Mark Pope refuses to use free-throw disparity as excuse for Kentucky's loss to Georgia

If you made it through the 2.5-hour slugfest that was Kentucky’s 82-69 loss to Georgia, odds are you complained at least a few times about the officiating. We try not to do that too much here at KentuckySportsRadio.com these days, but even the most patient fan had to be at their wit’s end tonight.

Forty-five fouls were called, with Georgia heading to the line twice as often as Kentucky. The Bulldogs were 29-38 from the charity stripe to Kentucky’s 15-19 mark. Nine times, officials went to the monitor to review calls, making it almost impossible for the game to achieve any sort of flow, especially in the second half. Mark Pope was asked about the free-throw disparity after the game and refused to use it as an excuse for his team’s performance.

“Listen, that doesn’t have anything to do with this game. We leave all that stuff. We’re working on the next play. We’re gonna go control the stuff we can control and we can control enough factors in this game to win the game. That will always be true, so we refuse to be distracted by that.”

That’s exactly the type of response you’d expect from Pope, who attended a referee symposium several years ago to get a better understanding of the profession. Graduate forward Andrew Carr, one of four Wildcats with four fouls tonight, didn’t blame officiating for the loss, but admitted that the constant stoppage took some of the Cats’ energy away.

“I felt like sometimes tonight we got — you know, Coach talks about energy all the time, but our energy was drained from foul calls and things like that, some things that we can’t control necessarily was pulling away from our effort,” Carr said in his postgame conversation with Goose Givens.

Kentucky’s frontcourt was hit especially hard by foul trouble, with Amari Williams picking up his fourth foul just three minutes into the second half and Carr getting his fourth with 11:22 to go. Carr believes the Cats’ frustration on defense led to some fouls, something they need to clean up as SEC play continues.

“I just think a lot of them came from offensive rebounds, and they got to the line that way a little bit. And then also just, you know, I think straight line drives, doing a better job with on-the-ball defense, to be able to move your feet and I think we swipe down at the ball too much as a last-ditch effort.

“And as a ref, any movement of the arm down, you’re just going to call a foul, especially when we’re on the road. So, I think for us, being way more disciplined about trusting our verticality and trusting what we’ve talked about all year, all summer, and doing a better job of trying to try to go on without fouling.”

They’ll get another opportunity Saturday at No. 14 Mississippi State.

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