LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — So it’s not going to be a care-free romp to the Final Four after all for the Kentucky basketball team. It’ll be potholes and bruises. Growing pains and grimaces.
And they started Thursday night in Rupp Arena, with Georgetown playing the role of early-season dentist, extracting confidence without anesthesia.
Six nights ago, Kentucky looked like the next big thing in college basketball. It buried Purdue under a pile of shooters and substitutions. It played ten-deep with flair. It felt fun.
This didn’t.
This was 84-70. Georgetown over Kentucky. A Big East team picked to finish sixth walked into the House That Rupp Built and knocked all the china off the shelves.
And Mark Pope, new architect of this vintage blue empire, didn’t offer excuses. He offered truth in a beautifully comprehensive string of adjectival phrases.
“Incredibly brutal,” he called it. “Painful.” “Embarrassing.” “The worst thing in the world.”
And then he said something worse.
He said it was what he wanted.
Exposed. With purpose.
“This is a really important game for us,” Pope said. “You’re always looking to get exposed.”
Well, mission accomplished.
Georgetown outscored Kentucky 38-24 in the paint. It out-toughed the Wildcats off the dribble and through the midrange. It made Kentucky’s third defender vanish like a magician’s assistant.
Pope tried every chalkboard trick he had — ice the ball screens, switch the back side, sink the bottom — but the Hoyas kept cutting through it like a steak knife through wedding cake. The mystery of the high ball screen returned.
“We were out-physicaled the whole night,” Pope said. “… Ed (Cooley) did an unbelievable job picking on us … we just weren’t ready to step up to that challenge as a team.”
The cost of no point guards
Kentucky played without its two point guards, Pitt transfer Jaland Lowe (shoulder) and Florida transfer Denzel Aberdeen (leg). What followed was a night of good intentions and bad ideas.
The Cats committed 15 turnovers and shot 33 percent from the field. They went 0-for-13 from deep in the second half, a stretch so barren it could’ve qualified for federal drought relief.
The assist-to-turnover ratio — 14:15 — told Pope everything he needed to know. The Wildcats got downhill, but not to create. They got sped up, but not on purpose. They made it harder than it had to be.
“We got slower and less patient instead of playing faster and more patient,” Pope said. “And I know that sounds contradictory, but that’s exactly what happened to us tonight. … We turned down the simple play a lot.”
For Kentucky, it was the first exhibition loss since 2014 and just the 13th ever in 128 exhibition tries.
Tom Leach, the Voice of the Wildcats’ radio broadcasts, summed it up when he said, “I know it doesn’t count. But this one is not going to score well on Rotton Tomatoes.”
Wish I’d thought of that one.
Not runaway good. But maybe team great.
Here’s Pope’s most telling quote: “We’re not runaway good. We’re just team great. … We’re not going to go just dominate people because our individual talent is overwhelming.”
Translation: This isn’t a mixtape team. This is a chemistry experiment. I’m not sure that’s been the dominant narrative about this roster, but here we are.
Otega Oweh had 17 points. Jasper Johnson had 7. Mouhamed Dioubate battled inside, the whole game. There were good signs. But Kentucky wasn’t connected. Not defensively. Not emotionally. Not yet.
That’s the truth Georgetown delivered.
This wasn’t the celebratory second act of the Purdue performance. It was a different genre. A sobering sequel. A film Pope plans to watch frame by frame with his players, because in his words, “The film’s gonna be pretty brutal.”
The gift, if they take it
Pope didn’t duck the pain. He leaned into it. He talked about missed plays, mental lapses, and the ugly marriage of impatience and indecision.
“This gives us a chance to grow,” he said. “And I couldn’t ask for anything better … in a terribly awful painful exhibition game.”
There’s no shame in October struggles. But there is risk in ignoring them.
So here it is, filed under column, not panic: Kentucky’s not a juggernaut yet. There will be more of these nights. More games where the offense gets jammed, the defense gets twisted, and the youth looks, well, youthful.
But if Pope is right — if these Wildcats are wired to learn, to lean into the pain, to trust each other — then this loss will be a bruise they remember, not a scar they wear.
They open the season Tuesday night against Nicholls.
If they’re smart, they’ll still carry the bruises from Georgetown, and enough preparation to heal them.
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