No. 23 Kentucky won its season opener on Monday, handily defeating Wright State 103-62. The Cats did a lot of things right in the season-opening victory. But like any head coach, UK’s Mark Pope wants his team to be even better. He pointed out one particular area of concern on Thursday during his weekly press conference.

“We like to be a 30-percent offensive rebounding percentage team,” Pope said. “We’d like to be that consistently. If we could be a 14 offensive rebound per game team, it would be extraordinary. We’re just not living in that space at all right now.”

Pope did not see enough improvement between UK’s exhibition game and the season opener, at least in that area.

“We didn’t make much progress in the last game, either,” Pope said. “But it’s something we’re really focused on and we will make it, we’re just trying to figure out how to get there.”

Kentucky outrebounded Wright State 41-32 overall, but the Cats had just seven offensive rebounds while allowing the Raiders to grab 11. Pope would like to see improvement on both ends.

“Ideally, we would like to keep teams under 10 offensive rebounds,” Pope said. “Those are goals that we’re working on.”

Why does the UK head coach emphasize rebounding so much?

“It’s very important to how we play, it’s really important to how we play,” he said. “It gives us staying power, it gives us confidence in all of the other things we do. Our presence on the offensive glass and our consistency on the defensive glass is really important for us.”

Kentucky’s opponent on Saturday is Bucknell, which beat Delaware State 85-73 in the season opener. Noah Williamson had a double-double for the Bison, scoring 19 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. The Bison topped Southern Indiana 75-69 on Thursday night in overtime. Williamson went for 32 pionts and nine rebounds in the win. Pope has been impressed by what he has seen from the Bison.

“Good team, veteran team. Guys who have been there together for a long time,” Pope said. “They run really good actions and have a good sense of what they’re doing. They have some explosive scorers, they shoot it from all five positions. A good team. It will be another good challenge for us.”

The Cats will look to improve rebounding on both ends of the floor on Saturday as they host Bucknell inside Rupp Arena (4 p.m. ET, SEC Network Plus).