Things aren’t exactly going Mark Pope’s way in his second season in charge of his alma mater, Kentucky. The Wildcats are 17-10, 8-6 in the SEC and have lost three straight games, including Saturday night’s buzzer-beater to Auburn in Neville Arena.
The key play came with Kentucky having a one-point lead and the ball with 14 seconds left. Trying to inbound the ball, Wildcats’ guard Collin Chandler was called for an offensive foul, giving Auburn the ball back and a chance to win it. A tip-in by Elyjah Freeman with one second left clinched the game for the Tigers in a game Steven Pearl’s squad had to win for their NCAA Tournament hopes.
Mark Pope blamed the officials for Kentucky's latest loss
Pope was not happy with the call after the game, calling it embarrassing and unacceptable twice, before leaving the press conference room and being overheard saying the following:
“Mitch, if those MFers try to fine me, they can’t. I didn’t say a word about how they cheated us.”
The Mitch he is referring to is longtime Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart, who was in attendance at Auburn on Saturday. And the ironic thing is that before he went on a tirade about the officiating, Pope started out by saying that he doesn’t make excuses.
It seems like he does now, failing to take advantage of arguably the most expensive roster in college basketball and turning it into a team on the bubble for the tournament. His lack of awareness of the number of missed calls on both ends – Tahaad Pettiford was called for a foul on a three-point shooter in the first half when he wasn’t even close to touching him – and his turning it into a talking point points toward a coach that is out of answers, out of ways to take this team that was ranked in the top 10 preseason and make them better than mediocre.
Every coach has been on the wrong side of missed calls. Auburn football saw a string of them this year, in which the SEC had to apologize for one. And yes, SEC officiating has to get better, as they have lost the trust of every conference fan over the last decade or so.
In the end, Pope had to find a reason why his team lost. It certainly wasn’t going to be because of coaching malpractice, right?