There’s been a common theme in what’s been a disastrous Kentucky basketball season to date.
Against quality opponents, the Wildcats dig themselves an early hole with bad starts.
Mark Pope’s group struggled in the first half again Wednesday night in a come-from-ahead 73-68 loss to Missouri at Rupp Arena.
For the seventh time this season in eight games against high-major opponents (plus Gonzaga), Kentucky trailed at the break. The Cats faced a slender 33-32 deficit at halftime against the Tigers, despite UK senior guard Otega Oweh drilling a 3-pointer from three quarters of the court away just before the buzzer.
In addition to the Missouri game, UK has also faced halftime deficits this season against Louisville (seven points), Michigan State (17), Gonzaga (23), Indiana (seven), St. John’s (seven) and Alabama (16). That’s an average halftime deficit of more than 11 points.
In an early December home loss to North Carolina, the Wildcats and Tar Heels entered the break tied.
Taken all together, UK is 2-5 against top teams this season when down after 20 minutes.
Earlier this week on his radio show, Pope spoke about his team’s sluggish starts in the opening period.
“It’s not the way that we’re trying to map it out, for sure,” Pope admitted. “I think it’s partly us understanding ourselves better, us being more confident in what we’re doing, us inflicting some pace onto the game where we can. I think that as we see this team grow and mature, I think that we’ll have better success in the first half.”
Following Wednesday’s loss to Missouri — which marked the Tigers’ first-ever victory at Rupp Arena — Pope again pointed to pace as a top reason for the early issues.
“I think I’m really stressing with our pace and our movement. I’m just really frustrated,” said Pope, who also picked up his first technical foul as the UK coach Wednesday night.
“We’re emphasizing every day about sprinting to screens, sprinting to screens, sprinting to screens,” Pope said. “It is like we’re in molasses out there. We’re trying to simplify and dumb things down… We’re not going to be good on the offensive side until we find some pace. We’re just not.”
Sophomore wing Kam Williams — one of UK’s three player representatives designated to speak with reporters after the Missouri loss — was asked by the Herald-Leader about the poor first-half showings this season.
“I guess just putting points on the board, trying to play with extra pace,” said Williams, who scored two of his eight points against Missouri in 12 first-half minutes. “Coach has been emphasizing about playing a little faster. I guess we just didn’t play fast enough for this game.”
That being said, Williams disagrees with the idea that there’s a disconnect between the pace Pope is preaching during practice and what’s happening in games.
“I guess we’re just making mistakes,” Williams said. “We’re not trying to multiply our mistakes, but obviously it’s basketball, you’re going to mess up. We just happened to mess up a couple of times that we shouldn’t have.”
If this all sounds familiar, it’s because slow starts in the first half were also a problem last season during Pope’s first campaign as the Kentucky coach.
Kentucky trailed at the break in 14 of the 27 games it played against quality opponents during the 2024-25 season. UK’s average deficit margin at halftime last season was 10.1 points. Conversely, UK led in the other 13 games it played against high-major teams last season: The Wildcats’ average halftime advantage against those squads last season was 7.3 points.
UK went only 3-11 last season in the 14 games it trailed at halftime against top opponents. This means that, combined, Kentucky is now 5-16 (23.8%) under Pope when trailing at halftime in top-level games.
Kentucky Wildcats guard Kam Williams (3) passes the ball around Missouri Tigers guard T.O. Barrett (5) during the first half of UK’s loss Wednesday at Rupp Arena. Ryan C. Hermens [email protected]
Cameron Drummond
Lexington Herald-Leader
Cameron Drummond works as a sports reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader with a focus on Kentucky men’s basketball recruiting and the UK men’s basketball team, horse racing, soccer and other sports in Central Kentucky. Drummond is a second-generation American who was born and raised in Texas, before graduating from Indiana University. He is a fluent Spanish speaker who previously worked as a community news reporter in Austin, Texas.
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