Mark Pope opens up on "brutal locker room" after Alabama loss, how Kentucky moved forward

By now, I think most Kentucky fans have put the 29-point loss to Alabama in the rearview mirror, thanks in part to the news that Lamont Butler will rejoin the team for the NCAA Tournament. Last night on his call-in show, Mark Pope peeled back the curtain on how players and staff processed the humbling defeat, the worst SEC Tournament loss in program history.

All season, we’ve heard Pope talk about how much losses affect him. All you need to do is watch him in his postgame press conferences to see how bothered he is (more on that later). That was especially the case Friday night in Nashville after Alabama drubbed the Cats, a performance Pope said was both “frustrating” and “disappointing.”

“Post Alabama debacle, should we talk about that?” Pope said after a caller asked how the team regrouped after a big loss like that so late in the season. “It was a brutal night for us. We walked into the game shorthanded and finished the game even more shorthanded. I thought our guys battled with a ton of heart in the first half, and we just — we just imploded in the second. It was really tough.

“A lot of credit goes to Alabama, a good team. They took it to us. It was very frustrating, a disappointing performance in the second half on our part for 1,000 different reasons. It was pretty brutal, a pretty brutal locker room, a really tough night. Once we got back to the film room, the staff was together till, I don’t know, three or four in the morning. Then we met again as a team for breakfast and had a long, animated, intense truth-telling film session, team talk session, growing session, and kind of healing session.”

Some coaches like to burn the game tape after 30-point losses; not Pope. Even if it’s not fun, he thinks there’s value in examining losses, both for learning and healing.

“I say this all the time, but after a game like that, you really do go through a grieving process. It really is legitimately the five steps of grieving, and you can kind of mark them by the hour. It’s a really important process to go through with the main result of doing two things. One, you want to learn everything you possibly can from that experience. If we don’t take advantage of learning from every experience we have, we’re missing out. Two, you’ve got to get through the grieving process to get to healing and constructive. And our guys are unbelievable at it.

“By the time we jumped on the plane, there had been a shift in our hearts, in our focus, in our togetherness. … I think we’re in an unbelievable space where we are full steam ahead and cannot wait to get to the NCAA Tournament. Let’s go see what we can do.”

Pope: “I’m a terrible, terrible, terrible loser”

There’s no better example of someone going through the grieving process after a loss than Pope. You could see the anguish on his face Friday night in the postgame press conference and feel the frustration in his short, clipped answers. He was even more upset in his postgame chat with Tom Leach.

“I’m a terrible, terrible, terrible loser,” Pope admitted. “I’m terrible. I hate it. I hate myself. Guys, I go into postgame press conferences after a loss, and I’m just terrible. I’m not good at it, actually. It’s too personal. It hurts too much. I’m maybe immature emotionally, and it just is really painful, and I know it. I go to those press conferences, you know, hopefully, they don’t happen that often, but after a loss, I’m just like, I know myself. I’m mad at myself. I’m like, I should be able to deliver a better message right now, but I am good at going through the process.”

If Pope was that upset after a loss to Alabama in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals, I can only imagine what he’s like after an NCAA Tournament loss. Hopefully, we don’t have to find out for a while. Either way, he and his players are soaking in every moment, both happy and sad.

“We are in a mad dash to grow as fast as we can. We don’t have that much time to be in a season. We don’t have that much time to be college basketball players. We don’t have that much time to be the coach at the University of Kentucky. Like, everything has a window that’s way shorter than we could possibly imagine. Like, I swear it feels like we just played our second exhibition game before the season, it just goes by so fast.”