Kentucky’s first true road game of the season didn’t go as planned. The Wildcats took an unblemished record into Clemson and left with a 70-66 loss in easily the worst offensive display of the season from Mark Pope‘s team. Neither side played pretty basketball, but Clemson’s first-half punches proved to be the deciding factor. At halftime, Kentucky trailed by seven points and was getting pounded on the glass. Clemson had 10 more rebounds through 20 minutes than the Wildcats. All of the effort and hustle was trending towards the Tigers. Foul trouble limited two of UK’s starters (Lamont Butler and Andrew Carr) to just 13 combined first-half minutes. A packed crowd created a rowdy atmosphere unlike anything this team has experienced this season. But by the time the game was over and Clemson fans rushed the floor of Littlejohn Coliseum, the stats on both sides were even in most categories. Kentucky outrebounded Clemson by 10 in the second half, shot over 45 percent from the field, and owned the second-chance points opportunity. Even though UK still ended up with the loss and didn’t play its preferred brand of basketball, Pope was proud to see his players continue to fight and stay together as a team.
“I think the guys — their resolve was great,” Pope said postgame. “I think their togetherness was great. It was just their trust. It’s different things. We didn’t have guys separating on the bench. We didn’t have guys separated on the court. They were leaning on each other and fighting for each other for the whole game. I’m really proud of that.
“It’s just trusting the way we play. It’s not about trusting each other, it’s trusting the way we play. And that’ll come with time and we’re going to face challenges like this, where things slow us down… We just got to learn fast.”
We’ve already seen Kentucky battle back from a halftime deficit before. The ‘Cats were down nine at the break against Duke in a neutral setting before mounting a comeback down the stretch for the win. Against Clemson, Kentucky quickly made up the seven-point halftime hole and even held the lead on a couple of occasions.
Kentucky had the fight and unity needed to win, but a lack of execution failed them. Pope says his team got away from what has made them so dangerous this season. The players trusted each other, just not the gameplan to the level that Pope wanted.
“Where my mind is right now is I learned that we have unbelievable resolve, we have unbelievable togetherness, we have the toughness to come compete and kind of try and make things better,” Pope added. “And we’re going to continue to learn to trust how we play, offensively and defensively. We got a little bit out of character trying to make things better and we didn’t kind of lean into how we play on either side of the ball as much as we want to.”
