The Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team is now 10-1 with their only loss coming on a road game against Clemson. The Tigers are one of the premier teams in the ACC, and it is a quad-1 loss on the resume. Thus, it doesn’t hurt the overall trajectory of the team that much. Kentucky has huge top-5 NET wins over Duke and Gonzaga, and yet still, head coach Mark Pope says this team has more and can be so much better.
Pope was asked in his post-game press conference after the Louisville game when he knew that his team was going to be good. After pulling together all the pieces and now seeing them perform at this high of a level.
“We are still learning how to do it. Our ceiling is so much higher than where we are right now in terms of the way we execute and understanding why we do it. We have so much growth we can [achieve]. “
– Mark Pope
This should be great news for Kentucky fans who are already amped about this team. This team is already one of the best in the nation. They are ranked #5 in the AP Poll, and they continue to climb up all the other rankings. They are considered one of the top teams in a loaded SEC conference, yet Pope says there is room for growth.
There is still room to grow; you can see at times that the team isn’t executing right or is a little out of sorts. They actually had more turnovers than Louisville did, and they still won. They can make up for some of their ‘still learning to play together’ by skillset, athleticism, and how quickly they can score. However, now that SEC play is just around the corner, it’s time to keep finding ways to improve. This team can do something no one expected with an SEC run into a tournament run in Mark Pope’s first season.
