Mark Pope reveals Kentucky watched tape of USA vs. Canada fights in 4 Nations Face-Off

Toughness has been a key component to Kentucky‘s success this season. The Wildcats have faced a never-ending string of injuries this season, starting with backup point guard Kerr Kriisa suffering a fractured foot and most recently, Jaxson Robinson being sidelined with a wrist injury.

Of course, a team can never be too tough. On Monday, Kentucky head coach Mark Pope admitted to showing his team highlights of the fight-filled showdown between the USA and Canada in the 4 Nations Face-Off hockey tournament.

While Pope doesn’t want to see his players throwing punches at opponents, he hopes his team can display a similar level of toughness as the USA hockey team.

“A lot of times we think of toughness as the first 30 seconds of the [USA vs. Canada] hockey all-star game, if anybody witnessed that,” Pope said. “That was in our film session this morning where guys just threw off the gloves and everyone was in the penalty box in the first 90 seconds. Sometimes we think of toughness as that.”

“And certainly, that’s a component of toughness. But for us, toughness is when the whole world is burning around you, you can still be focused on the task at hand. Toughness, to me, is an ability to be completely undistractable.

“Like, there is nothing that can distract you from the moment, whether it’s your own fears or concerns or whether it’s a referee’s whistle or whether it’s something the opposing team does, or a mistake that you just made on the last play, or the crowd or the arena or injuries or anything else. To me, the greatest toughness is the ability to focus no matter what distractions are out there. And that is a learned skill.”

By Pope’s definition, Kentucky lacked toughness in the final minutes of its 82-78 loss to Texas on Saturday. With 3:51 left in the game, the Wildcats took a 69-64 lead over the Longhorns.

However, over the next three minutes, Kentucky allowed Texas to go on a 14-1 run. The stretch was riddled with mistakes by Kentucky, including a missed rebound on a free throw and an unforced turnover while inbounding the ball.

Mark Pope reassured Kentucky fans that they weren’t the only ones left scratching their heads at the mind-boggling plays.

“There were a couple of plays down the stretch that I’m sure every member of BBN has picked apart where you’re like, what are we doing? And we were feeling the same thing,” Pope said.

“For us, this was just one of, there’s only really been two games this season where we kind of just didn’t function like us in the winning moments of the game. And the baggage just got to us… We know our guys care, our guys are competitors, our guys are fighters, our guys want to win.”