WATCH: Mark Pope recaps Kentucky's loss to Auburn

MrsTylerKSR

Mark Pope was as down as anyone after Kentucky’s 94-78 loss to Auburn. There is no shame in losing to the No. 1 team in the country, but the Cats didn’t do themselves any favors, turning the ball over 18 times and making just 4-17 three-pointers. Mark Pope said as much to start his postgame press conference.

“Auburn played great basketball tonight. They’ve been playing great basketball all season long. Bruce has done an unbelievable job, not just assembling, but growing and fitting together the pieces on their team. So, congratulations to them. We are pretty disappointed with our performance.”

Auburn dictated the game from start to finish, switching defenses to prevent Kentucky from finding looks from beyond the arc and punishing the Cats in transition. Pope took full responsibility for the Cats’ lackluster energy.

“I would love to make excuses on that; that ultimately falls on my shoulders. Credit goes to Auburn also. They’ve done this, you know they’re a good team. They made really hard shots tonight and their switching was a deenergizer for us and we did not respond to it as well at all. You know, we kind of let frustration mount a little bit and, you know, it was probably a whole slew of exclusives.

“I failed to lead our team today to have the energy that is required for us to come out and be great. It’s not a lack of desire.”

Hear more from Pope below, including his comments on Jaxson Robinson’s season-ending wrist surgery next week.

Mark Pope Transcript

MARK POPE: Auburn played great basketball tonight. They’ve been playing great basketball all season long. Bruce has done an unbelievable job, not just assembling, but growing and fitting together the pieces on their team. So, congratulations to them. We are pretty disappointed with our performance. Will take questions.

Q Mark, back here. How concerning is it that the potential national player of the year had a pretty big game? You guys deserve credit for that, holding him in check. But despite that, Auburn still leads by 20 for a lot of that second half. How concerning that your perimeter defense did not hold up?

MARK POPE: Man, we really struggled with that. Give credit to Auburn. The first six minutes they had back-to-back 3s off the glass. Sometimes there is a little bit of that involved but we certainly didn’t ring the bell. Schematically we didn’t. Individually we didn’t. That’s a place where we were very poor tonight. We’ve actually been making strides, but we’ve regressed a little bit tonight.

Q Mark, you guys have obviously have had half time comebacks. That first three minutes of the second half, six turnovers, and I think five in like a fifty second span. What did you see from your angle in that stretch?

MARK POPE: Yeah, it was really unfortunate. It was more of a manifestation of I think the stress that we were feeling and feeling sped up. Because none of them were forced. We were just dribbling the ball out of bounds. And that’s, actually you can give credit to Auburn for that. They got us in a hole and you can put the blame for that on me. I wasn’t able to get the guys to a place where could just kinda be present in execution of the moment. That’s what happens when you get under duress and you, you know, you are carrying around baggage. You have really inexplicable series of plays like that. It was a pretty devastating run for us, for sure.

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Q Mark, you talked a lot this year about energy. Do you think energy was where it needs to be, if not why do you think so?

MARK POPE: I would love to make excuses on that. That ultimately falls on my shoulders. Credit goes to Auburn also. They’ve done this, you know they’re a good team. They made really hard shots tonight and their switching was a deenergizer for us and we did not respond to it as well at all. You know, we kind of let frustration mount a little bit and, you know, it was probably a whole slew of exclusives. Late travel, late game, all the things with a quick turnaround. At the end of the day, that’s just what you deal with as a basketball player. I failed to lead our team today to have the energy that is required for us to come out and be great. It’s not a lack of desire. There’s a, it was a whole cocktail of some energy miscues, some being sped up miscues. Some terrific shot making from Auburn. All put together resulted in a really, really terrible day for us.

Q Coach, you talk about Auburn speeding you guys up. Only four made threes tonight. I think you only got 14 or 15, somewhere in that range. In the beginning of the season, you talked about wanting to get 30 to 35 a game. What were they doing defensively and what weren’t you doing offensively to get those shots?

MARK POPE: First, the most important thing was the only time we had any flow to the game is when we had some pace and we just gave up on a pace game. We gave up on it full-court. I can’t tell you how many times we grabbed a rebound and we are frozen there. That’s the exact opposite of the team that we are, that we built. Clearly, we are dealing with some complicated rotation changes. But that’s where our life is and that’s where we’re great and that’s why we have been one of the top offensive teams in the country. We failed to actually push that, you know, we just, I don’t know, actually is the answer. Again, it’s probably a combination of things. Fatigue, changing lineups, the frustration of the moment. But when we actually push the ball, we got some good flow in the game for moments. And then we just didn’t. That wasn’t really something that Auburn was doing on possession. It was us just stopping. And then in the half court a lot of credit goes to Auburn. They were switching all of our flow stuff at our guys. We failed to be forceful enough to make the plays that we need to make. Again, it was a combination of things.

Q Mark, back here. Lamont, you could kind of tell his shoulder, his shot is not there yet. If that just going to be rushed. What are you seeing from him and then for Jaxson, is he even going to come back here this week, this regular-season, what about him?

MARK POPE: Yeah, the best thing about tonight was Lamont got through the game. That’s the best thing. Every game and play he gets through is better. He got beat up on some screens and he still made it out alive. I thought he was probably our brightest spot tonight in terms of his ability to get down and get to two feet and make plays and have a little bit of defensive presence. He was probably the best thing for us. Like I said, every play he gets through is really positive because he’s on his way back. He’s got two more games to really get to the elite level that he’s played at for most of the season. I’m really happy he’s making progress. Jax is, we kind of came to the final conclusion last night that he’s going to get surgery. So, he is going Wednesday to the world specialist to have surgery on his wrist. He’s got a torn sub sheath to his ECU tendon so what’s happening is it is slipping out and when he went down, you know, we kind of knew that he was going to need surgery but he just wanted so badly to play. He rehabbed it and had an injection to try to make it functional. And then he was doing okay and he went down the first half at Oklahoma. So, it’s in a groove and there’s a sheath around it that holds it in place. That is ripped, the distal side of it, I think it’s the distal side of it is just ripped a little bit and so now it’s coming out of the groove and after the hit it actually relocated it a little more. There’s just no way that he’s going to be able to play. The good news is that he will go have the surgery with, literally, the world’s number one surgeon during this particular procedure. It’s a three-month till 100% full recovery. He will be good to go the first of June, the end of May and continue on with his great basketball career.

Q Mark, you mentioned Auburn’s ability to switch a lot on defense. Just how different does their length in athleticism make them compared to some of the other top teams that you guys have played?

MARK POPE: Right now, they are the best team in the country. You know, they punished us tonight, for sure. It’s a real credit to their guys, to their players, and a real credit to coach Pearl and their staff because they do a lot of switching on the fly. There is a lot of communication on the fly. And, you know, there were only small moments in the game where we were able to take advantage of that and they communicate so well together and they have so much makeup ability that it makes it really difficult. And they also play with tremendous energy. They have a length. You know, they are playing elite level basketball. So, just a ton of credit to those guys. Thanks guys.