Mark Pope gives Kentucky a 'B-ish' body language grade 'in terms of us coming fresh'

Mark Pope wants his players to forget what happened on the last play as quickly as possible — both the good plays and the bad plays, although the bad plays can naturally tend to stick out more than the good. He’s been pleased with Kentucky’s efforts in that area thus far but says there is still plenty of room for improvement.

“I give my guys like a B-ish (grade) in terms of us coming fresh,” Pope said during his Thursday press conference. “We talked about it all game in the second half (against Georgia). Can we come back to the next play fully fresh, fully engaged, full heart, clear mind? That is a challenge for every single athlete. That is one of the great challenges you face in athletics. And I thought our guys were good.”

By “coming fresh”, Pope means he wants to see his guys continue to improve at handling and overcoming frustration. Keeping a fresh mind when things aren’t going as they’d hoped. There was plenty of frustration in the loss to Georgia earlier this week. Every comeback attempt was quickly shut down by the Bulldogs. There were 45 foul calls in a game that lasted more than 2.5 hours.

What Pope wants to know is if his players can absorb the punches without letting it affect their attitude, body language, and most importantly, their on-court performance — even if the game is already out of hand. He recalled one particular moment late in the Georgia loss that showed him progress was being made.

“We just finished another film session with our guys,” Pope said. “And one of the best plays of the whole game was 1:03 left in the game and it’s just been a mounting frustration after frustration after frustration, and Otega (Oweh) gets to the rim and gets a layup and then has a tip and misses them both and ends up on the floor and the ball is out of bounds.

“And Brandon Garrison, our young beautiful Brandon Garrison, runs all the way from outside the three-point line, sprints across the floor to pick him up with 1:03. With all the hard, bad stuff going on, those are the moments where you’re like, okay, let’s go. This is the stuff that you build off of.”

That moment is what Pope would refer to as staying “fresh”. In the face of adversity, he wants to see his players acting the same way they would if Kentucky were up by 20 points. Every play is a new play, no matter the situation.

“When you have guys that at least show signs of being able to dance with frustration,” Pope continued. “And kind of kick it out, kick it out where they can still think about something just besides being lost in their own head and all the frustration. That doesn’t guarantee you wins but it gives you a feel of: ‘You know what, this was a really brutal night for us, and there’s probably going to be some more as we go ahead, but we gotta keep building trajectory-wise.’ With those moments like that, you can.”

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