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Mark Pope dismisses concern about Kentucky being distracted by John Calipari return

IMG_6598by:Nick Kosko•02/03/25•

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Matt Stone/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Kentucky head coach Mark Pope dismissed any concerns about the Wildcats being distracted by John Calipari’s return to Rupp Arena.

Arkansas pulled off the upset on the road, 89-79, to give Kentucky their sixth loss of the season. After a close first half, Calipari and company ran away with it in the second half.

But Pope maintained Kentucky lost on the floor, not because of the presence of the former coach.

“I don’t think so,” Pope said postgame. “This is every game, right? That’s the beauty of Kentucky, right? It’s ‘every night is the biggest game ever.’ If we go on the road, it’s the biggest game ever and we are really blessed to have the greatest fan base in the world and so every night here is the biggest game ever. I think our guys are pretty used to that.”

Pope’s team had issues with turnovers in the loss to the Razorbacks. But it’s been a common theme when the Wildcats have struggled.

“I think it’s us. I’m trying to figure out how to navigate,” Pope said. “We have a bunch of guys that are stretching right now to figure out how to play out of position and to make it work. Credit to our guys, man, they are really stretching. And we will get better at it. It’s almost like we started a new season. We are two games into a new season a little bit for our team and we are going to learn some new ways to attack this and we will get better at it. And I can help us get better at it. The turnovers were a little bit of an issue. Not just the 14 turnovers but the turnovers that led to fast break points were problematic for us tonight. 

“We’re navigating the space, it’s not unique to us, it’s everybody. We are navigating this space trying to keep it super super simple so that we can stay aggressive with guys playing new roles. Where we can also be aggressive and adjust. Those two things sometimes fight against each other and I didn’t do the best job finding answers for that tonight and that’s going to be an ongoing process. Like I said 100 times, our guys are great at learning and we will continue to learn and we’ll figure this part out too.”

Kentucky and Pope are back in action Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. ET at Ole Miss.