Mark Pope vows not to fail after Kentucky's red-flag ridden loss to Michigan State

For Kentucky fans, there were red flags all over the floor at Madison Square Garden tonight. From the Cats’ lack of defense to puzzling shot selection, Mark Pope’s worried look walking into Madison Square Garden, and Kris Budden’s report that the players were yelling at each other during timeouts, there is nothing good to take from Kentucky’s trip to New York City. The 83-66 loss to Michigan State is bad, but the cloud it leaves over BBN is the worst of all.

Mark Pope knows. During his postgame press conference — which started much later than it typically does, 45 minutes after the game ended — Pope didn’t mince words, telling reporters that his team played poorly top to bottom.

“We’re far away from the team that we hope to — aspire to be,” Pope said of his message in the locker room. “We’re disappointed and discouraged, and completely discombobulated right now. We have work to do, so there’s no time like the present.”

We’re only five games into the season, but for the second Tuesday in a row, Kentucky lost big to a ranked team in the national spotlight. In both the loss to Louisville and tonight’s to Michigan State, the Cats showed some fight in the second half, but tonight, it never felt like enough because every big shot Kentucky made was be followed up by a mistake or equally big shot by the Spartans. As he did last week, Pope said that this team is still searching for its identity; discouraging result aside, he believes they’ll find it.

“I think that we’re in the process of learning and growing together as a team. I think this team has a terrific future. I think that — I believe that this group can become something. I think in this early part of the season, I feel like the identity that we felt like we carried has been stripped away, and maybe we’re facing some reality right now, and that can be — that’s an incredibly, incredibly painful process. It’s a terrifying process.

“If you treat it right, it can be a galvanizing process. That comes down to an issue of the character of your organization. I think the character of our organization is terrific, but it’s being tested in a big way right now. We’ll either answer the bell or not. That’s the beautiful thing about sports. You either get it done or you don’t. Right now, we’re not getting it done.”

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Jaland Lowe did not play tonight as he continues to mull what to do about his shoulder (Pope didn’t have an update). Jayden Quaintance obviously isn’t ready to return to action. Mo Dioubate seemed to suffer a lower leg injury late in the game. Still, Pope wouldn’t use injuries as an excuse for his team’s play.

“It’s not. I think the identity of the team is completely separate from any individual player. I actually think — I’m going to temper my words right now — I actually think our identity should be, if you build an organization the right way, then your identity is not about an individual person. Your identity is about a collective group, and it shouldn’t matter if we had built a great organization and a great culture, which I have clearly failed to do up until today.

“But we won’t fail this season; we just have failed up until today. We will build an organization where it won’t be disrupted every time someone steps in and steps out because we’ll have a team identity, not an individual identity. Until we get there, we’re going to really struggle. That’s my job. That’s why they brought me here. I’m doing it poorly; I won’t do it poorly for much longer.”

That’s the hope.