Friday night was supposed to be the feel-good performance Kentucky Basketball desperately needed after getting destroyed by Kansas on national television.
It was anything but, as 30.5-point favorite Kentucky found itself trailing in the final seconds to a Northern Arizona team ranked 299th in KenPom, lost its first three games by an average of 24 points, and was picked to finish dead last in the Big Sky conference.
But even in the closing minute with Kentucky trailing, it just felt like there’s no
possible way the Wildcats are actually gonna drop this…right?
Surely enough, Kentucky found a way, but it took a miraculous effort to win 78-77, and it frankly should not be enough to change this fact: This needs to be the last season for Mark Pope as the head coach of Kentucky Basketball.
There’s simply no excuse for how far this program has fallen under Pope. If it’s not 20-point beatdowns in primetime, it’s letting bubble teams like Texas A&M go on 44–11 runs, getting absolutely brutalized on the boards—32-20 overall and 8-1 on offensive rebounds—by Northern Arizona, one of the worst teams in Division I basketball, or allowing every other team they face to build a double-digit lead.
Not to mention the fact that this would have been arguably the worst loss in Kentucky Basketball history had it happened. And it would have come just days after Kentucky was beaten by 20 points on national TV by Kansas. That was the fifth time Pope has lost a game by 20+ points as the head coach of the Wildcats. He’s now well on his way to break that mark before he even coaches his 100th game for the Wildcats (this was his 76th).
Adolph Rupp is the all-time leader with seven…in 1,066 games.
We can’t overlook that this program was struggling before John Calipari left for Arkansas, but Pope has done nothing to stop the downward spiral.
Big Blue Nation will always be grateful to Pope for what he did here as a player, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s simply not getting it done as a coach, at least at a blue-blood level…not that he was exactly doing great in his previous stops when he was hired by Mitch Barnhart…
People joke about Kentucky sinking to the depths of fellow blue blood Indiana.
I got news for you: This loss would have absolutely sunk Kentucky beyond the depths that the Hoosiers have fallen to.
This can still be a season that brings the occasional moment of joy, even if that looks grim at the moment. But regardless of what happens the rest of the way, this needs to be Pope’s final year leading the charge.
