Mark Pope wants the Kentucky Wildcats to shoot even more threes

Kentucky basketball got an 11-point victory on Wednesday night over Colgate, a game that was looking to be a blowout through the first few minutes of the game. Thankfully a second have run sparked some momentum for the Wildcats to pull away for the win. A lot of why the Wildcats allowed the Raiders to stick around in the first half was due to the poor shooting from three-point range and their defense guarding long range shots.

In the first half, Kentucky shot just 4-15 from deep, with Koby Brea making all of them. The Wildcats were thankful for him when they went to halftime only up by two points. Colgate started off cold too, but they turned it on and finished the half 8-19 from deep. That led to Kentucky starting the second half needing a run, and a few minutes in, they started getting it going, and the run was sparked by two threes from Jaxson Robinson and a three from Trent Noah. That was exactly the momentum the Wildcats needed.

Mark Pope addressed the shooting issues recently when talking to media after the game, and he wants the volume to go up with the amount of threes they are taking.

"I wish we could get to 35. It is kind of a standard for us. We would like to hold. We would like to be there. ...For us we have to earn them. Really what the 30 threes translates is we are getting unbelievable movement, we are really, really in attack mode and we are really getting downhill and earning power plays, right? That we are playing off two feet and we have a ton of motion away from the ball. To get to 30 threes to us the way we should have, it is a measure of how we are moving, and how intentional we are on the offensive end and how we are screening and cutting and those are all results because we want to shoot catches and shoot threes. The nights where we don't get a lot of threes is probably because we are not aggressive enough downhill, in transition, not cutting and having the first cut, second cut, third cut action. ...For us it's just the volume. Our volume has been down and it's been a little frustrating to me."
Pope on Kentucky's volume of threes.

Pope also says that having a 'catalyst' like Kerr Kriisa back would really help with their energy levels, and he could certainly help push the agenda there. Kriisa is expected to return in around six weeks from now.