Mark Pope on Kentucky basketball’s loss to Ohio State: ‘We fell really short’ By John Clay| UK Athletics December 21, 2024 at 9:42 PM Kentucky men’s basketball coach Mark Pope talks to the media after the Wildcats lost 85-65 to Ohio State in the CBS Sports Classic on Dec. 21, 2024, at Madison Square Garden in New York.
UK basketball has time to figure out what went wrong vs. Ohio State. But not too much time.
The Big Blue Express was rolling. Kentucky basketball owned a 10-1 record. A No. 4 ranking in the AP Top 25. Enviable positions in both the KenPom and NET metrics. Universal praise for what new coach Mark Pope had accomplished. Then splat — New York happened. Call it the Big Apple Bashing.
The Cats delivered lumps of coal for your Christmas stocking, beaten 85-65 by the Ohio State Buckeyes in the CBS Sports Classic. Kentucky didn’t shoot well. Kentucky didn’t defend well. Kentucky was beaten badly by an Ohio State team that had been overwhelmed 91-58 against Auburn the Saturday
Wildcats free-fall in rankings following Ohio State thrashing
Kentucky lost to Ohio State by 20 points in CBS Sports Classic 85-65.
The Kentucky Wildcats are plummetting down the rankings after a disaster performance at Madison Square Garden in the CBS Sports Classic against the Ohio State Buckeyes. While the new AP Rankings haven’t officially come out yet, the NET and the KenPom rankings have shown that it may not be pretty. The fall may be dramatic.
Kentucky is now 17th in the NET rankings, and they were 9th going into the game. They fell not simply because they lost to the 32nd NET-ranked team but because they were pummelled by them. They lost by 20 points on a neutral court; this affects things more than you would think. While it is still a Quad 1 loss, and Ohio State may have a decent season, it’s not encouraging if you are a Kentucky fan.
KenPom rankings also dropped Kentucky from 11 to 26 in a pretty dramatic fall. KenPom moved the Buckeyes up to 28 after they beat down the Wildcats. The Buckeyes haven’t looked good against good competition at all this year, and they came out and rattled Kentucky so much that even the layups weren’t falling. It was bad
KenPom has lost some of the hope it had earlier in the Wildcats. The analytics it uses to predict games now thinks Kentucky has a .500 record in SEC play. Which is a far cry from being one of the favorites to win it. The holes have been exposed in the Wildcats, and getting thrashed on national TV at Madison Square Garden by a not-very-good Power 5 team has caused many analysts to change their tune on the Cats.
It will be interesting to see how the AP voters handle the Kentucky loss; while they will assuredly be ranked as they still have two of the best NET wins in the country right now, they will drop dramatically as they did in the NET and the KenPom.
Most major bracketologists, including Joe Lunardi of ESPN, projected Kentucky to be one seed in the tournament before this Ohio State game. The first one to drop their update has them now as a three-seed. It was a game the Wildcats will look to forget, and they have one more non-conference game before they get to take on the undefeated Florida Gators for an amazing opportunity to right the ship.
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