Kentucky is a mess

It's early, and there are caveats, but still

Photo credit: Kentucky Sports Radio

Mark Pope had been acting a bit odd.

Last week, after the loss to Louisville, Kentucky’s coach vaguely alluded to some sort of pregame issue with his team. He brought up this topic unprompted, hinted at an of “out of character” emotional locker room issue that affected UK’s performance, and then just as quickly brushed the whole thing off, because he didn’t really want to talk about it after all.

Wait: What? Kentucky fans raised their eyebrows. What happened? An argument? A disagreement over the pregame Spotify playlist? A brutal They Live-style brawl? Some trenchant insight into the psyche of a faltering team? It was a strange approach, coming off a convincing loss to a hated rival, facing a UK fandom that sweats every detail about their program, to dangle a thing like that. If you don’t want to talk about it, don’t bring it up. If you do, just say what happened. Don’t leave it to the imagination.

After Friday’s blowout win over Eastern Kentucky, when Pope should have been more relaxed, reporters asked him if it was time to elaborate. He seemed amused:

“So you guys know I’m a big Taylor Swift fan,” Pope said. “And I just like to leave out these little things that just keep everybody wondering and guessing. There’s really not much to it. At some point, I’ll tell you the story, but I’d like you guys to prognosticate on that for a couple more days.”

“It really is nothing,” Pope said. “It’s just something about the emotional level of our team. I want to like tease this out and let it play for a few more days. But when we talk about it, it’s really not going to be very interesting. It was just the way that we felt as a team and how we responded. So thanks for letting that float around for a while. It’s fun, right?”

Um, not really? Because it’s not an album rollout? It’s a press conference about a basketball team? Sorry, but this is weird, right?

This was the context in which Kentucky arrived at the Champions Classic Tuesday night. This is why Pope’s dour pregame walk into the arena, executed with all the joie de vivre of an Arthur Miller protaganist, caused so much existential angst. A week ago, the Michigan State fixture looked heavily lopsided on paper. But the Louisville performance and the subsequent bad vibes loomed large. Was there something wrong with Kentucky? What about this team weren’t fans seeing? What did Pope’s thousand-yard pregame stare really portend?

One of the worst performances in recent Kentucky basketball memory, in fact — a total, damning indictment. If the Louisville game hinted at UK’s technical limitations, Tuesday night’s blowout laid bare much deeper disunity and strife.