Kentucky head coach Mark Pope still searching for his team’s ‘identity’ after blowoutloss to Michigan State

BY ALEJANDRO LOPEZ

NEW YORK–Kentucky has not gotten off to the start many may have expected from the No. 12 team in the country.

And certainly not with a reported $22 million NIL budget.

“No hate but I’m pointing it out,” basketball analyst Terrence Oglesby Tweeted. “Kentucky has real problems. They paid a lot of money for those problems.

After the Wildcats lost to Michigan State, 83-66, in the Champions Classic at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, head coach Mark Pope put much of the blame on himself.

“We won’t fail this season, we have just failed up until today,” Pope said after Kentucky’s 83-66 loss to Michigan State. “We will build an organization where we won’t be disrupted everytime someone steps in or steps out because we’ll have a team identity not an individual identity. Until we get there we are going to really struggle. That’s my job, I’m doing it poorly. But I won’t do it poorly much longer.”

Kentucky has suffered losses to No. 17 Michigan State and No. 6 Louisville so far this season. However, the Wildcats have been struggling with injury. They faced Michigan State without their starting point guard Jaland Lowe and big man Jayden Quaintance.

But Pope is putting this loss on his team’s lack of identity instead of its lack of personnel.

“We are really disappointed and discouraged and just completely discombobulated right now,” Pope said.

With or without Lowe and Quaintance, Kentucky will have to find their identity soon if they hope to accomplish what they set out to do this season.

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