LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB+WAVE) – Kansas lost its point guard on Monday. Kentucky lost its basketball team on Tuesday.
The Jayhawks have found a replacement. Kentucky is still looking.
It was Kansas 89, Kentucky 69 at the Champions Classic in Chicago, and the score was almost charitable. The Jayhawks could have played the final five minutes in overcoats and carrying bags. The Wildcats may not have noticed. They were busy trying to find each other.
There are losses that teach you something. There are losses that make you wonder if anyone was paying attention in class. It was the latter.
Mark Pope coached 75 games at Kentucky. His teams are behind by double digits in 27 of them. They trailed by at least 20 points in 13.
Pope is 29-27 against his opponents in the power conference. In 25 of those 56 games, his Wildcats fell behind by at least 10 points.
You can’t tell me they couldn’t have Caterpillar as a jersey sponsor. Who is better than Kentucky at digging holes?
Tuesday’s search began innocently enough. Kentucky made its first five shots and led 10-5. Bill Self called a timeout.
Whatever he said, it worked. Whatever Pope said, it was not.
Kansas started playing basketball at a speed Kentucky couldn’t understand. The Jayhawks cut, passed, screened and attacked. They seemed to know where the ball was going before it got there. Kentucky seemed surprised every time someone caught him. Kansas finished with 24 assists on 32 field goals. Kentucky had 13 assists and 15 turnovers.
The Jayhawks outscored the Wildcats 22-0 in points off turnovers.
Asked if he ever imagined being 22, Self said, “No, probably not. »
There is more.
The Wildcats brought Milan Momcilovic to Lexington because he was the best three-point shooter in college basketball last season. Bill Self knew it. He came up with a plan to limit Momcilovic to four three-point attempts.
Kansas limited it to three.
It took Kentucky more than 24 minutes for Momcilovic to make his first shot from behind the arc.
In real time, you could have driven from Lexington to Louisville, found a parking spot and had dinner before Kentucky figured out how to get a three-point shot for its best shooter.
Self later explained that Kansas wanted to take away Momcilovic’s shots before he caught the ball. Pope said Kentucky needs to be more creative in giving him opportunities.
A coach had anticipated the problem. The other described it afterwards.
There was another small problem. Kansas starting point guard Melvin Council Jr. broke a bone in his foot during Monday’s practice. Self had about a day to reorganize his backcourt.
The Jayhawks responded by putting the ball in the hands of the freshmen.
Not just any freshman. Two kids from Kentucky. Newport’s Taylen Kinney dished out eight assists. Louisville’s Tyran Stokes scored 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
Both had been recruited by Kentucky. Both wore Kansas uniforms. Both seemed quite comfortable with this arrangement. Kentucky was one of Stokes’ final two schools. He grew up on the side of the Louisville rivalry.
“It was definitely personal,” he said.
He apparently remembered the rivalry better than Kentucky remembered its defensive assignments.
Former Louisville guard Tre White added a career-high 30 points. He scored 23 in the second half. Kansas players were smiling and laughing in the second half.
With Kansas leading with 21 and 30 seconds left, Stokes was still driving toward the basket. For what? He wanted to get it over with so he could, as he put it, “celebrate a little more.”
Pope then spoke about his team’s youth.
Young?
Kentucky has one freshman and ranks 75th nationally in experience. Kansas had two freshmen in its backcourt and was missing its veteran point guard.
If Kentucky was too young to understand what was going on, someone forgot to tell the teenagers in Kansas.
Pope said Kentucky did not handle its early foul trouble well, “both from a coaching staff standpoint and a players standpoint.” He credited Kansas for the change. He said his guards were too fast and part of the problem was “me, schemes and play calls.”
When asked how he could keep the loss from causing overreactions, Pope didn’t downplay it.
“I don’t think it’s possible to overreact to this defeat,” he said.
“It’s a brutal lesson,” he said. “It’s brutal.”
He said his team would learn. He said it would get better.
Maybe it will. November basketball is not March basketball, and no one is handing out championship trophies in Chicago. Self said it himself.
“Our team probably won’t look like this, we hope, by Dec. 1,” he said, “and neither will theirs.”
But there’s something special about a program that changes players every year and always runs into the same problems.
The jerseys change. The transfers are arriving. Recruitment announcements arouse enthusiasm. The preseason promises sound familiar.
Then the ball runs into a serious opponent and Kentucky spends another night trying to find its way out of a 20-point hole.
Zoom Diallo scored 24 points on Tuesday. Malachi Moreno added 19 and 10 rebounds. There was talent on the field. Certain individual performances deserve to be praised.
There just wasn’t much evidence of a team capable of making all of this talent work together.
The Pope has explanations. Some of them are legit. All of this can happen to any basketball team.
But Kansas lost its point guard the day before the game and still managed to play like a team that knew what it was doing.
Three games in a season is early.
Three seasons into a coaching tenure is not.
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