Mark Pope says his players are wearing themselves out in practices and workouts

This Kentucky basketball team has had a lot to work on recently, and certainly as of late after putting together an embarrassing performance last week all the way around, falling to North Carolina at home, where the offense never looked good, but most notably on Friday, where an embarrassig product was put on the floor in a 35-point loss to Gonzaga.

Well, Mark Pope was on his weekly radio show Monday night, where he said it has been a rough couple of days since the loss. "It's a major overhaul, reconstruction. It's been super emotional and really taxing, and at times really ugly and violent, and growing." Pope added, "It's hard right now and we're reconsidering everything."

The Wildcats haven't looked very competent as of late, but especially on the offensive end and after last game, many, many well-respected people in the basketball world have questioned this team's effort and heart. Pope said something on his radio show that should start to ease the harshness of the no effort talk, because his comments suggest the players are trying. Fans can either believe it or not ultimately, but Pope says a lot of his guys have been working too hard off the court, something that has clearly lacked in real games and has not translated when it matters.

"One of the things that is important for probably BBN to know that I need to be more vocal about this. I'm actually trying to get my guys off the court. Otega is getting in three workouts a day right now. He's coming in again at 11 o'clock, where I've kind of tried to start banishing from the gym, because he just is wearing himself out a little bit right now. These guys want so badly to do this. They're feeling all of the heat that you should feel wearing Kentucky jersey, and they're putting in so much time, it's almost like, no, we're reserving your work for this practice time for this film time, for these meeting times, and maybe just one extra shooting session, and then you're not allowed to back on the court because it's not serving you well. ...They're actually doing so much extra, trying so hard to, like, live up to where we're supposed to be, that I got to dial them back so they can have their energy and freshness to focus on what's most important."

Mark Pope compared what some of his guys are doing in practices and workouts to one of his own past experiences, where he to worked himself too hard outside of games. "I went through this as a player at the University of Washington after my freshman season at Washington and coach Nance had challenged me with a bunch of stuff. And so I was going through this insanity of a daily workout grind. It was, it was beyond pale. I could take you through each step every single day. And, you know, about six weeks into this three month training session, my body was just breaking down, where I was just getting worse and worse and worse. And it had pushed it past the point of being productive and and that's one of the things with some of our guys."

Kentucky has a lot of other issues right now beyond just effort, but Pope is clearly making sure the effort narrative is no longer a thing. His guys are trying, but maybe a little too hard when it doesn't matter. It's about finding answers on the court, and having the effort translating into games is going to be important moving forward.