You can only assume that even the most pessimistic members of the Big Blue Nation were surprised by the outcome of the Kentucky Wildcats’ matchup with Arkansas on Saturday night.

The Cats laid a complete egg in John Calipari’s highly anticipated return to Rupp Arena losing 89-79 to a Razorback team who was just 1-6 in SEC play before the game began.

Not only did Kentucky lose a game where they were heavily favored, they squandered what was one of the best home crowds in the program’s storied history.

Now it’s time to embrace the pain and dissect the reasons why things went so wrong for Mark Pope and the Wildcats.

Anytime a team loses a basketball game, one of the first things to question will be a coach’s substitution patterns.

UK’s embarrassing loss to an inferior team produced fair questions around personnel usage, specifically the total absence of freshman Trent Noah.

After providing his team an energy lift off the bench in Kentucky’s last two games, it was perplexing to see the 6-foot-5 Harlan County product log zero minutes against the Razorbacks.

Noah played 12 minutes on the road at Vandy and looked terrific while aggressively pulling down four rebounds and scoring a bucket.

He followed up that impressive performance by going 2/2 from the field against the Vols in nine minutes of action, which included fearlessly draining a deep three.

So, it’s difficult to determine why the Mountain Mamba, or Holler Baller as some have pegged him, didn’t see the floor on Saturday against Arkansas when he seemingly was poised for a breakout game.

In the postgame press conference, Kentucky head coach Mark Pope was asked about his decision to not play Noah.

“Trent is actually super interesting to me. With Drew coming back and Ansley playing so well. I wonder if there is some space for Trent, actually, at the three, and I think that is something to explore. As we kind of reconfigure everything we are doing right now on the fly, he’s played well, and there’s definitely space for him, and it’s my job to find the right space.”

In reality, the Razorbacks shooting lights out, Johnell Davis having one of his best games of the season and the unavailability of UK point guard LaMont Butler were bigger factors in the outcome of the game.

But it’s a real head-scratcher why Trent Noah wouldn’t be offered an opportunity to play when fellow freshman Collin Chandler and Travis Perry logged a hefty 25 minutes between them.

I’d expect to see #9 get some run when Kentucky travels to Oxford to take on #23 Ole Miss on Tuesday night.