Mark Pope names his top concerns going into the season for Kentucky

It’s not a massive sample size, but Mark Pope has gotten a deeper look at his team ahead of regular season action, starting with Pro Day and the Blue-White Preseason Event and wrapping up the exhibition schedule with back-to-back matchups vs. Kentucky Wesleyan and Minnesota State. Ranked No. 23 in both preseason polls, there was plenty to like in the early showings, particularly in the scrimmages against live competition. The Wildcats won by 71 in the first game, draining 21 threes on 42 attempts with a 32-5 assist-to-turnover ratio — an offensive clinic. And then in game two against the reigning Division II champions, they faced early adversity before responding to take a 40-point lead in the second half and closing things out with a 31-point win.

There was shooting and scoring success with spurts of defensive brilliance, Jaxson Robinson, Lamont Butler and Otega Oweh standing out for the Cats. It wasn’t all perfect, though, Kentucky handing out plenty of coaching ammunition for Pope to work with going into next week when the games start to count.

What’s at the top of the list to get fixed for the team with the regular season now here? It starts with rebounding.

“I haven’t been super excited about us on the glass right now, our consistency,” Pope said Thursday. “We haven’t had the presence on the offensive glass that is vitally important to how we play. We’ve got to have a presence on the offensive glass. I think there were some times we got lackadaisical on the defensive glass, so I’d like to get much, much better there. Much more sure there.”

That comes after Pope called out the rebounding effort following the Minnesota State win, the Wildcat only pulling down six total offensive boards and winning the overall battle 39-37. Amari Williams went down with an early leg injury, but Kentucky still had a major size advantage overall and it didn’t show on the box score.

He criticized his team’s intensity and approach on that front, something that has to get cleaned up starting with Wright State in the season opener on Monday. In his eyes, the current product is just not acceptable.

“A place where I was really disappointed was our offensive rebounding work, our commitment to the offensive glass,” Pope said. “I think that was a residual – that’s an energy thing. When the game gets a little weird — our rotation got weird, Amari’s deal got weird, it felt a little weird. Our thrust was so intense that our transition out of the thrust was weird. We just didn’t perform the way we expected to perform on the offensive glass. I think we finished with six offensive rebounds, which — that’s not us at all.

“We missed 24 threes and we only came up with six offensive rebounds. This is not how we play. So, we got a little weird there, but that’s what we focus on, earning for each other with a great pace and then really, really being effective on the offensive glass.”

That’s the top area of concern, but there are also a couple other nit-picky things Pope is focused on moving forward. The film revealed a few fundamental defensive slip-ups that resulted in clean looks for opponents in both exhibitions.

“This Minnesota State team is a terrific shooting team, both teams are really good shooting teams. I felt like there were times — we talk about early help, early recovery all the time,” he said. “The early help is to get to the early recovery and a lot of times we were dancing recovering to the gap instead of recovering to the shooter. Thats really important, it’s a place we have to grow.”

Another? The offensive execution wasn’t as polished as he’d like — hence the early run of turnovers in the first half against the Mavericks.

“I felt like our navigation through zooms and trips and staggers was a little bit stubborn more than it was slippery and clever, and really confident. Really confident that you actually can reroute. That’s the space I really want to grow in, we’ve got a bunch of areas we’re excited to grow,” Pope added. “We were a little disheveled in terms of getting to the next space of our offense, our second lifts weren’t great. Not only because we were closing the gap down — which we don’t like to do, we like to keep that expanded — but also because sometimes it was non-existent.

“There was a little fatigue on the floor, sometimes we’d race down the floor as a rim-runner and camp out on the block never getting to a second lift because that’s five extra steps that can be exhausting.”

Exhibition games are opportunities to teach and learn. Now it’s time to grow from those experiences with Wright State coming to Lexington on Monday.