The consensus around Mark Pope's first season as head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats is positive. He produced a solid regular season and took UK to the Sweet 16. It's been a good debut. But there's one giant red flag flapping in the wind after a truly terrible first half against Tennessee: These blowout losses are a problem.
To be fair, as of this writing, Kentucky has not lost to Tennessee. They simply trail by 15 points at halftime of their Sweet 16 appearance. The deficit grew at large as 19 points. The Volunteers out-rebounded the No. 3 seed 22-13. They had more offensive rebounds (9) than the Wildcats had defensive rebounds (8).
The No. 3 seed losing to the No. 2 seed isn't the end of the world. Getting thoroughly dominated does a lot to flip perception towards the negative.
College basketball Reddit reacts to Kentucky's no-show vs. Tennessee
One Reddit user pondering if Kentucky's former coach had entered the building.
"I would believe you If you told me John Calipari snuck back in and tied up Mark Pope and threw him in the broom closet," crappysandwich said.
Kentucky no-showed in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals as well. Alabama rolled in a 99-70 victory. Obviously, the Crimson Tide are one of the best teams in the country. The lack of defensive energy is a worry.
"I like pope but these absolute beat downs are not acceptable on any level," IAM4UK wrote. "At the very least your team has to show up defensively if the shots aren’t falling. I know we’ve not been great defensively but this has happened multiple times this year where we look uninterested."
Other social media users wanted to see Pope bring more fire to the court.
Mark Pope needs a break a table into pieces and challenge his guys to show a little heart. Remind them that this guy flipped off their logo. Whatever it takes. Man up.
— Anthony Wireman (@awireman) March 29, 2025
This is up there with the effortless loss at Ole Miss and SECT loss where they just give up. I’m turning this shit off. Mark Pope sucked in his first 2nd weekend. Hope he’s suffers from this pain and sickness for a year. I’m sick.
— CoachesCards (@CardsCoaches) March 29, 2025
Mark Pope has done a great job this year for the time he had to get a team together but tonight is an embarrassment for Kentucky basketball. He didn’t have them ready. The sets are a mess. We have no heart or resilience that he brags about. On to next year. Congrats Tennessee.
— Brandon Sparks (@bsparks2523) March 29, 2025
Despite the rough first half, there was still a lot of optimism from Kentucky fans on Reddit and Twitter.
After this game, the Mark Pope haters are gonna come out of hiding, and I ain't hearing none of them. Taking this team, with their injuries to the Sweet 16 is a better job than Cal ever did.
— Vance Meek (@vancemeek) March 29, 2025
"I don’t wanna lose to UT, but all things considered, even if we lose this game in the sweet 16, I’m not gonna be upset. I’m not gonna be happy, but especially considering injuries, Pope has overachieved all UK fan expectations this season," Ken_The_Andal said. "And we have so much to look forward to now that Pope will have a full year of his own staff, returning players, his own recruits, and more transfers he knows will flourish in his system."
The Wildcats dug themselves into a hole in the first half vs. Tennessee but win or lose, the season will have left fans with more to look forward to in the future. For Mark Pope, that might lessen the sting a bit.