Mark Pope says "losing is the worst" because his job at Kentucky is to win every game

This is new territory for Mark Pope, his Wildcats, and the Big Blue Nation. Kentucky lost its first home game of the Pope era despite Rupp Arena’s best effort from the stands. Pope was dejected after the defeat, UK’s second in conference play, as his team slid down the SEC standings with the loss to the Crimson Tide.

“Losing is the worst,” Pope said after the 102-97 finish in Lexington. “It just is the worst. So, it’s tough. I’m really proud of our guys. They fought and battled. We didn’t play great, but our guys fought and we’re going to get better. We’re going to continue to get better.”

Kentucky will need to get better because the road doesn’t get any easier. There is no midweek game next week, so the Wildcats get a short rest before heading to Vanderbilt next Saturday. Ask Tennessee about heading to Vanderbilt. The sixth-ranked Vols suffered a loss at Vandy hours after Kentucky’s to Alabama on Saturday. Kentucky gets Tennessee in Knoxville after Vandy.

So, yeah, the Wildcats need to continue to get better for the road ahead, and Pope has a long checklist for improvements.

“There’s a bunch of spaces where we can get better,” he said in his postgame comments, naming 3-point defense, transition defense, foul differential, and rebounding as problems in the loss. “There were unbelievable performances by our guys also. This was a terrific game where we got beat, and it hurts like crazy, but we’ll get better from it, and these guys are starving to do that.”

No sadness

As the calendar moves on, Pope noted there is no time to sweat the home loss. He said he is eager to dig into getting Kentucky to the next level and taking on the next challenges ahead in the SEC, the toughest league in college basketball.

“Unfortunately, we don’t get to indulge in the sadness of this game. Our guys’ job is to get fresh as soon as they can, to re-emphasize the things that they did well–because there was a ton that our guys did really, really well tonight–and then actually grow. We got to grow the game. We got to grow into this next phase of the game, and it’s a beautiful thing.

“Losing is the worst,” he said again. “But I will say this, we’ve been really blessed. We’ve played five teams to start conference that are all ranked in the top 25, and what that does for you is you’re playing against the very best teams in the country, back to back to back to back to back, all with significantly different styles of play, with significantly different personnel.

And so what it does is it lets you explore all the avenues and holes and places where you can grow, and the spaces where you need to learn and, and so I’m grateful for this couple days because we get to dig in really, really hard and, and it’s a race to see if we can take this elite level that our guys are playing at, and if we can do it better. And that’s the challenge.”

“Our job is to win every game”

Pope knows the assignment. He said it on his first day on the job in April, and he said it again after a tough day on the job on Saturday.

“Our job is to win every game,” he told Tom Leach in his postgame radio interview. “Our job at Kentucky is to win every single game. And on the games where we fall short, then we just have to double down our effort to get better and learn from it and grow. Our guys have been really successful at doing that.”

He pointed to bounce-back games after Kentucky’s losses to Clemson, Ohio State, and Georgia as evidence of the Wildcats’ ability to regroup. Pope’s team responded to all three of its losses with big wins, noting how his players love the work in fixing any problems. He enjoys watching the growth and can’t wait to see where it leads in the end.

“The fact that we all get to watch these guys kind of grow together–it’s not very much solace after a game like today, but we’re taking this ride together and we’re going to end up at places really special, and this team is built to do it, and we’re going to keep growing and we’re going to get there.”

[Watch Mark Pope’s postgame press conference]