Mark Pope says Kentucky's progress on offense is 'frustratingly slow'

It doesn't take an expert to know that Kentucky basketball has struggled badly this season, but mostly on offense. The struggles on that end of the floor date back to Kentucky's loss against Michigan State, where head coach Tom Izzo and the Spartans ripped Kentucky apart in a 17-point win. But when it really reared it's head was the embarrassing performance in Nashville, where Kentucky lost 93-58.

Kentucky fans may remember Mark Pope's comments about the team's lack of competitiveness early in December. Well, now it has become a big execution problem, not necessarily an effort issue. Over the last month, Kentucky has picked up two power conference victories against an unranked Indiana team in Rupp Arena, and a 22nd-ranked St. John's team who has yet to find themselves and were once a top five team coming into the season. Since those wins, which looked big for momentum at the time, Kentucky has suffered two more losses against quality teams. A 17-point embarrassing loss to Alabama on the road and now a brutal late-game collapse against Missouri in Rupp Arena. The Wildcats have reverted, and overall on the season, their offense has looked bad, only looking good against teams ranked 250-plus in D1. The team has no identity on the court, but Mark Pope says it's there in practice, but it's still not showing up when the lights are bright.

"We’re having a tough time translating,” Pope said. “This stuff they’re doing in practice, it’s not translating. I’m not exactly sure why, but we’re having a really tough time translating. ...We're working hard to really just simplify everything, just so, so simple. It's a work in progress, and it is frustratingly slow. It just is so frustratingly slow."

What's going into Kentucky's struggles translating their play in real games? Pope says it's an issue with their pace on offense, more so in the half-court, which can become an issue as the game goes on and loosens up. "Part of it is the weight of what's going on for sure. But you know, the game kind of breaks a little bit for us in the second half, like it did (against Missouri), where we kind of finally manufacture some pace into the game. But we do a poor job of pace in the half court. So, pace is twofold. You can have pace in transition, which is awesome. Once we get to in games, our pace in the half court stinks all the time. And part of it is the personnel that we're playing with. Part of it is, you know, the guys maybe overthinking. ...Our pace in the half court has been like the manifestation, the DNA of who we are on my teams, and it's incredibly frustrating that we're not finding that right now."

The Kentucky coach said the staff has recently began really simplifying things on offense for his players, because as Pope puts it, "It is like we're in molasses out there." He knows that until Kentucky finds some movement in their halfcourt offense, not just relying on transition opportunites, his Wildcats won't be a good team. Whether it's sprinting to a screen or cutting, Pope wants to see more movement on offense to help free up space. "We're emphasizing every day about sprinting to screen and it is like we're in molasses out there. ...We're not going to be good until on the offensive side until we find some pace. We're just not. When you don't have any pace, everything's easy (for the defense)."

A harsh truth was spoken straight from Pope himself. That can be priority number one all the time in practice, but like the head coach said, it's got to translate into real games, and it hasn't been doing that. Kentucky has to get that to do so quickly before it actually is too late.