Mark Pope happy Kentucky broke out of its "weird" funk vs. Minnesota State

Kentucky got off to a very sloppy start vs. Minnesota State, making just two of its first 13 three-point attempts. It was just a two-point game with eight minutes to go in the first half when finally the Cats caught fire, closing the half on a 21-3 run. From there, the game was never close, with Kentucky eventually pulling away to a 98-67 victory.

Despite all the splashy second-half stats and the 31-point win margin, Mark Pope was actually grateful that his team got off to what he called a “weird” start, which he said was partially due to Amari Williams leaving the game early with a knee injury (thankfully, it sounds like Williams will be fine).

“It was a little weird for us tonight,” Pope said to start his postgame press conference. “We were getting initial thrust and then stymieing. And our transition from that original thrust into our actions was a little weird. We spent 20 minutes on the floor without one of our traditional fives, which is such an important piece for us, and so that was a little weird.”

Other weird things to Pope: Kentucky totaled just six offensive rebounds and missed 24 threes. Minnesota State finished with one more possession than Kentucky (75-74). With Williams out, the Cats didn’t have their usual rotations, which Pope said messed with the flow.

“It wasn’t the cleanest game we’ve ever played,” Pope told Tom Leach. “I’m really proud of our guys. It was actually a very important night for us, because we had some opportunities where we didn’t quite feel right on the court, and we had some weird rotations, some weird lineups. Amari going down early got us a little weird. We had some weird fatigue on the floor, and so all of that led ourselves to be in a situation where we kind of had to fix things.”

All that said, Kentucky ended up winning by 31 points, had 28 assists to just eight turnovers (two in the second half), and held Minnesota State to 39.1% from the floor. The start may have been weird, but Pope was happy to see his team work through its issues on the floor against a Minnesota State team that wasn’t backing down.

“We came to a timeout, guys looking around like, man, it doesn’t feel quite right, and we needed that so much. It was actually a real gift playing against a terrific team defending national champions. And so it was a great night for us.”

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