Tighten the rotation? Mark Pope wants Kentucky to do the opposite: "We're an energy team."

A common argument from media and fans alike during Kentucky‘s recent stretch of losing four games out of five and back-to-back to open the month of February revolves around depth. Some of the rotations have been head-scratching with end-of-bench pieces seeing extended run as the Wildcats have dealt with injury issues. As Kerr Kriisa, Lamont Butler and Andrew Carr have missed games and/or been limited, guys like Ansley Almonor, Travis Perry, Collin Chandler and Trent Noah have seen their roles expand with varying levels of success.

Some have stepped up in significant ways and in key moments — all four, really — though consistency has been somewhat of an issue. Almonor can go from hitting 17-28 from three in his last six games to not taking a single shot at Ole Miss in 15 minutes played. Chandler can combine for 32 minutes against Tennessee and Arkansas, then three in Oxford. Plenty of highs, but plenty of lows, too.

Why not push the starters’ minutes and tighten the rotation until Butler and/or Kriisa can return to spread things out again? Mark Pope answered that exact question leading up to Kentucky’s matchup vs. South Carolina this weekend.

“You’re always bouncing back and forth because you’re trying to — for us, the pace of the game is really important. It’s important to how we play. We function well, the way we function offensively, because of our pace and because of our movement away from the ball. It takes energy, right? We’re an energy team,” Pope said. “There are some teams in our league that are not, they’re just execution and kind of brute physicality teams. We’re an energy team, we feed off energy. We live and thrive off energy. The way we were built was to kind of beat teams through just wave after wave of energy.”

When you’re built to play a certain way from day one, you try to channel that same identity however you can — especially with guys you believe in long-term like Perry, Chandler and Noah. They may not be ready now, but this is an opportunity to get them ready ahead of schedule. Trial by fire, throw ’em in with the sharks and see who is ready for the moment.

Jaxson Robinson has hit the 30-minute mark in seven of nine SEC games including four straight. Otega Oweh has played at least 32 minutes in five straight. Koby Brea has played at least 29 minutes in three straight. They’re not afraid to play guys longer than their season averages, but it’s not preferred — even with injury issues.

“We’ve kind of gone to some space where we went three or four games playing several guys, a bunch of guys, over the 30-minute mark. That’s a real argument you had,” Pope said. “We kind of go back and forth with ourselves. Like, right now, we’re trying to stretch exactly the opposite way of what you’re suggesting. We think we have good young players, and so we’d like to expand their minutes so we can have more intensity and energy on the court, more consistently from different guys.”

Is that a winning formula? It hasn’t been as of late necessarily, but the hope is the long-term payoff is worth the short-term lumps.

“Time is going to tell whether that’s actually a winning strategy or not. I mean, we’ll see,” Pope continued. “It just depends on how guys develop and where our health and roster sits. All that’s going to kind of be remain to be seen. For us to be at the very best we can be with the players we have, the way we’re built, the way we’re designed, the way our skill sets flow, the more energy we can infuse in this game is a really key part of it.

“We’re going to keep trying to stretch that way. I think we can. I think we can do it.”

Don’t expect to see a tightened rotation anytime soon. The staff is pushing to see this thing through.