Following Kentucky men’s basketball’s (17-10, 8-6 SEC) 75-74 loss at Auburn (15-12, 6-8 SEC) on Saturday night, head coach Mark Pope was caught on a hot mic when departing from his postgame press conference, and he was irate.
“Mitch (Barnhart), if those MFers try to fine me, screw ’em. I did not say a word about how they cheated us,” Pope yelled, referring to the NCAA’s rule about how staff and players can’t publicly voice their thoughts on officiating.
Pope was likely referring to the end of the game, when the Cats held a 74-73 lead before Collin Chandler was tagged with a debatable offensive foul call.
The foul gave the ball back to the Tigers with 14 seconds left, where Elyjah Freeman went on to score the game-winner with 1 second remaining, solidifying Kentucky’s third straight loss.
Aside from that one sequence towards the tail end, there were numerous foul calls throughout the entire contest, with both teams shooting a combined 41 free throws; Kentucky had 17 attempts from the charity stripe while Auburn had 24.
Were some of the calls questionable?
Yes.
Were some of the calls blatantly obvious?
Yes.
Like everyone in sports, including fans, players, coaches, etc., Pope certainly has every right to be mad with the officiating, but in the end, that can’t be the largest takeaway, and that can’t be the main topic of his anger following a road loss.
My biggest takeaway from Saturday night is that UK went nearly six minutes without a made field goal in the second half, while only two of the four bench players (Mo Dioubate and Brandon Garrison) scored, combining for eight total bench points.
On top of that, two of the five starters (Andrija Jelavic and Malachi Moreno) failed to reach double digits, which isn’t that big of a deal, but in this circumstance it is, mostly because Otega Oweh, who has been a consistent rock for UK, reached a career-high 29 points, while Denzel Aberdeen scored 15 points and Chandler scored 10 points.
So, to be clear, three players combined for 54 points, and the rest of the team, six other players, combined for a grand total of 20.
Pope’s biggest concern has to be that Kentucky’s offense, overall, not just Oweh, Aberdeen and Chandler, has had little to no rhythm in most games and that most losses are undoubtedly a result of that.
Yes, we have seen some strong offensive performances.
I am not going to completely discredit them there, but heading into the postseason, you want to be playing your best all-around basketball, and that is worryingly far from where the Cats currently stand, defensively, but mostly offensively.
All in all, Pope, specifically, has more to worry about aside from poor officiating; it certainly doesn’t help in most cases, but that can’t be the topic of your argument when six players on your team failed to produce behind a career-high night from your all-star.
Kentucky has another opportunity to start building positive momentum before the postseason on Tuesday, Feb. 24, when it travels to Columbia, S.C., to take on the struggling South Carolina Gamecocks (12-15, 3-11 SEC).
Tipoff for that game is set for 7 p.m. ET and can be viewed on SEC Network.
