Mark Pope says Kentucky 'hit a wall' in first half against Alabama

Kentucky had plenty of downs in their 89-74 loss to Alabama on Saturday. The Wildcats got in a hole early against the Crimson Tide, going down by as much as 21 points in the first half before taking a 16-point deficit into the second half. It could've been worse, though, if Kentucky didn't show fight in the last three minutes of the half as an 8-0 run within the last minute cut a 21-point Alabama lead to 13. Then, in the second half, the Wildcats continued to show fight, but still couldn't find a way to get a lead.

In the second half, Kentucky's defense held Alabama to two minutes without a point, stretching from the 17:48 mark to 15:38 left in the game. The Wildcats cut it to 10, but an Aden Holloway three put the Crimson Tide up 13. After a few minutes with no baskets, Kentucky couldn't capitalize on it, as they never could dig into the deficit. Kentucky's defense then stayed being disruptive, and the offense managed to cut it to nine with 4:11 left. From there, costly mistakes blew all of that effort to get to that point out the window. Kentucky was never able to cut into the lead, and before you know it, Alabama was back up by 14 with 3:32 left and it was too much to overcome.

As you can tell, execution ending up costing the Wildcats, all throughout the second half, but especially once Kentucky cut it to single digits for the first time since the 10:02 mark in the first half. The Wildcats cut it to nine twice in the span of a minute late in the game, and collapsed, with nothing to show. If Kentucky never got off to that rough start in the first half, the result would've been different. What did Mark Pope say was the reason why his team got into a big deficit in the first half? Kentucky 'hit a wall.'

Pope was asked if they are considering changing the starting lineup to try and combat the slow starts that are essentially inevitable with this Kentucky team, and here was his response: "It's interesting because our first two or three minutes were solid, and then we just, we just hit a wall. For sure, we're considering that all the time." Kentucky still did not start Jaland Lowe in this game, who had 21 points.

Alot of the talk is about Kentucky's poor three-point shooting defense, and rightfully so, as they allowed Alabama to go 15-38 from deep, making 11 more than they made themselves, as the Wildcats went just 5-19 from deep. But, they really got manhandled down low, out-rebounded 41-37 overall, including 27-12 on the offensive glass. That's against the team that came in ranked 285th in defensive rebound percentage.