The one area in which Mark Pope thinks Kentucky "really" needs to improve following 41-point rout

You’d be hard-pressed to find a lot of things to nitpick in Kentucky’s 103-62 season-opening win over Wright State. The Cats had 30 assists on 39 made baskets, shot 60% from the floor, and totaled 11 steals that led to 18 points. Even the win margin, 41 points, was too good to be true, matching Mark Pope’s old jersey number.

In Pope’s eyes, there was at least one area in which his team fell short: rebounding. While Kentucky outrebounded Wright State 41-32, they gave up 11 offensive rebounds, which led to 10 second-chance points for the Raiders. After Kentucky only won the battle of the boards vs. Minnesota State by two, 39-37, in the second exhibition, Pope challenged his team to work on rebounding. To him, last night showed it’s still a work in progress.

“We were just barely okay,” Pope said of rebounding during his postgame conversation with Tom Leach. “You know, we’re getting so much pace in the game, I thought we got so eager to get out on the break, I thought there were some long rebounds where we had guys leaking out instead of feeling responsive. So that’s the space where we’re really, really gonna have to grow if we’re gonna accomplish what everybody wants us to accomplish this year. We’re gonna have to get better and better on the glass. It’s gonna be a huge focus for us. We need to be better.”

As Pope pointed out, Kentucky’s defense played a part in that — which is a good thing. The Cats held the Raiders to 24-68 (35%) from the floor and 5-27 (18.5%) from three-point range, so there were more misses to gobble up; Pope still wants his players to get them first.

“We give up 11 offensive rebounds. Now that’s a little bit — the 11 offensive rebounds can be a little deceiving, just in the fact that our guys did a great job holding Wright State to 35% from the field and 5-27 from the three-point line. So there are a lot of rebounds to be had, but I’d like to be more solid than that.”

We’ve all been raving about the offense, but the defense deserves a shoutout too. Last season, Wright State led the country in field goal percentage (53.0%), which is the primary reason Pope wanted to play them.

“We were very intentional about how we schedule and this was a team that we were excited about because we know that they’re potent offensively, and so for our guys to hold this team to 35% from the field is really, really important for us. To hold this team to 62 points is really important, a team that averaged 83-84 points a game last year, so those are good markers for us.

“Our defensive side of the ball is going to be massively important for this team. We have guys that are capable. We’re exploring how to use them a little bit more. So, this was a this is a good showing for our guys. We learned a lot. We collected a lot of data. So proud of the guys for how they played.”

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