Kentucky coach Mark Pope and his squad are still going through growing pains two months into the season and Monday was a period of reckoning going into the first full calendar week of the new year.
In an effort to get on the same proverbial page, the Wildcats had a talking session during a film review of Saturday’s 89-74 loss to Alabama in the Southeastern Conference opener last Saturday. Pope said, “the biggest failure in communication is assuming you’ve done it.”
During times of adversity, the coach said, “everybody is telling themselves a story.” The vent session provided the Wildcats an opportunity to reach a “point of truth” and “a point of common understanding about what you’re experiencing and where the shortcoming is (and) where the pitfalls are.”
“That was actually a theme of our film today,” Pope said on his radio show Monday. “It's really instructive, and it's really powerful when you can bring a bunch of guys who are hearing so much noise from all different directions, whether it's their inner circle or their agent or their friends or family or social media ... hearing everybody's take on things that is everything under the sun, and then bringing them together to kind of find a common understanding, help our guys understand how they should be telling themselves their story. That's an important process.”
The Kentucky coach said those discussions are common for teams on a yearly basis and added his players understand the value of those heartfelt conversations.
“We're fortunate to have to have really good guys that just care so much and they're trying,” he said. “It was an intense day, a tough day, a hard workday, a long day, but a good day of finding some common ground.”
Pope added his players aren’t the group that’s being portrayed as a team that doesn’t get along on and off the court.
"That's not true at all,” Pope said. “It’s interesting (and) it's one of the brilliant things. Kentucky basketball is something we all care about so much and we talk about it all the time. I’m here with a group of people that pay attention to the details of Kentucky basketball.
“There's this insatiable hunger for all of us to find new information. There are so many stories that kind of grow legs that actually just are real fabrications. This team is as close and cares as much about each other as any team I've ever been around and, in some ways, more.”
TAKING PRECAUTIONS
Pope hinted that Jaland Lowe may return to the starting lineup after coming off the bench since returning from a shoulder injury for a second time this season.
“We're trying to nurse JLo through this as smartly as we can,” Pope said. “I do think that starting is in his future. He's getting stronger and stronger and stronger. He's actually making huge progress. It's really important for us that we keep him healthy through the duration of this year, and so as we kind of get his strength back to full strength, we'll be more and more daring with how we use him. But he makes a big difference for us.”
Lowe came off the bench and scored 21 points in Kentucky’s 89-74 loss to the Crimson Tide. Lowe has played in seven games this season and is averaging nine points and has dished out 20 assists. He has missed seven games because of the shoulder injury.
GAMETRACKER: Missouri at Kentucky, 6 p.m.CT, Wednesday. TV/Radio: ESPN2, UK Radio Network on 94.7 The Mix and WiLLiE 102.
Coach Mark Pope studies the play in Kentucky's 88-46 rout over Loyola earlier this season. (Photo by Les Nicholson)
