Mark Pope searching for answers after another 'unacceptable' loss for Kentucky

For the second time this season, Kentucky men’s basketball head coach Mark Pope referred to one of his team’s losses as unacceptable.

This one came after the Wildcats were embarrassed in Nashville on Friday night, getting blown out in historic fashion, losing 94-59 to No. 11 Gonzaga. It was a game that was over by the first media timeout, and at no point did it feel like a comeback was on the way. Kentucky never led and trailed by double-digits from the 14:19 mark of the first half until the final buzzer. The loss dropped UK to 0-4 this season against a team with a pulse, those defeats coming by a combined 63 points.

After failing to make a field goal for over 10 minutes during the second half against North Carolina earlier this week, Kentucky responded by opening the Gonzaga game without a made field goal until the 11:04 mark of the first half. Pope said he was surprised by the offensive struggles on Friday night, but maybe he shouldn’t be after what happened on Tuesday in Rupp Arena.

“We were just so paralyzed offensively,” Pope told Tom Leach during his postgame radio segment. “And the question is why, and we’ll try to dig into the reason why, but that was really disappointing, really discouraging, and we’ll find answers to why that is.”

The harsh reality is that the answers to Pope’s question might just be that the team isn’t talented enough to help him figure it out.

Kentucky shot just 26.7 percent from the field and 7-34 (20.6 percent) from deep against Gonzaga. That overall shooting number is the lowest of the Pope era at UK, with the runner-up a 29.8 percent performance during last season’s infamous 20-point loss to Ohio State in New York City. Kentucky is shooting just 31.9 percent from deep this season. There are endless numbers from the Gonzaga loss that will make you upset.

“I got to lead them. I have to get a better product. This was beyond unacceptable,” Pope said. “We have to find answers. We got to find personnel. We got to find wisdom. We got to be better. There is just zero universes in which this is acceptable.”

Pope clearly knows that the product on the court so far this season is not Kentucky basketball. But this is the product he recruited. This is now the second time in roughly two months we’ve heard him refer to a loss as unacceptable — and yet they continue to happen. And even though the other instance came after a meaningless, 14-point exhibition loss to Georgetown in late October, Pope still said that type of defeat “is never acceptable here.”

And he’s 100 percent right.

But here we are, a little over two months later, rehashing the same phrases after another disappointing showing from his crew. And if we’re honest, being down most of the game to in-state rival Louisville is also unacceptable. Losing to Michigan State by 17 points on a neutral floor is the same. Simply failing to the put the ball in the net for 10-minute periods (twice in the same week!) is even more unacceptable, especially for a team this expensive.

These things do not happen at Kentucky — not like this. Finding the fix seems far away right now.