Mark Pope calls Georgia's offensive rebounding success 'unacceptable'

Kentucky fell to Georgia 82-69 on Tuesday night, a surprising road loss in a conference that is sure to produce plenty of them in one of the most competitive landscapes in years.

Perhaps the biggest issue for Kentucky? Offensive rebounding.

“Yeah, they had 15 today,” coach Mark Pope said. “And it’s back-to-back games where we gave up 15 offensive rebounds. And that’s, man, that’s a real bell we’ve got to ring. It’s unacceptable for us and it’s a sign of — it’s not a sign of; it’s a sign of distraction.”

Pope simply didn’t feel his team was as locked in as it needed to be on the defensive glass against Georgia. Worse, that’s been a recurring issue.

And in a game played at the pace of Tuesday night’s contest, that proved not only problematic, it proved costly.

“There were so many uncharacteristic plays on the court tonight,” Pope said. “And those are, for us, as a deciding team, as a decision-making team, those are manifestations of some distraction. And us rooting that out and getting better at focusing on the moment, on the moment and exactly what’s happening, is especially important. So we’re working on that really hard.”

The Kentucky basketball coach will use the Georgia game as a further example of what can’t happen if the Wildcats want to reach their goals and compete for championships. Just can’t happen.

But for all the talk about offensive rebounding, something just isn’t quite clicking yet for Kentucky.

“Sometimes when you start on a project you take 10 steps backward before you make progress and it feels like that’s what we’ve done,” Pope said. “It’s almost like the more we talk about it, the more we drill it, the more of a challenge it is. And that’s a nuanced conversation among the staff that we have to kind of figure out, but clearly that’s a major, major issue for us is this glass. Especially in a game that’s as slow-paced as this is and holding the ball and as much out of rotation as we were.”

Georgia might have provided the blueprint to beat Kentucky. Slow the game down, taking the Wildcats out of their game offensively, then crash the glass on the other end.

Kentucky will face similar challenges in the future, of that you can be sure.

Next up is a date at Mississippi State on Saturday, with tip scheduled for 8:30 p.m. ET on the SEC Network.