Kentucky coach Mark Pope has found himself in one of the hottest seats in college basketball after his No. 18 Wildcats were blown out 94-59 by No. 11 Gonzaga Bulldogs on Friday.
Kentucky fans roundly booed the expensively assembled Wildcats roster off the court at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
Mark Pope Responds to DeMarcus Cousins’ Jab at Kentucky
After the game against Gonzaga, former Kentucky star DeMarcus Cousins threw a jab on X about the application of Pope’s current Kentucky team. “Can’t lie…this uk team has no heart! This is hard to watch smh,” Cousins tweeted.
After a reporter read Cousins’ tweet to him during his post-game news conference, Pope addressed the former Kentucky star’s jab aimed at his team, “I have no issue with what he said, in the sense of, you’re watching that game, you feel like starting with the coach, this problem is completely unacceptable,” Pope said. “So I think that as a former player, I’m pissed with the coach too, and that’s just all deserved. There’s nothing inappropriate about what he said at all.”
Cousins first committed to the Memphis Tigers before following coach John Calipari to Kentucky in 2009, leading the team to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament. He was drafted No. 5 overall by the Sacramento Kings during the 2010 NBA Draft.
Pope Accepts Kentucky’s Fans’ Criticism
The Kentucky fans have not had much to smile about this season after their team fell to 0-4 against ranked opposition after losing to Gonzaga. The Wildcats have lost to the Louisville Cardinals, Michigan State Spartans, and North Carolina Tar Heels already this season.
During his post-game news conference, Pope took the boos from the Kentucky fans at the Gonzaga game in stride and challenged his team to improve their woeful form.
“We’ve kind of diminished a little bit into a bad spot right now, and we have to dig ourselves out, and it’s going to be an internal group thing,” Pope said.
“We feel the responsibility we have to this university and this fan base, and that all the boos that we heard tonight were incredibly well deserved, mostly for me, and we have to fix it,” he added.
Things might get harder for the Wildcats before they get better. They will host the No. 22 Indiana Hoosiers and No. 23 St. John’s Red Storm at Rupp Arena on consecutive weekends before going on the road to Tuscaloosa to face the No. 12 Alabama Crimson Tide on Jan. 3 to open their SEC conference slate.
