No moral victories, but Kentucky 'needed this loss' for regular season wake-up: 'I'm excited, man.'

If Mark Pope‘s reaction was any indication, there was no high-fiving and coming up with Halloween plans coming off Kentucky’s 84-70 exhibition loss to Georgetown. The second-year coach in Lexington said no one on the team would be able to sleep that night, calling it “the worst thing in the world.” It was a learning opportunity for his Wildcats to feel what it’s like to get punched in the mouth, but that doesn’t mean anyone enjoyed it.

“We will really, really learn and grow from this,” he said. “In that sense, I couldn’t ask for anything better in a terribly, awful, painful exhibition game.”

It had only been minutes since taking their lumps, but the lessons learned were already kicking in. Among them? Kentucky is and will forever be the hunted, the program wearing a permanent target on its back every time the Wildcats take the floor.

That’s a change even for a guy like Mo Dioubate, despite coming in with Final Four and Elite Eight finishes under his belt. This is proof his new team will always get an opponent’s best.

“We can’t take no team for granted,” he said. “At the end of the day, we all are basketball players, Division I basketball players. Being at Kentucky, we understand we’ve got to get the mentality that everyone wants to beat us. We’re the program everyone wants to beat, so there’s no days off here. That’s the mentality for it. No days off, no matter who we play at all.”

Dioubate said “it got a little quiet” walking back to the locker room after the 14-point loss, but he was quick to pick his teammates’ heads up and let them know even the best teams deal with adversity. He felt that down at Alabama — and not in exhibition opportunities where the games don’t actually count for anything other than pride.

No resume killer or drop in the rankings, just a slice of humble pie to digest before the regular season begins next week. If they have dreams of hanging a banner, firm on that title assignment, nights like Thursday can’t happen.

“It’s only supposed to make us stronger and not break us,” he continued. “Those are the things I was telling the guys. I said we got a lot to learn. This shows us we can’t be comfortable at all, at any point in the season because we’re a targeted team. … It takes a lot to make it there to a Final Four. It’s the attention to detail more so to make it to that level. It’s the skill, the physicality, everything, but it goes down to attention to detail. 

“I try to get guys to know we’ve got to play hard. If you want to make it to that level, we got to play hard. No matter how good we are on offense, it comes down to playing hard. And I feel like they did that better than us today.”

So do you take away more from a win over No. 1 Purdue or a loss to unranked Georgetown? Dioubate says it isn’t close. In the wise words of an old friend, you either win or you learn, and the Wildcats did a whole lot of learning with the Hoyas in town.

Some of the best Kentucky teams in history lost early exhibition matchups before putting together dominant seasons. The hope is this group is no different, despite the short-term setback.

“A loss (is more impactful). I feel like we needed this loss today,” Dioubate said. “We’re so talented. We understand the kind of team we have. I feel like a loss like this shows us the things we’ve got to work on early in the season. I’d rather us lose now than further down the season. … I think this is the right time for us to lose if you want to consider a loss. It’s the right time. 

“It doesn’t necessarily count. It gives us time. The season hasn’t even started yet, so it just gives us times for moments like SEC play and March Madness and stuff.”

If the Wildcats weren’t hungry enough for the start of the regular season, this certainly did the trick. Even in loss, there is plenty of wins to look forward to — hopefully starting next week.

“I’m excited, man. I’m excited for the next game,” Dioubate said. “I think we needed this kind of game. We’re missing some guys, but we have enough talent to win a game like this. That shouldn’t be an excuse for us. I’m just excited for the next game. We’re going to show up and show out.”