The Cats need to find an answer at the free-throw line.
The Kentucky Wildcats have had a brutal stretch of games the past few weeks with Florida, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, and most recently, Alabama.
The SEC is hands down the best conference in college basketball this season, and Kentucky’s schedule shows exactly that.
The Cats were most recently in an absolute battle with Alabama on Saturday but fell short at Rupp Arena, 102-97.
Kentucky has struggled this season, keeping opposing teams off the free-throw line, and that seemed to be the glaring issue on the stat sheet yet again against the Crimson Tide.
Alabama finished the day with 29 free throws made (34 attempted) to Kentucky’s just 16 free throws made (20 attempted), a 13-point swing at the charity stripe alone.
After the game, Mark Pope made it clear that this is an ongoing issue that has to be corrected.
“For us, it’s been such a huge emphasis all year long to guard without fouling, and we’ve been good at it. We’ve been actually really good until league play. And league play has gotten complicated for us. So, that’s a space where we have to get better,” said Pope. “We can’t send teams to the free-throw line 34 times, and that’s part of us learning. Part of us being more disciplined. Part of us maybe scheming out some things a little bit differently.
“Maybe on my end, being a little bit more courageous in terms of the punches that we throw out there, defensively, trying some new, exotic things. It’s going to be a combination of those things.”
The SEC is incredibly stacked this season, but Pope knows you can’t win massive games when being unable to guard without fouling.
“We can’t bail teams out with fouls. We’ve gotta handle teams in transition, and we’ve gotta keep them off the glass.”
The Cats now hit the road for back-to-back road games against Vandy and Tennessee.