win a game when you give up 20 offensive rebounds.

Q Mark, obviously, second half just struggling to shoot the ball.  I think it was over 10 minute scoring drought. When you look at all three of the losses this season, we’ve seen those scoring droughts. And basketball is a game of a runs sometimes. But why does this team seem to struggle with scoring so frequently for long periods of time against ranked teams? 

MARK POPE: We really haven’t, it hasn’t been a huge scoring issue. Tonight, it was for sure. It’s going to be hard for us to win scoring 64 points. It’s uncommon for us to be 1 from 13 from three. That’s not really who we are.  More disappointing is the 8 assists, that’s really frustrating. I thought in the second half our decision-making was poor. And caught up in the moment, trying to make, you know, we still have and are on a steep learning curve trying to figure out how to make plays for our teammates. We shoot it well when we actually do that, and we don’t, we don’t.

Q Mark, right here. The first couple of questions have kind of addressed it. Like you said, 9 turnovers, 8 assists, 20 offensive rebounds, just 13 3s. At this point in the season, what are you most concerned with and in which area? 

MARK POPE: Well, I’m really frustrated with the rebounding tonight. Like I said, that’s credit to North Carolina and it’s uncharacteristic for us. It just hasn’t been us, but we just got crushed on the glass. It’s very, very disappointing tonight for sure. But I don’t think that’s who we are.  I’m really frustrated with the 8 and 9, that’s not who we’ve been either.  But the MP4T stuff is a little bit of a trend right now that’s concerning and we have to find a way to break through and have the discipline to do it. We probably had a little fatigue on the floor, which I’m going to have to find a way to kind of dig deeper into this rotation to get some quality minutes. That’s going to be something really important to us as we move forward. There’s a lot we have to learn.

Q Mark, with Gonzaga coming up and Indiana, St. John’s within the next four games.  How do you kind of, I guess, fragment and put those into different sections so that this loss doesn’t end up snowballing in the previous losses? 

MARK POPE: Yeah, that’s your job as a pro, right?  You can’t allow that. 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.  You know, I feel like we found a little bit of ourselves in this game.  And 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.

Q Mark, you talked about the offensive rebounds that UNC got. Was there anything they were doing in particular that helped them excel?

MARK POPE: Our ball screen coverage was not great.  It was poor, our pick a point was way too high.  We were a little too passive.  Rarely at the point of the screen.  We are a little bit overzealous and overconfident in our belief in what we can actually accomplish. Defensively we are putting ourselves in harm’s way. That resulted in a lot of rotation stuff with some rebounding. And then just the size also.  We have a lot of times where we put a body on a body and just rested in that space instead of getting a second hit, a second hit is so important, we did a poor job there, surprisingly, like I said we’ve been a really good defensive team.

Q Coach, you guys talked about a little bit about the scoring droughts.  What do you have to do differently in a 10 minute drought like you had tonight without a bucket?  What has to happen to break that, to get the lid off? You talked about needing playmaking, how much are some of those guys that are injured going to help when they get back with that on the second part? 

MARK POPE: Yes, there are several things that can help you. One, pace of the game can really help you.  Two, having a couple of guys places you can go that you really trust to go find you a basket. Three, just simple things like catching the ball with two hands. It’s really hard, you have a wide open layup under the basket and you just dropped the ball out of bounds. There’s some inconceivable things that just happen because of the flow of the game.  I wish it was one thing that you do.  But it’s just a grouping of things where we just need to get better and get more solid and we’ve got to find a balance between me meddling with the game and the guys feeling the game.  But all of that is part of it.  It’s a struggle for us right now that is all on the foundation of this MP4T vibe.

Q Mark, I just wanted to follow up on. You said, we found a bit of ourselves tonight.  Can you elaborate? 

MARK POPE: I think Jelavic gave us some good minutes, I was proud of him, I think he gave us some solid minutes. I think Kam with a complicated matchup, I thought Kam had some positive minutes for us. I liked that. I thought Otega’s effort was terrific tonight. Minus some fatigue plays, I thought he was really solid and there were some positive signs for sure.  Thanks guys.