Mark Pope pushes back on injury excuses for Kentucky's late struggles in loss vs. Texas

The injuries have begun to add up for the Kentucky Wildcats this season. However, head coach Mark Pope has no interest in using them as an excuse for when the team struggles.

The Wildcats suffered an upset loss on Saturday at the hands of the Texas Longhorns. Despite that and the injuries, Pope pushed back after the game on the idea that injuries were what caused Kentucky’s late-game struggles in the loss.

“We’re not leaving any space for that,” Mark Pope said. “I have a good team. Like the guys on the court are good players, and we’re good enough to win. These guys have proven that. We just didn’t do it in the last three minutes and 45 seconds tonight. That’s just it. It was tonight, and it’s super painful, it’s not acceptable, all those things are true. But we have the guys we need to win and we’re going to figure out a way to do it. We did it for 36 minutes, we just couldn’t do it for the last four. That’s just the truth. That’s just the fact. We’ll lean into the facts right now.”

Kentucky had a small lead at the half and with about four minutes left in the game, and after a string of runs by either side, the Wildcats led by five. That’s when Texas went on another run over 3:17 where they outscored Kentucky 14-1 and pulled away to win.

Missing entirely for Kentucky were some key players, including Lamont Butler, Jaxson Robinson, and Kerr Kriisa. All of those players are point guards, traditionally handling the ball. Those injuries have forced multiple lineup changes, though Mark Pope still doesn’t want to consider those as an excuse for now losing three of their last five games.

“We’re just not spending any time on that. We have really good players. Travis Perry stepped up and really battled like crazy tonight. And Trent Noah is doing unbelievable work. These guys that are filling in spots, they’re really, really good players. We’re good enough to win. So, we’re not allowing any space for any of that. Like, we have a good team. We’re good enough to win. We were good enough to win for 36 minutes tonight, and we’ll get good enough to win in the last four. Certainly, there’s some new stuff, for sure, certainly, some guys are in positions they haven’t been in, for sure,” Pope said. “But this group is good enough to win, and we’ll figure that part out. We’re going to get there.”

Butler had been dealing with a shoulder issue, which he recently re-injured. Then, Robinson is down with a wrist injury and Pope doesn’t expect him to be back anytime soon. Kriisa had been in a boot earlier in the season and he hasn’t played since December.

“We’re at that point of the season where these late-game situations, they’re going to become increasingly heated. We have incredibly painful moments from this game when we weren’t present, and we will learn from that and we’re going to continue to get better. Listen, if we do this right, these moments are the moments that we’re going to get to replay again,” Pope said. “And we’re going to do them right. These guys are so emotionally invested, they put in so much energy, they’re so committed to each other, that they’ll figure this out. But it’s about the guys that are on the court right now. And we have the guys to do this. We’re not spending any time thinking about anything else.”

Next, Kentucky will return home looking to bounce back against the Vanderbilt Commodores for a game on Wednesday.