Mark Pope wishes Kentucky were further along: 'We're learning some painful lessons'

Kentucky moved past the Louisville loss tonight on the court, but the emotions from Tuesday night’s letdown still seem to linger. After the Cats’ 99-53 victory over Eastern Illinois, Mark Pope told reporters that he wished he were further ahead with this team — just four games into the season. The answer came after a question about how he pulled Otega Oweh aside during practice to have a private conversation.

“For all of our guys, this is just a learning curve. I wish that I was — I’ll be really bluntly honest with you guys — I wish I was farther ahead right now. I wish that I was further ahead with this group. Maybe it’s been complicated that we, you know — I’m trying to figure out why I’m not further ahead with this group in terms of just this group’s identity.”

That’s an odd comment after a 46-point win, but ahead of Tuesday night’s game vs. Michigan State in the Champions Classic, it’s a little concerning. Earlier in the press conference, Pope was asked about the “out-of-character” incident before the Louisville game. He downplayed it, but didn’t reveal it was, allowing Kentucky fans to continue to speculate. It’s kind of hard not to when you listen to him talk about this team’s mental state.

“There are a lot of contributing factors, for sure, but so yeah, like, what I expect from the guys is that they embrace who they are, like they’re here for a reason. They have very, very special, unique, quantifiable skill sets, and I want them to use them. I want them to celebrate them. I want to be proud of them. I want them to love their game.

“And I talked to the staff about it today; it’s even a problem for me. Sometimes I see a way another coach approaches something, or an anecdote, they share a style of coaching, or an action that they run, or a philosophy of how they coach. You look around, you’re like, Ah, I would like to do that. I would like to do this. I’d like to do the other. And sometimes, when it’s always important to grow, but you never want to lose yourself when you grow. You want to grow yourself.”

Pope said that when he spoke to his team about it, he used the anecdote of Tom Brady trying to become a running quarterback simply because people thought Michael Vick was better at it than he was, instead of sticking to his strengths.

“Nobody wants to see that, right? And so, us understanding where we bring our special sauce to the team is really, really important. Us growing as individuals is really important, but us knowing who we are and knowing what makes us special is really important.”

Hmm. The good news is, Kentucky still has plenty of time to figure out its identity. The bad news is, they may have to do it without their top point guard, Jaland Lowe. Also, they’re about to play Michigan State in the Champions Classic on Tuesday.

“I do have this feeling like I’m a little behind with this team, and I’m a little surprised,” Pope added during his postgame radio conversation with Tom Leach. “There are a lot of reasons that make sense. I still think we have an unbelievable ceiling, but we’re still asking some really basic kind of foundational questions about who we are right now. I would hope that we would be further along, but I’m not discouraged. The growing part of this process is incredible, but we are at a place right now where we’re learning some painful lessons, where we’ve got to not make some wholesale changes, but some refocusing for sure.”

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