Mark Pope says Kentucky's decision-making improved a lot against Loyola

The talk around this Kentucky basketball team as of late hasn't been good, as one national writer even called Kentucky "the most disappointing team in the country through the first two weeks." The defense has lacked effort lately, especially the two recent embarrassing losses in marquee matchups, and the offense has looked stagnant, with minimal flow. But, on Friday, Kentucky was able to work through some of those kinks en-route to a blowout win over Loyola, including decision-making, which is a major part in how Pope's system flows.

There's not much that could've happened against Loyola that would definitively change fans' perspective on the season, given how the team has played in their first two tests of the season, but fans should be happy with how the team's morale looked after such a brutal seven days. On the court, the Wildcats didn't look out of sync at all. A team's assist-to-turnover numbers are often pretty reflective of their decision-making, and the Wildcats had 21 assists to 9 turnovers on the night. They even had 5 players in double-figures, with all 9 players playing significant minutes contributing in the scoring column. Kentucky's offense was very fluid, and they really took care of the ball, with most of those turnovers coming late in the second half.

Mark Pope was impressed with his team's decisiveness after coming off a game where they faced a team that's identity revolves around making opponents very uncomfortable with their physical defense. "Michigan State is a terrific defensive team, and so they didn't allow us a lot, but we actually were so indecisive in that game that it was paralyzing, and I thought we were more free and decisive today. The way we play is incredibly demanding of making decisions," Pope said. "And so here you have to make a decision, be aggressive in implementing, and then live with the outcome. And we have all kind of methodology to buy ourself more time to make a decision, but we don't buy ourselves time to make a decision by freezing or stalling. Our guys were better. ...We spent the last three days talking about being decisive. On offense, it's about our guys making decisions."

On the defensive end, Kentucky averaged 10.1 turnovers forced heading into the game, which ranked 300+ in the country, but forced 11 Loyola miscues in just the first half, The effort was totally there on Friday, which helped lead to better decisions on the offensive end. Kentucky even had 24 points off those turnovers, while Loyola had just two points off Kentucky's.

Kentucky will look to carry over what they were able to get back going on Friday when they take on Tennessee Tech in another game where they'll look for a smooth showing before their next big test comes to town on Dec. 2 in the North Carolina Tarheels, who feature Caleb Wilson, a former Kentucky target and one of the top freshmen in college basketball.