Five things we learned during Mark Pope's call-in radio show

The Kentucky Wildcats are back in Lexington and ready to regroup following a no-show in Athens, falling at Georgia by a final score of 82-69. Expecting the road to get any easier? Come on, now. This is the SEC — it’s only going to get tougher, and in a hurry. They’ll travel to Starkville to take on the 14-1 Mississippi State Bulldogs, ranked No. 14 in the AP Poll and No. 12 in the NET. That’s coming on Saturday with tip-off scheduled for 8:30 p.m. ET on SEC Network.

How is Mark Pope handling the loss? What went wrong inside Stegeman Coliseum and what needs to change as the Cats prepare to take on more Bulldogs at The Hump? KSR has the five biggest takeaways from his call-in radio show Wednesday evening.

Rebounding is a serious issue

Kentucky lost the rebounding battle 41-34 in Athens while Georgia pulled down 13 offensive boards, turning those into 17 second-chance points. It’s the fourth straight game the Cats have lost that battle with the competition only getting better and tougher as the SEC schedule ramps up.

Needless to say, it’s a top priority for the staff that is being addressed as we speak. How long that takes, though, is a question Pope doesn’t even know how to answer — because it could be a minute.

“It’s really, really difficult, and it’s a space where we have to grow. It’s back-to-back games that we’ve been given up significant double-figure rebounds, and it’s something we’re focused on every day,” he said. “Sometimes these aren’t a one-day fix. sometimes this is a this is a hit it hard every single day and then a month from now, we see tremendous progress. That might be the case with this, but it’s something that we’re spending a lot of time on.”

More concerned about the guards than bigs

It’s easy to put the blame on Amari Williams, Andrew Carr, Brandon Garrison and Ansley Almonor for the team’s rebounding issues and the concerns with physicality in general. That comes with the territory of being a big.

In Pope’s eyes, though, the guards may actually be a greater concern at this point. They’ve left the bigs on a bit of an island at times when their job is to secure long rebounds on deep attempts and crash the glass on short looks. It’s a five-man effort, and for now, nobody deserves to point fingers.

“As a team, it’s really not our bigs — I actually have a little bit more concern right now about our ones, twos and threes and their smash down on short shots almost than I do about the physicality of our bigs,” Pope said. “To solve this physicality and rebounding issue right now — which is solidly in my mind — it’s a short shot smash and a long shot clean 15, and it’s got to be all five guys engaged in the process physically, every single possession. That’s where we had some slippage in this Georgia game that was pretty detrimental to us, having full engagement on every single possession and kind of holding ourselves to that standard. That’s something we’re going to continue to work on.”

Jaxson Robinson will not be coming off the bench

With the former Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year in a bit of a funk, some of the fan discourse includes a potential swap of Jaxson Robinson for Koby Brea in the starting lineup. Get a shooting spark early from the reigning SEC Co-Player of the Week while the best bench player in college basketball’s toughest conference a year ago can find his groove as a microwave scorer in the second unit.

Pope’s take on such a move? As politely and coachspeaky as he can say it, the answer is no.

“Jaxson Robinson has proven that he can be elite-level starting games, and he can be elite-level coming off the bench,” he said. “It’s the same with players, you are always trying to figure out where you can find a comfort space for all of your guys and I’m fortunate to coach an unbelievable roster of great, great, great young men.

“When you make changes, whatever they may be, you’re always trying to consider how it’s going to benefit the individual player and how it’s going to affect the rest of the team around him. You just kind of take all those things into account. I do think with Jaxson Robinson that we’ve just barely begun to see what he’s going to contribute to Kentucky basketball. I do think this team has a huge upside so I’m excited to watch him continue to grow.”

Officiating did not cost Kentucky the win

There was a free-throw difference of 38 attempts for Georgia to 19 for Kentucky — a plus-14 in makes in a 13-point loss. That led to an obvious storm of complaints from Big Blue Nation about officiating deciding the game in Athens. The charity stripe math adds up, even with a slight difference of 25-20 in total fouls called in the Bulldogs’ favor.

When asked about the stripes, Pope actually said he was in contact with the SEC about officiating — but maybe not in the way you’d expect (or hope).

The staff doesn’t want to change how the game is being called, but develop a deeper understanding of the calls so the players can adjust accordingly.

“Based on our whistle in our first two SEC games, we’re doing in-depth study right now on — we’re not interested in what the rules are, we’re interested in the rules that are being called,” he said. “We want to push the envelope as far as we can toward the rules that are being called more than just following the rules that are written. … We’re learning the whistle right now. We got a massive education on the whistle last night.”

The goal is to use those calls to their advantage and play to the officials based on what they’re looking for, not change how a game is called.

“The whistle is not going to win us or lose us games, but we can use it to our advantage,” Pope continued. “For our fans, I’m fine if you guys do all the work you can on these beautiful referees. You guys have at it — very diplomatically. But I would also say this. One of the things I remind myself about all the time is that the referee is doing a really, really hard job. The truth is that most of the time — I don’t know if anybody spends as much time on film as I do — most of the time a call that may be wildly upsetting that goes against us, when I’m really honest with myself, I can find a few calls that are wildly egregiously probably not what I would have imagined the rules would have been interpreted as in favor for us. So I always take a deep breath.

“Like I said, the whistle — when we’re good, the whistle won’t determine wins or losses. We will determine wins or losses. I always want my players to know that. At the end of the day, this game will never be taken out of our hands. We can find a way to win this game, regardless of how the whistle sounds. And sometimes that’s by using the whistle.”

Looking ahead to Mississippi State

Putting Georgia in the rearview mirror, what does the early film say about Kentucky’s next opponent, Mississippi State? More good Bulldogs, apparently — and obviously.

Josh Hubbard is the star of the show at guard, averaging 17.1 points on 43/38/83 splits. He put 34 points on the board against the Wildcats a year ago, you may recall (thank goodness for Reed Sheppard). Pope is also a big fan of senior forward Cameron Matthews, who he compares to NBA veteran Draymond Green.

“This Mississippi State team is really, really good. They have an unbelievably dynamic point guard who just is an elite three-level scorer. He is wildly aggressive and is an incredible talent. They have a two guard that’s also an aggressive scorer,” Pope said. “They have a starting four that is an elite-level ball-handler and penetrator, passer off the bounce — every which way. He’s probably the best passing four man, the most mobile — he’s very much a Draymond Green type. Feel is really, really special in terms of his offensive contribution, even only averaging maybe give or take eight points per game, but he’s coming off a game against Vanderbilt where he got 16. He’s super mobile and super creative, really, really makes plays for his team.”

They’re ranked No. 14 in the country at 14-1 on the year for a reason. The Cats will be tested in Starkville.

“It’s a team that is, again, a typical, terrific offensive rebounding team and really, really physical, plays really fast in the half court. They have great pace,” he said. “This Mississippi State team is really good. They’ve beaten some great teams. You watch the film and they kind of ran Memphis — they’ve run a bunch of teams out of the gym. It’s gonna be a great challenge for us. That’s every game in this league and our guys can’t wait to get to it.”