Mark Pope says fatigue factored into Kentucky's loss to Alabama, but "we've got to get better fast"

We knew Kentucky vs. Alabama would be a track meet, but without Lamont Butler and Jaxson Robinson, the Cats just couldn’t keep up. After the 96-83 loss, Mark Pope admitted that fatigue factored into Kentucky’s performance down the stretch.

“The game got a little helter-skelter,” Pope said during his postgame press conference. “We got a little fatigued. We had some protection issues. We had some defensive coverage issues.”

Kentucky had fewer turnovers than Alabama, 13-15, but the Crimson Tide made the Cats pay for their mistakes, turning those turnovers into 24 points. They punished the Cats in transition with 23 fastbreak points. Pope said Alabama’s use of “Barkleys,” a move named after Charles Barkley in which a player turns a drive into a post-up, also stymied his squad.

“We got killed with Barkleys today,” he said during his conversation with Tom Leach. “That was really, really disappointing, just really incredibly disappointing, and we just were trying to address it throughout the game, and we couldn’t manage to communicate an answer to our guys that was executable. So that was super frustrating for the entirety of the game.

“And then just these scattered stretches of the game where we just had some fatigue, full-on disorientation, where we just either didn’t have the bodies or the experience or the communication to kind of manage them. So there’s a lot, I mean, there’s a lot of just the things that we can do better.”

When Kentucky lost Lamont Butler in the Tennessee game, Pope dubbed it a new season. So far, the Cats are 1-2. With just four games left before the SEC Tournament, you could hear the urgency in Pope’s voice as he talked about how his team needs to improve before it’s too late.

“We’ve got to get better. We’re in a new season, we’re three games in. We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to get better fast. We’ve got guys that have got to grow up fast. We’ve got guys that have got to survive through this tough stretch and dig deeper into the well, and we can. Like, we’ve been getting better. We weren’t good enough to do this tonight on the road, but we are getting better.”

Kentucky battled foul trouble throughout the night but was still able to cut Alabama’s lead to four points with eight minutes left. Pope would be the first person to tell you that moral victories are not acceptable at Kentucky, but he liked the effort from his shorthanded squad for most of the night. The execution? A work in progress.

“I’m proud of our guys’ fight. Minus the last 90 seconds where the wheels fell off, I thought our guys competed all night long. We just weren’t good enough tonight, and we’re in a process now. We’re stretching a lot of guys and, and, you know, we know where our end goal is, and it’s a freaking fight to get there.

“I love these guys. I love to coach them. We’ve got a really special group of guys, and we’re up against it right now and we’re determined to press forward and find answers.”

Kentucky could afford to lose to a top-five Alabama team on the road. Wednesday night’s game at Oklahoma, which has only won four SEC games? Gotta regroup and take care of business in that one.

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