Mark Pope reacts to where Kentucky stands in NET rankings
For the first time in seven years, Kentucky has begun the season with a 9-1 record. The Wildcats’ success hasn’t gone unnoticed, landing at No. 5 in this week’s AP Top 25 and Net rankings. After Kentucky’s 78-67 win over Colgate on Wednesday, UK head coach Mark Pope revealed his perspective on the importance of rankings.
“Listen, I’m glad we are in the conversation and I’m glad we are in the national conversation,” Pope said. “That’s where we are supposed to be, it’s Kentucky, right? I’m really happy with all of that. More importantly, I just want us to be a great team, right? And we want to keep getting better.”
Kentucky showed it still has plenty of room for improvement on Wednesday. Despite being favored by over 30 points against Colgate entering the showdown, Kentucky was up by just two points at halftime.
The Raiders continued to nip at Kentucky’s heels until the Wildcats went on a 12-0 run with 15 minutes left in the second half. While Kentucky ultimately escaped with a comfortable win, Pope was far from satisfied with his team’s performance.
“We had some runs tonight where we got better. We started the game better and then we just — the energy just turned a little bit on us. But we will learn from this and we will get better,” Pope said. “Right now it’s a race to get better. It’s Kentucky, we have to win every game along the way. That’s a beautiful thing and I’m not complaining, I think that’s why Kentucky is special. All of the things matter, everything matters.
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“The metrics matter, the analytics matter, the efficiencies matter. All of those things are really important to us. We would like to be the flagship program in every single category that we grade and rank and evaluate as a team. That’s our goal. It’s all really important.”
In fairness, Kentucky’s lackluster performance may have been partly due to the absence of Lamont Butler and Kerr Kriisa. Butler is dealing with an ankle injury and hasn’t played since Kentucky’s loss to Clemson on Dec. 3.
Meanwhile, Kriisa suffered a foot fracture in the Wildcats’ win over Gonzaga on Saturday. He is out indefinitely. With both veteran guards out, Mark Pope turned to freshmen Travis Perry and Trent Noah, who have rarely received playing time this season.
The pair received a combined 20 minutes on Wednesday, with Noah shooting 1-2 from beyond the arc while Perry missed all four of his shot attempts. On Saturday, Kentucky will have another chance to impress experts across the country as it squares off against in-state rival Louisville at 5:15 p.m. ET. The game will air live on ESPN.