Mark Pope says Kentucky's transition execution was 'poor' against Louisville

Kentucky went into Tuesday night's game with the 4th-best defense analytically in college basketball, but at the same time, they were facing the nation's 4th-best offense, too. Something was going to give in the Yum! Center, and for Kentucky, they were on the wrong side of it. The Wildcats got out-hustled and physicaled for much of the game, aside from spurts that helped put Kentucky in a postion to win at the end, thanks to their fight. But, Tuesday's struggles is cause for a concern, especially in transition.

Louisville is one of the fastest tempo teams in college basketball. Kentucky went into this matchup knowing they had to keep up with the Cards, even beleiving that they could. Well, Tuesday proved they couldn't as the Cards looked a step ahead for much of the game, and it was evident, as Kentucky struggled to not only get back in transition on defense, and Louisville's pressure, really got to the Wildcats. Mark Pope knows his squad will need to tighten up in transition on both ends, but especially defensively, getting back quickly and getting set. Pope says it was pretty similar to what they struggled with against Georgetown.

"The pace is transition hurt us. We didn't really respond well to it. It got us spread out, and we just never recovered. ...It was the pressure in transition where I thought we were very poor, and then us getting out of transition, back into our shell principles was just incredibly poor. We had a terrible outing against Georgetown, and we kind of came back and and made real progress. And leading up to this game, I think we all knew that. We just knew that we were facing an issue that we hadn't found a good resolution to in practice, and it showed on the court tonight."

Kentucky's defensive issues started with their poor transition defense. The Wildcats just couldn't get out and run as quickly off missed shots as Louisville. The Cards forced 14 turnovers and scored 19 points off them, while Kentucky forced just six and had 19 points off them. Louisville got plenty of good looks from three, and a big reason why they were so successful from deep is guys not getting back on defense for Kentucky. The trio of Mikel Brown Jr., Ryan Conwell and Isaac McKneely, Louisville's top shooting threats, combined for 10-27 from three. What made it worse? Brown and Conwell were terrific at making the defense bite, able to get to the rim with ease, Those two combined to go 18-23 from the line.

Mark Pope said to the media and in his postgame radio segments that his team still has to really work on their "shell principles" on defense. Discipline seems like an issue on that end of the floor, because they got outworked on Tuesday. The Wildcats didn't look anywhere close to the 4th-best defense in the country, but they'll have a lot of time to work on it before their next big test.