Mark Pope after loss to Alabama: "We can't bail teams out with fouls"

Fouls weren’t the only reason No. 8 Kentucky lost to No. 4 Alabama on Saturday, but the free-throw discrepancy was hard to ignore. The Crimson Tide were 29-34 from the charity stripe to Kentucky’s 16-20 mark. Alabama was in the bonus early in the second half and shot 24 free throws after halftime, which stretched the game to two and a half hours.

“We gave up 15 offensive rebounds; that’s really, really tough,” Mark Pope said afterward. “We let them shoot 39% from the three-point line; that’s really tough. And we sent them the free throw line 40 times. When you do those things, it makes it a really tough package to get a win, right? That’s like the trifecta.”

If it feels like the Cats are being called for more fouls in SEC play, that’s because they are. In Kentucky’s 13 non-conference games, the Cats averaged 16.1 fouls per contest, their opponents 17.1. In Kentucky’s five SEC games so far, those averages are up to 22 and 20. Today, the Cats were called for 25 fouls, the Crimson Tide 21. This season, Kentucky is 5-4 when they commit 20 or more fouls and 9-0 when they keep it under that mark. Today’s game couldn’t have been more different from the loss to Georgia in terms of style of play, but seeing the Crimson Tide go to the line on a routine basis in the second half conjured up memories of the loss in Athens.

“For us, it’s been such a huge emphasis all year long, to guard without fouling, and we’ve been good at it,” Pope said during his postgame conversation with Tom Leach. “We’ve been actually really good until league play. And league play has gotten complicated for us. So, that’s a space where we have to get better.

“We can’t send teams to the free-throw line 34 times and that’s part of us learning, part of us being more disciplined, part of us maybe scheming out some things a little bit different. Maybe on my end, being a little bit more courageous in terms of the punches that we throw out there, defensively, trying some new, exotic things. It’s going to be a combination of those things. But it’s hard to win a game when you give the other team 14 more free throws than you earn yourself.”

The player that went to the free throw line the most? Grant Nelson. The Alabama forward was 9-10 from the charity stripe, finishing with 25 points total and 11 rebounds. Nelson owned the matchup with Andrew Carr, who is battling back issues, from the start.

“He came down and knocked down two threes to start the game,” Pope said of Nelson. “It has not been his game this year and a credit to him. And then it was all head down to the rim. It was a complicated matchup for us at times tonight. We had some moments that were much more productive, but for us to send him to the free-throw line 10 times is really tough. That’s not the space that he traditionally lives in.”

Kentucky will have to learn how to play defense without being called for fouls. pic.twitter.com/8sunB1uz92

— KSR (@KSRonX) January 18, 2025

Otega Oweh was pretty candid when asked how hard it is to play defense without fouling in a physical league like the SEC.

“I feel like we’re playing good defense and they’re just calling the fouls if I’m being honest. On a lot of plays, we’re showing our hands because obviously, we’ve been in situations where the foul count has been a little higher than ours so we’re preaching guarding without fouling. I mean, I don’t know. It’s a physical league and stuff like that. We’re playing physical but I think we’re doing a good job of playing honest and they’re just calling our fouls so we’ve just got to find a way around it.”

With a week between games, Kentucky has a chance to get healthy and work on some issues from the first five games of league play. After today’s loss, guarding without fouling will definitely be up there, along with offensive rebounding and perimeter defense.

“Those three things lead to you giving up 102 points at home, right?” Pope said. “Those are areas where, if we are going to play well and if we are going to win in really, really, really high-level games, we have to be better in those areas.

“We can’t bail teams out with fouls. We’ve gotta handle teams in transition and we’ve gotta keep them off the glass. We clearly have to guard the three-point line a little better. Those are things we’ve done. There are things we are making progress at. Today was a significant misstep for us for sure.”

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