8 Day-After Thoughts on Kentucky's Loss to Clemson

It’s been another very busy morning as the faxes roll into the football training center to kick off Signing Day and we digest the basketball team’s loss to Clemson, the first of the Mark Pope era. As I down my third cup of tea, I thought I’d share some notes on the latter, the first reality check in what had been a storybook season so far.

1. Why didn’t Koby Brea play more?

For the third game in a row, Kentucky struggled from the three-point line, shooting just 7-27. That takes the Cats’ combined total from behind the arc in the last three games to 22-82 (26.8%). Koby Brea has been especially cold during that stretch, going 6-16 (37.5%), which took his season three-point field goal percentage to 60.5%, which ranks No. 2 in the country behind UTEP’s Ahamad Bynum (60.7%).

We know Mark Pope encourages shooters to shoot through their funks, but Brea played just 17 minutes last night, 5 in the second half. The latter figure is the most perplexing. Brea’s defense is not great, but with Clemson taking control of the game, Kentucky needed buckets, and Brea hit a big one in the first half. He checked out at the 9:35 mark and didn’t come back in until there were 21 seconds left and Kentucky was down six. I’d love to hear more from Pope on why Brea didn’t play more down the stretch.

2. Is the blueprint out on how to beat Kentucky?

I’m disappointed but not devastated by last night’s loss. Despite the Disney-like start to the season, I had no disillusions of this squad going 40-0. Put aside the fact that no team has done that since the 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers (a fact we know all too well), it’s a monumental ask for a brand new team under a coach in his first season in a LOADED conference. With eight SEC teams ranked, three in the top four, I’d be stunned if any team makes it through conference play unscathed.

That said, it felt like the Cats were exposed last night. The Western Kentucky game showed us this group can balk a bit at physicality. The Cats fought back (literally) vs. Georgia State, but Clemson was on another level, slowing down the pace of the game by clogging the paint and owning the boards in the first half. Gonzaga feels like a bigger, better version of the Tigers. We know how physical the SEC will be (and how rowdy the road environments are when the Cats come to town). Kentucky will be able to be able to bust through that when the three-point shots are falling, but we saw last night what happens when they aren’t.

That said…

3. I’m excited to see how Pope adjusts

If the first half of a game is just for collecting data, you know Mark Pope has big plans for the first loss of the season. In his postgame comments, Pope was already rethinking his philosophy of sitting guys in foul trouble after Kentucky struggled without Lamont Butler and Andrew Carr at the end of the first half. When talking about how his team reacted to Clemson’s physical style of play, you could almost hear the wheels turning in his head.

“We turn way too much in whole plays against the team that is unbelievable with every verticality, unbelievable with big chests, unbelievable with length, unbelievable with physicality, and so in that sense, we just spent so many reps in the game playing into what they do well. And it’s a learning process. It’s something that we’ll get better at. It’s my job as our coach to help us understand that, see that, and believe it, believe it, so that when things get hard, we can be disciplined enough to have our default, our bailout, the decisions that serve us well, not the decisions that create more problems for us.”

BIG late 3 by @lamont_butler1 to cut the lead to two.

📺 – ESPN pic.twitter.com/9QFXhT4CWv

— Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) December 4, 2024

4. Lamont Butler is the heart and soul of this squad

I wrote about this last night, but last night, we learned how much Lamont Butler means to this squad. As mentioned, Butler was so impactful (+17 in efficiency and 16 points and 5 assists in just 19 minutes) that Pope regrets limiting his minutes due to foul trouble. I was already a huge fan of the pesky point guard, but last night, he showed he was ready to put Kentucky on his back, even hitting a three to pull the Cats within two with 2.2 seconds to go. Unfortunately, we’ll never know if Butler playing more minutes would have resulted in a win, but I just hope his ankle injury isn’t too serious because this team really needs him.

5. I hope that’s the worst game we see from Kerr Kriisa

According to the unofficial poll at our Thanksgiving table, Kerr Kriisa is the fan favorite so far on this team. Maybe not after last night. With Butler in foul trouble, Kriisa played 21 minutes, tying his season-high set vs. Bucknell on Nov. 9. Unfortunately, he did not have 12 assists as he did vs. the Bison. Instead, Kriisa’s stat line was full of zeroes, his only recorded stats being two rebounds and a steal. He was a team-low -21 in efficiency and seemed to make all the wrong decisions instead of being the fifth-year senior the Cats needed in a rough road environment. Hopefully, that’s the last Kerr slander I have to write for a while.

6. Can we retire the line “Everybody’s Super Bowl”?

Certain Calipari phrases are forever ingrained in my head. “Pooping ice cream.” “They’re not machines. They’re not robots.” “Haven’t seen him.” One I didn’t anticipate hearing from his successor was “Everybody’s Super Bowl.” Pope used the term when asked about Clemson fans storming the court after the win. It’s a phrase that’s used so often that it shouldn’t faze me, but after hearing Calipari beat it into the ground over the last 15 years, it was a little jarring to hear from Pope last night.

“Well, it’s Kentucky, you know? It’s everyone’s Super Bowl. This is our guys’ first experience here and it won’t ever get easier. This is why you come here, this is why you put on this jersey, so you can do that, you can be everybody’s Super Bowl. That’s an honor but it also requires us to be great and tonight we weren’t quite great enough.”

I like Pope, so I’ll let this one slide, but it’d be great to find a new term for the environments Kentucky faces on the road. Everybody’s CFP Semifinal, maybe? Everybody’s Scripps National Spelling Bee?

7. We’ll hear from Mark Pope tonight

One good thing about this week’s insane schedule: we don’t have to wait long to hear from Mark Pope. Pope will sit down with Tom Leach on his weekly call-in show tonight at 7 p.m. ET, following Mark Stoops at 6 p.m. ET. Knowing him, I’m sure he’s already poring over the tape and preparing for Gonzaga. He sounded (understandably) bummed last night, so I’m ready for the shift to positivity.

8. Being the SEC’s only loss on Day 1 of the SEC/ACC Challenge doesn’t feel great

How impressive is the SEC this season? The conference clinched the SEC/ACC Challenge on night one. The It Just Means More Club ended the night 9-1 vs the ACC, the lone loss being Kentucky’s. Being the only SEC team to lose on the opening night of the Challenge isn’t fun — especially when the other team stormed the court — but the focus should quickly shift to tonight’s action, which is headlined by No. 10 Alabama vs. No. 20 North Carolina and No. 2 Auburn vs. No. 9 Duke.

• 7:15 PM: No. 10 Alabama vs. No. 20 North Carolina (ESPN)
• 7:15 PM: Virginia vs. No. 13 Florida (ESPN2)
• 9:15 PM: No. 2 Auburn vs. No. 2 Duke (ESPN)
• 9:15 PM: No. 18 Pitt vs. Mississippi State (SEC Network)
• 9:15 PM: Texas vs. NC State (ESPN2)
• 9:15 PM: Vanderbilt vs. Virginia Tech (ACC Network)