Mark Pope shoulders blame for Kentucky's energy vs. Auburn: 'Would love to make excuses for that'

The Auburn Tigers rolled into Lexington and jumped all over the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday. Plenty went wrong in the game for Kentucky, but head coach Mark Pope was particularly frustrated with the team’s energy throughout the game.

After the game, Pope put the lack of energy on his own shoulders, not on the players. He also looked to avoid excuses for the loss.

“I would love to make excuses on that,” Mark Pope said. “That, ultimately, falls on my shoulders.”

There was a lot on the line for Auburn. The Tigers hadn’t won at Rupp Arena since 1988. On top of that, there was an SEC Championship on the line with a win. So, Auburn came in with good energy and plenty of excitement for the game. Kentucky, coming off a tightly contested road game on the Wednesday beforehand, struggled to match that and quickly went down by 15 at halftime.

Kentucky had a stronger second-half effort on the offensive end but still struggled to slow down Auburn’s offense. Over the course of the game, Auburn made 12 three-point shots, had 10 fewer turnovers than Kentucky, and shot 51.8 percent from the floor. That led to a 94-78 final score.

“Credit goes to Auburn also. They’ve done this, you know they’re a good team. They made really hard shots tonight and their switching was a deenergizer for us and we did not respond to it well at all. We kind of let frustration mount a little bit and there’s a whole slew of excuses. Late travel. Late game. All the things with a quick turnaround,” Pope said. “But at the end of the day, that’s just what you deal with as a basketball player and I failed to lead our team today to have the energy that is required for us to come out and be great.”

The pressure has been turned up late in the season for Kentucky. Mark Pope knows his team needs to step up now after losing three of their last five games to fall to 8-8 in conference play. They’re one of three teams who are .500 in SEC play and, for the time being, the Wildcats rank as the eighth-seed, clinging to a first-round bye in the SEC Tournament.

“It’s not a lack of desire,” Pope said. “It was a whole cocktail of some energy miscues, some being sped-up miscues.  Some terrific shot making from Auburn. All put together resulted in a really, really terrible day for us.”

Mark Pope and the Wildcats are looking to bring better energy on Tuesday when they host the LSU Tigers.