Mark Pope says Kentucky is still finding its way offensively

Kentucky played excellent defense, but its offense still has some work to do, and Jaland Lowe helped that.

Dec 9, 2025; Lexington, Kentucky, USA; Kentucky Wildcats guard Jaland Lowe (15) drives to the basket during the second half against the North Carolina Central Eagles at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center. Mandatory Credit: Jordan Prather-Imagn Images | Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

The Kentucky Wildcats put together their best defensive performance of the season on Saturday night against the Indiana Hoosiers. In a game that, based on the other four games against power four opponents, Kentucky had every right to just let an Indiana offense that was coming off a 113-point historic performance earlier in the week do whatever they wanted to them. Well, that wasn't the case, as they fed off the crowd's energy and brought the aggressiveness all night.

Kentucky forced Indiana to shoot a season-low 4-24 from three as well as commit a season-high 18 turnovers, which they scored 23 points off of. On the other end of the ball, it wasn't a good, flowing product unless Jaland Lowe was in the game. Lowe actually played the most minutes he has played since the Louisville game, where the same observation can be found in that game. Kentucky found a way to put up points aside from having a terrible shooting night, going 3-15 and having to win a rock fight, only scoring 72 points. But, not every game is going to play out like that, and Pope knows they have a long way to go on offense, but Lowe knocking the injury rust off certainly helped on Saturday.

"I actually thought it was beautiful tonight.  The relentless force was beautiful," Pope said. "But there’s not a lot of pretty offense out there.  We are still trying to find ourselves.  J-Lowe helps us. I thought it was great with drive lines and great with KD and a incredibly physical game. I thought our guys were ordinary in the gap. We talk about winning the gap all the time and that’s one of the things Indiana does great. That’s the way they turn you over is you go in the gap and they kind of sucked everybody in there and it’s all hands on the ball.  I think for the game, guys we had 4 turnovers which is incredible.  We didn’t make any shots, right?  And so just kind of like this mucky, forced inside game and I thought J-Lowe was really terrific for the most part, being able to re-attack and re-attack and re-attack and use the CL screen and kinda find ways to actually makes some things happen. Once he gets his rhythm back and makes some of those bunnies, he would have had a really impactful game."

Lowe being back is such a bright spot for this Kentucky offense, as he helps create and make plays, instead of everyone looking around for someone else to make a play whenever he's not on the floor. They're still going to have to learn how to play without him on the floor, because he can't play all 40 minutes, but it was good to see him back and the way Kentucky was able to score by attacking the rim. They went 3-15 from three and didn't try to force anything, going right back to what was working, which was playing aggressive on both ends.

They'll look to tighten things up offensively during this much-needed week off before Saturday's game against St. John's, but that performance was certainly a good start with improving after not much has gone right at all leading up to it.