Mark Pope's biggest problem as UK moves on from Kansas loss

What was worse from the Wildcats on Tuesday night in Chicago? Their play on offense, defense or in transition? There are no wrong answers here.

The result — an 89-69 loss to Kansas in the Champions Classic — has left Mark Pope on the wrong side of some Kentucky basketball history.

Pope has now been the UK head coach for only two seasons and three games, and the lopsided defeat at the hands of the Jayhawks was his fifth loss of 20-plus points. In the modern era of Kentucky basketball, no coach has endured more blowout losses than that.

Eddie Sutton suffered five such defeats in four years on the job, though four of those losses came during his disastrous final season in charge.

John Calipari, who coached the Cats for 15 seasons, also had five such losses, including a 34-point shellacking at the hands of Duke in the 2018 Champions Classic. That UK team, as John Clay points out in his column this week, nearly made the Final Four a few months later. (Some hope for Pope?)

Rick Pitino had four such losses in eight seasons at the helm, with two of those (including a 55-point loss to Kansas, the worst in modern history) coming amid the probation years that resulted from the end of the Sutton era. The other two came toward the end of the 1991-92 season, when the Cats ended up one shot short of the Final Four.

Joe B. Hall (13 seasons) and Tubby Smith (10 seasons) had only two losses each of this sort.

Billy Gillispie had one such loss, a 41-point defeat at Vanderbilt, in two seasons.

Now, it’s worth noting that Pope’s strength of schedule at UK has been miles more difficult than what Calipari and Gillispie were dealing with before him, but this stat is still staggering for a program (and, more importantly, a fan base) that is not used to losing like this.

An even wilder stat: Over the final five seasons of the Pitino era and the first eight seasons of Smith’s tenure, UK suffered exactly zero losses of 20-plus points. And the program went more than 20 years (1992-2013) with just three such defeats.

These are the expectations that Pope is dealing with, and losing games in this manner is one of the primary reasons for all of the angst around his situation. In addition to the five losses of 20 or more points, Pope has an additional 10 double-digit losses on his resume, including both of the team’s NCAA Tournament defeats on his watch.

Simply being “competitive” in these big games is not meeting the “standard” of Kentucky basketball. Pope will be the first to acknowledge that. He has to win some, too, and he’s done that over the past two seasons.

But as Year 3 continues, just going into the final TV timeout with a realistic chance at victory will be key for Kentucky and its coach, who can not afford many more performances like the one his Cats put on Tuesday night. He has to win games. And he has to keep his team from getting blown out.

And with this schedule, he’s got a lot of work to do.

Tonight’s game

The Wildcats will be back home in Rupp Arena to face Northern Arizona at 7 p.m. tonight, with the game set to be streamed on SEC Network+.

The Lumberjacks are ranked No. 298 at KenPom and come in at 314th in the Torvik ratings (as of last night), with both websites projecting a win of 25-plus points for Kentucky, which will face a similarly overmatched Grambling State squad Monday night (also at 7 p.m. in Rupp on SEC Network+).

These two games won’t do anything to reverse the disappointment from Tuesday night, but the Cats will at least have a couple of opportunities to work some stuff out against outside competition before facing Indiana in Indianapolis a week from today.

Be sure to tune into the Countdown to Tipoff show tonight (and Monday) at 5:30 p.m., with the television broadcast available on ESPN+ and the radio show on 630 WLAP in the Lexington area. (Here’s the full list of UK Sports Network radio affiliates.) In case you missed it, there’s a new format for the show this season. Join us at 5:30!

Subscribe to Inside Kentucky Basketball

The importance of recruiting

One major takeaway from Tuesday night: it must be nice to have a player like Tyran Stokes.

Pope came up short in that recruitment, and his general record on the high school recruiting trail is right up there with blowout losses at the top of many disgruntled fans’ list of complaints.

While Pope has excelled in the transfer portal (a top five national class in all three years on the job), his woes with high schoolers have been well-documented, so we won’t rehash them all here.

But what was clear Tuesday night is that players like Stokes are difficult to come by, and — even in these days of NIL and guys staying in school longer — you’re not going to find such talent in the transfer portal. Anyone who can play like that is off to the NBA after one season.

Simply having Stokes doesn’t mean Kansas is Final Four bound, obviously. In our breakdown of UK’s recruiting strategy for 2027 a couple of weeks ago, it was noted that the biggest names in last season’s stellar freshman class (including AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer, Caleb Wilson and Darius Acuff Jr.) all missed out on the final weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

It should also be mentioned that a few players a little further down the 2025 recruiting rankings, like the Arizona duo of Brayden Burries and Koa Peat, plus UConn’s Braylon Mullins (all three were top 15 recruits) and the overlooked Keaton Wagler (Illinois) did play key roles as freshmen on Final Four squads.

While roster retention and smart portal pickups appear to be the primary path to success in the current landscape, it can certainly help to have the kind of talent that is typically found only in the high school recruiting ranks.

That’s part of the reason why Pope and the UK staff went all in on trying to lock up No. 2-ranked recruit CJ Rosser during the early signing period, which started this week. Such an addition would have been a recruiting coup. And while it still might be (no public announcements yet) Inside Kentucky Basketball has been told that North Carolina is convinced the recruitment is wrapped up and that Rosser will be a Tar Heel.

That would be another big blow for Pope, who does have four-star wing Ryan Hampton and fast-rising center Cherif Millogo committed for next season but could really use the extra juice that picking up Rosser would provide.

It’s possible that Millogo (or Benji Berrouet, a potential pickup in the spring) could offer that kind of freshman star power that Pope’s teams have lacked. But landing Rosser was an opportunity to turn back some narratives while also adding hope for the future, and it sure sounds like the chances of that addition are dwindling.

Zoom Diallo’s play so far

Lost in all of the angst Tuesday night: Zoom Diallo going for 24 points.

Diallo, who was a lightning rod for criticism during UK’s exhibition season, has been Kentucky’s leading scorer (by a pretty wide margin) at 17.3 points per game. He’s shooting 63.6% from the field and is 5 for 11 (45.5%) on 3-pointers, which hasn’t been a strength of his game in the past.

On Tuesday night, Diallo was 10 for 15 from the floor despite missing his final three shots in garbage time (including two missed 3s in the final minute), and his shot-making was perhaps the biggest bright spot of the game.

That should give him some confidence moving forward.

Diallo will also have to play a different style for this team to reach its ceiling, however. Especially after Malachi Moreno left the floor early due to foul trouble, Kansas seemed perfectly content to let Diallo dribble the basketball while concentrating much of its defensive energy on making sure Milan Momcilovic didn’t get any open looks.

It worked. Diallo made shots, yes, but Momcilovic didn’t even attempt his first 3-pointer until the game was basically decided, and Moreno did most of his damage toward the end of the rout. As a result of not being able to play through Moreno, and Diallo feeling the need to do everything himself, Kentucky’s offense never really got into any kind of flow, which meant no good action for Momcilovic and fewer opportunities for Alex Wilkins to make things happen.

Diallo, for all the scoring positives, had zero assists in 34 minutes on the court. That simply can’t happen. For Pope’s offense to work, the ball (and the four players without it) will have to keep moving, especially against teams the caliber of Kansas.

The shot-making ability Diallo showed in Chicago is a positive, but the Cats will need much more from him over the course of the season.

Other notes

UK basketball trivia: Who leads Kentucky in career 3-point field goal attempts?
The Cats were abysmal from the perimeter Tuesday night, shooting 4 for 21 (19.0%) on 3-pointers, with Zoom Diallo going 3 for 6 from beyond the arc. (That means everyone else was a combined 1 for 15.) Milan Momcilovic took only three 3-point shots (and was responsible for making the other one). Alex Wilkins was 0 for 4 from deep, and Justin McBride was 0 for 3. The Cats’ 3-point numbers through three games: 26 for 80, a 32.5% hit rate.
Mark Pope is going to want to see those attempts rise from the 21 his Wildcats put up Tuesday night, and UK’s coaches will want to see that hit rate go up, too. This should be a good shooting team, and it’s worth noting that Kam Williams, perhaps the team’s best 3-point shooter after Momcilovic, has attempted just one so far as he ramps up from offseason foot surgery. To get more looks — and to make sure they’re good ones that have a better chance of actually going in — the Cats will need to run some better offense. That was lacking Tuesday night. Keeping Malachi Moreno out of foul trouble and on the court, where defenses will have to account for his offensive versatility, would be a good start toward that goal.
I joined my Countdown to Tipoff colleague Michelle Knezovic for a podcast yesterday (it should be available here today), and we recapped that Kansas game and looked ahead to how the Wildcats might be able to fix their issues. One of the few positives from the 20-point loss: Braydon Hawthorne was able to effectively use his length again, causing some issues for Tyran Stokes and giving UK some chances to recapture the momentum. Hawthorne had four points, three rebounds and three blocks in 13 minutes. It was far from a perfect performance, and Hawthorne will experience growing pains all season long, but there’s clearly some major promise to his game.
I sat down for a 1-on-1 interview with Moreno last week, and Hawthorne’s name came up. “He might have more blocks than me at this point!” Moreno exclaimed, counting the exhibition games in that tally. In the games that actually matter, Hawthorne is indeed leading the team in blocks with six. Moreno is next with three. Hawthorne is also tied for third on the team with 12 rebounds (despite being seventh in minutes played) and has five assists to zero turnovers. He’s been a big part of this team so far, and he’s likely bound for bigger things as the season progresses. Another stat: he’s 0 for 8 on 3-pointers. As good of a shooter as he appears to be, that is likely to correct itself in short order. If you’re looking for reasons to hope, Hawthorne’s potential development and impact is a fine place to start.
A reason for concern: the frontcourt. Ousmane N’Diaye has yet to get going, and fears that he might take a while to adjust to the college game haven’t been alleviated. Franck Kepnang was forced to play 10 minutes in the first half against Kansas after Moreno and N’Diaye went to the bench early with foul trouble, and Kepnang was so ineffective in that time that he didn’t make it back on the court in the second half. (Ditto for Reece Potter.) Justin McBride should be able to help the Cats in certain matchups, too, but he struggled in 14 minutes against the Jayhawks, as well.
Pope should have options at the guard and wing positions, with Hawthorne, Mason Williams and Kam Williams forming a very promising trio off the bench. But the 4/5 spots look iffy, and Moreno, the clear top option there, is having trouble staying on the court. When Kam Williams gets fully healthy, it’ll be very interesting to see how often Pope goes with two guards, Momcilovic, Moreno and either Williams or Hawthorne at the other spot. That’s an intriguing lineup, and the guess here is you’ll see it quite often, especially if the other bigs can’t get it going. And in case you missed it, Moreno played all but 16 seconds of the second half Tuesday night. In that game, Pope clearly didn’t trust anyone else at the 5.
Trivia answer: Tony Delk is UK’s all-time leader in made 3-pointers with 283, but Keith Bogans is the program’s record holder in attempts with 743 over his four-year career. Bogans made 254 of those (placing him second behind Delk on that all-time list) and shot 34.2% from deep as a Wildcat. Tayshaun Prince (204 for 621) is third on both lists.

The one-month anniversary for Inside Kentucky Basketball was yesterday. Thanks to everyone who has signed up. It’s been a tremendous start, and we (speaking for John Clay and Derek Terry) are incredibly excited for the months to come. We’ve got more great stuff planned for next week, which will wrap up with that increasingly important game against Indiana.

Thank you all for your support, and if you’re reading this on the website and haven’t signed up yet, hit the button below!