Otega Oweh says Kentucky has 'duty' to 'protect home court' -- but failed: 'I just don't think that will happen ever again.'

As the team leader for Kentucky and the SEC Preseason Player of the Year, it’s fair to say Otega Oweh‘s voice carries additional weight in that locker room. He’s been there and done that, earning All-SEC honors in year one as a Wildcat as the go-to star on a Sweet 16 team. The senior guard was there for all of the highs and lows, ranging from top-15 wins to blowout losses at Rupp Arena. And he’s here to tell you that there isn’t much worse than the latter.

It was just exhibition play, the finale ahead of regular season action, but a 14-point loss to unranked Georgetown is just not something that flies around here. Oweh felt it and stressed that fans deserve better than the performance they witnessed at home, whether the game goes in the record books or not.

He loved the test — you learn more from these types of matchups than beating NAIA schools by a hundred — but hated the result, just like you did watching from the stands and at home on TV.

“That was a good – today was a good test,” Oweh said. “Just – I feel like when we get to conference play, it’s going to be like that. So, definitely a good test for us. I feel like we’re a real physical team, but we just didn’t – we didn’t show it today. I mean, I don’t know why, but I feel like that won’t happen again just because of the outcome.

“I feel like we had a duty to protect home court, and we didn’t do that. So, I just don’t think that will happen ever again.”

It’s the same response Mark Pope — captain of a former championship team at Kentucky himself — had at the podium. You just don’t lose at Rupp Arena, no matter the competition or magnitude of the matchup.

“We’re massively disappointed with ever losing on this floor. That’s brutal for us right now,” he said. “… It’s never going to be an okay outcome for us. … We don’t do this here.”

What went wrong to spark that result? Inconsistency. The Wildcats were proud of their defensive effort against the No. 1 team in the country, then followed it up by laying an egg on that end of the floor a few games later.

They didn’t turn practice habits into game habits, and it led to what we all saw Thursday evening.

“I mean, we’ve just got to be consistent,” Oweh said. “We had a great defensive game against Purdue, and then we come out and have a not-so-good game defensively. We just got to continue to be consistent, and that starts in practice. We have to be super keyed in, taking the things we do in practice and bringing it to the game. I feel like we did a lot of stuff that we didn’t practice. We didn’t do it in the game.

“I mean, this was a preseason game. Obviously, we want to win every game that we play on this court, but I feel like we could learn from it, and we definitely will.”

So are they closer to the team we saw last Friday punking the top-ranked Boilermakers or the one that got punked by the unranked Hoyas? Oweh is confident it’s the former, and that will show when regular season play begins.

“We’re getting better every single day. Yeah, we just beat the No. 1 team, and then we lost to Georgetown, but I feel like that’s just how basketball goes. We were off today. We wasn’t making shots. Defensively, we wasn’t keyed in. So, I mean, I still think we’re one of the best teams in the country — probably the best team in the country. I just feel like we was off today. And we’ll bounce back for sure, especially once we get our guys back.”

It had the same feeling as Kentucky’s loss to Ohio State at Madison Square Garden last Christmas, drowning against a team with holes in the boat themselves. That was one of the matchups that forced Pope to go back to the drawing board this offseason when it came to roster construction, looking to add toughness and physicality, obvious traits last group missed.

Then the Wildcats came out and got treated the same way against the Hoyas — at home, no less. It’s deflating and frustrating, but at the end of the day, Kentucky is still 0-0 on the season with the opener coming up on Tuesday.

Take the loss for what it is and learn from it, but don’t let it derail the progress made dating back to the early parts of summer into the fall.

“We’re just thankful it don’t count, really. But I feel like after the loss, we’re going to be super hungry,” Oweh said. “We have all the guys to make a very competitive group. I feel like Coach Pope and myself, we’ve been saying that since the summer. Obviously, no one likes to lose. I think we’re just going to bounce back and use this as fuel to propel us into the season.

“Next week is for real. So, I just think we’re going to use this as fuel.”