After Kentucky’s 82-69 loss to Georgia, head coach Mark Pope offered candid insights into the team’s struggles. After the game Mark Pope spoke to the media and addressed some interesting topics.

Q: What are your thoughts on the loss to Georgia?
Mark Pope: “I know it’s a big win… Congratulations to those guys. We’re disappointed with our performance tonight. A lot of things that we’ve got to work on.”

Q: Why do you think the team continues to face double-digit deficits in the first half?
Mark Pope: “The second 10-minute stretch (of first halves) has been really problematic for us. The first 10 minutes are okay, [we’re] in there, guys are starting out well. And then it’s that second 10 minutes and maybe some little rotational stuff. Maybe we’re being a little oversensitive to foul stuff. You know, maybe it’s where the issues in the game are really starting to seep in. But yeah, it’s something that we’re super conscious of. We had some much better success in that segment last game, but man, we just couldn’t reproduce it tonight.”

Q: Offensive rebounds were a problem again tonight. What’s your assessment?
Mark Pope: “They had 15 today. And it’s back-to-back games where we gave up 15 offensive rebounds, and that’s… That’s a bell we got to ring. That’s just, it’s unacceptable for us, and it’s a sign of distraction… There were so many uncharacteristic plays on the court tonight, and those are, for us as a decision-making team, manifestations of some distraction. Us rooting that out and getting better at focusing on the moment is the space where you… Part of it is building habits.

“Sometimes when you start on a project, you take 10 steps backwards before you make progress, and it feels like that’s what we’ve done. It’s almost like the more we talk about, the more we drill it, the more of a challenge it is. That’s a nuanced conversation among the staff that we have to figure out.”

Q: Jaxson Robinson has struggled recently. What’s your message to him?
Mark Pope: “It just is the ebb and flow of the game. That’s all it is. Jaxson’s been doing this for a long time. He’s a shot-maker. The most important thing for Jaxson, for all our guys, is that we don’t actually carry that baggage around. We’re a free-shooting team, meaning that we don’t carry the outcome of makes and misses with us.

“We’re staying so hyper-focused on the parts of the game that are more controllable, and that’s an issue for all of our guys right now. We’ve played two true road games, and both of them have been spaces where we’re a little distractible. That’s a mountain we got to climb. There’s no reason to hide from that.”

Q: There was a noticeable free-throw disparity. How do you address that?
Mark Pope: “Listen, that doesn’t have anything to do with this game, man. Like, you know, we leave all that stuff. We’re working on the next play. We’re going to go control the stuff we can control, and we can control enough factors in this game to win the game. That will always be true, and so we refuse to be distracted by that.”

Q: What’s your perspective on the team’s mentality at the start of games?
Mark Pope: “We’re starting the game well. So they’re starting games well. It’s like I said… It’s that eight-to-four-minute segment, I’m sorry, like the 12-to-four-minute segment, that’s been a little bit problematic for us.

“We’re doing some deep dives into tandems that work on the floor, but there’s something in there that’s just been troublesome for us. I don’t know if it’s scheme, flow, lineup. We’re still digging into that. We’ll find [it]. Like I said, I thought we made great progress, you know, last game, and it was hard for us this game.”

Q: How did Georgia’s defense impact your team?
Mark Pope: “Well, you know, we got a little weird. They came to the game. It got pretty slow… Probably what I was feeling the most was, we lost us a little bit in transition… It was so hard to actually get a defensive rebound where it wasn’t a foul, it was actually a rebound.

“The times we did, which we had several possessions from that kind of 10-minute-to-four-minute stretch in the second half, like, we became Georgia, and that’s not actually us. Like, we play, we’re going to play and the whole game’s connected together. And, like I said… There was a lot in the game to get us distracted, and we just couldn’t stay focused.”

Q: Did the emotional return to Georgia impact the team?
Mark Pope: “Well, I know for [UK assistant Mark] Fox it was. I mean, he’s one of the best to ever do it here in Georgia. He had an unbelievable run, an unbelievable tenure, and he’s so beloved here, and I think all of us are carrying it a little heavy that we couldn’t deliver this for him.”

Mark Pope sounds like he knows there’s a problem, and has tried to address it with a plan, but can he fix it? The team needs to be better on the boards, they need someone to be an aggressive leader down low, and they need consistent shooting. The plan to keep Kentucky from falling behind in the first half faces a stiff test and fans will get a good look as Kentucky visits top 20 Mississippi State Saturday.