AUSTIN, TX – With 3:51 left on the clock of the Moody Center, No. 15 Kentucky men’s basketball led by two scores (five points) and seemed primed for a big road victory over the Texas Longhorns.

When the buzzer finally sounded, however, Kentucky had not won the game – it had lost by two scores.

For those last nearly four minutes, Kentucky was outscored 18-9, and that’s counting two late 3-pointers by Travis Perry and Otega Oweh. Without those, and even the dunk by Texas in between, the difference in those last four minutes was 16-3.

Taking the podium for his postgame press conference, Kentucky Head Coach Mark Pope was visibly frustrated. Despite that, he patiently answered questions thrown his way, mostly about the Longhorns from home media, but he was unable to make it out of the postgame ritual without having to voice his frustration.

Flanked on his left and right by freshman “Mountain Mamba” Trent Noah and veteran Amari Williams, Pope began visibly shaking his head when asked about whether or not fatigue, both physical and mental, from the lack of depth on the roster caused the late collapse.

In other words, as Pope surely took it, did Jaxson Robinson, Kerr Kriisa and Lamont Butler not playing cause this defeat? Perhaps also attached to that is the question of how badly Kentucky needed its guys back.

“Yeah, we’re not leaving any space for that,” Pope said. “I have a good team. The guys on the court are good players and we’re good enough to win. Tonight, super painful, it was not acceptable, all those things are true, but we have the guys we need to win and we’re going to figure out a way to do it.”

Unfortunately for Pope, the next question, a feather on the back of the same bird, pertained to how difficult it is to keep a consistent offense and mental focus with shifting lineups… due to injury.

“We’re not spending any time on that,” Pope reaffirmed. “We have really good players. We’re good enough to win, so we’re not allowing any space for that. Certainly there’s some new stuff, for sure, but this group is good enough to win and we’ll figure that part out.”

Pope continued with an emotionally charged rebuttal.

“These guys are so emotionally invested, they’re putting so much energy, they’re so committed to each other that they’ll figure this out,” he said. “But, it’s about the guys that are on the court right now, we have the guys to do this, and we’re not spending any time thinking about anything else.”

The 1996 National Champion refused to allow the implication that depth is what cost Kentucky in Austin, and instead stated that the team on the court simply lost focus.

“We’re at that point in the season where these late game situations, they’re going to become increasingly heated,” Pope said. “We have incredibly painful moments from this game where we weren’t present, and we will learn from that. We’re going to continue to get better and, listen, if we do this right, these moments are the moments that we’re going to get to replay and we’re going to do them right.”

This idea of not being present was hardly something Pope pulled out of a hat, anyone watching the game with any basketball sense whatsoever could see the body language and gameplay of Kentucky’s stars shift.

During that disastrous stretch, Perry had an abysmal turnover near the top of the key that threw away a possession, countless much-needed rebounds — both offensive and defensive — were left untouched, Koby Brea fired a not-even-close prayer that, again, wasted a possession and Andrew Carr hung out on the bench because he had already fouled out of the game by that point.

While it’s easy for fans to overreact to an upsetting loss, it is hardly an overreaction to say that, if Kentucky plays as it did in those final four minutes for the rest of the season, it won’t win another game. It was poor basketball.

The good news is that it was just four minutes of it.

“We’re good enough to win for 36 minutes tonight, and we’ll get good enough to win in the last four,” Pope said. “We did it for 36 minutes, we just couldn’t do it for the last four, that’s the truth. That’s just the fact. Our execution stunk in the last four minutes on both sides of the ball. Our presentness was poor.”

Regardless, Kentucky will have a few quick days to teleport itself back into the present for an opportunity, once again, to get right at home against the Vanderbilt Commodores on Tuesday.

Tipoff against the Commodores is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET and will air live on the SEC Network. It is to be seen if Butler, Robinson or Kriisa will be able to return to the lineup.