Just a week ago, Kentucky appeared to be finding their rhythm. After two straight losses, they went into Tennessee’s house and knocked off the No. 6 team in the country with a 78-73 win. Momentum, right? Well, that lasted all of eight days. Since then, Mark Pope & Co. have suffered back-to-back defeats, first against Arkansas and now in a complete defensive collapse against Ole Miss.

After their loss, Pope was asked how many three-pointers he would ideally want his team to concede per game. He replied, “It would be zero. That would be my preference.” Now, obviously, that was a bit of a joke—he knows that’s practically impossible.

But what’s not a joke is the Wildcats’ defensive struggles. Pope himself admitted, “For us, the biggest frustration we’re feeling right now is on the defensive end, and I’m doing a poor job of finding answers to that right now.”

And honestly, anyone who watched their game against Ole Miss would agree with what the Wildcats’ HC said.

The Wildcats got steamrolled in the first half. Ole Miss came out on fire, and by halftime, Kentucky was already staring at a 23-point deficit. It felt eerily similar to their game against Arkansas, where they gave up countless open shots. And just like that game, the defense was practically nonexistent.

The numbers paint a grim picture. Ole Miss shot 54% from the field, including 43% from deep. The Rebels also managed to score 54 points in the first half without committing a single turnover. Read that again. Zero turnovers. That’s historically bad defense. Fair enough, why fans are frustrated, this must be hard to watch for them.

Even though Kentucky made a push in the second half, cutting the lead down to 11 at one point, it wasn’t enough. The Rebels hit a few big shots down the stretch and sent the Wildcats packing with a 98-84 loss.

And if you thought that was bad, here’s an even uglier stat. Kentucky only forced one turnover the entire game. For context, most teams average at least 10-12 forced turnovers per game. This was a defensive disaster from start to finish.

But you know, Kentucky wasn’t just bad defensively—they were bad at everything and their coach agrees. 

Mark Pope knows it’s not just the defense

Pope put it bluntly after the game, saying, “Right now, in this moment, in this game tonight, we weren’t actually good at anything.” And really, it’s hard to argue with that assessment.

The last time Ole Miss scored 90+ points against Kentucky was in 1971. That’s how bad it was. The first half, in particular, was one of the worst in recent memory. On top of the defense, Kentucky’s physicality was lacking. Ansley Almonor and Trent Noah played a combined 28 minutes and recorded zero stats. Missing key ball handlers like Lamont Butler and Kerr Kriisa certainly didn’t help, but that alone isn’t an excuse for such a lifeless performance.

Pope himself admitted the issues go beyond just defense. “We’re hemorrhaging a little bit in like 10 different categories,” he said postgame in the radio segment. “We probably didn’t really actually perform any of our fundamental defensive concepts. Sometimes it’s hard to know why that is. But it’s something we’re going to fix. But it’s really painful right now, for sure.”

And the pain keeps piling up. With this loss, Kentucky has now dropped four of its last five games. Next up they face South Carolina at home. It should be a perfect bounce-back opportunity, but with the way things are going, nothing is guaranteed.

If Pope and the Wildcats don’t figure things out soon, this freefall isn’t stopping anytime soon.