Kentucky-North Carolina Postgame Quotes
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY MEN’S BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE
December 2, 2025
Lexington, Kentucky, USA
Coach Mark Pope
Press Conference
Kentucky – 64, North Carolina – 67
Q Mark, offensive rebounding, let me get the stats. 20 offensive rebounds, 22-5 in second chance points. What did you see with your guys initial defense and then just how frustrating was it to not come up with those balls after getting stops?
MARK POPE: It is a huge part of the game. We are actually one of the best defensive rebound percentage teams in the country. Credit to North Carolina. They were elite on the glass. They have size and length and their front line really dominated and they had 12 offensive rebounds just with their starting 3, 4, and 5. And we were really poor at our second hit and so that was really frustrating. It’s hard to win a game when you give up 20 offensive rebounds.
Q Mark, obviously, second half just struggling to shoot the ball. I think it was over 10 minute scoring drought. When you look at all three of the losses this season, we’ve seen those scoring droughts. And basketball is a game of a runs sometimes. But why does this team seem to struggle with scoring so frequently for long periods of time against ranked teams?
MARK POPE: We really haven’t, it hasn’t been a huge scoring issue. Tonight, it was for sure. It’s going to be hard for us to win scoring 64 points. Its uncommon for us to be 1 from 13 from three. That’s not really who we are. More disappointing is the 8 assist, that’s really frustrating. I thought in the second half our decision-making was poor. And caught up in the moment trying to make, you know, we still have and are on a steep learning curve trying to figure out how to make plays for our teammates. We shoot it well when we actually do that, and we don’t, we don’t.
Q Mark, right here. The first couple of questions have kind of addressed it. Like you said, 9 turnovers, 8 assist, 20 offensive rebounds, just 13 3s. At this point in the season, what are you most concerned with and in which area?
MARK POPE: Well, I’m really frustrated with the rebounding tonight. Like I said, that’s credit to North Carolina and it’s uncharacteristic for us. It just hasn’t been us, but we just got crushed on the glass. It’s very, very disappointing tonight for sure. But I don’t think that’s who we are. I’m really frustrated with the 8 and 9, that’s not who we’ve been either. But the MP4T stuff is a little bit of a trend right now that’s concerning and we have to find a way to break through and have the discipline to do it. We probably had a little fatigue on the floor, which I’m going to have to find a way to kind of dig deeper into this rotation to get some quality minutes. That’s going to be something really important to us as we move forward. There’s a lot we have to learn.
Q Mark, with Gonzaga coming up and Indiana, St. John’s within the next four games. How do you kind of, I guess, fragment and put those into different sections so that this loss doesn’t end up snowballing in the previous losses?
MARK POPE: Yeah, that’s your job as a pro, right? You can’t allow that. We’ve got to go through the grieving process and get back to work. I do think that we are making some strides in certain areas and I thought we had some positive play from several guys. You know, I feel like we found a little bit of ourselves in this game. And so, there is no safety net right now. We just have to get better. We will continue focusing on that and we need guys to step up and give us great efforts and I’m excited about the games we have ahead. Why play if you are not playing great teams, so I’m excited about it.
Q Mark, you talked about the offensive rebounds that UNC got. Was there anything they were doing in particular that helped them excel?
MARK POPE: Our ball screen coverage was not great. It was poor, our pick a point was way too high. We were a little too passive. Rarely at the point of the screen. We are a little bit overzealous and overconfident in our belief in what we can actually accomplish. Defensively we are putting ourselves in harm’s way. That resulted in a lot of rotation stuff with some rebounding. And then just the size also. We have a lot of times where we put a body on a body and just rested in that space instead of getting a second hit, a second hit is so important, we did a poor job there, surprisingly, like I said we’ve been a really good defensive team.
Q Coach, you guys talked about a little bit about the scoring droughts. What do you have to do differently in a 10 minute drought like you had tonight without a bucket? What has to happen to break that, to get the lid off? You talked about needing playmaking, how much are some of those guys that are injured going to help when they get back with that on the second part?
MARK POPE: Yes, there are several things that can help you. One, pace of the game can really help you. Two, having a couple of guys places you can go that you really trust to go find you a basket. Three, just simple things like catching the ball with two hands. It’s really hard, you have a wide open layup under the basket and you just dropped the ball out of bounds. There’s some inconceivable things that just happen because of the flow of the game. I wish it was one thing that you do. But it’s just a grouping of things where we just need to get better and get more solid and we’ve got to find a balance between me meddling with the game and the guys feeling the game. But all of that is part of it. It’s a struggle for us right now that is all on the foundation of this MP4T vibe.
Q Mark, I just wanted to follow up on. You said, we found a bit of ourselves tonight. Can you elaborate?
MARK POPE: I think Jelavic gave us some good minutes, I was proud of him, I think he gave us some solid minutes. I think Kam with a complicated matchup, I thought Kam had some positive minutes for us. I liked that. I thought Otega’s effort was terrific tonight. Minus some fatigue plays, I thought he was really solid and there were some positive signs for sure. Thanks guys.
KENTUCKY MEN’S BASKETBALL POSTGAME QUOTES
KENTUCKY VS. NORTH CAROLINA
RUPP ARENA – LEXINGTON, KY.
December 2, 2025
UK Student Athletics
#00, Otega Oweh, G
On not closing the game as a team…
“We just have to be more aggressive and close them out”
On breaking out of the funk…
“We just need to lean into the stuff we do. I don’t think that went away. We just can’t let that happen and that is something we have to work on as a team.”
If North Carolina was doing something to prevent 3 point shots…
“No, we just weren’t making shots, but, then the fact we got up 13, I think we didn’t see the opportunity. I think we were getting into the paint. We were being aggressive but we weren’t playing off two feet a lot where we could hit guys for open shots. We are going to see all of that in film”
#4, Andrija Jelavic, F
On Jelavic’s aggressive playing tonight…
“I definitely was on the floor more than usual tonight. I knew that it was my chance, and my minutes were going to come sooner than later. I wasn’t really thinking about guarding their best player. I just wanted to go out there and play for Pope.”
On their 10-minute and 32-second stretch without a basket…
“The saddest thing about it is that in those last 10 minutes, we were playing really good defense. They were scoring, we just couldn’t score for 10 minutes. In those 10 minutes, we weren’t really following our fundamentals, but I know we were trying to play the best we could play.”
On the team morale…
“We aren’t going to lie. We aren’t worried. We are just really sad about the past 3 games. But we are going to come back from this and learn from this. The sadness is a great motivator, plus these amazing crowds and fans. We are going to bounce back. In these tough times, we’re forced to lean on each other, and I think it’s going to be positive for us.”
#24, Malachi Moreno, C
On where the team fell short tonight…
“I think just the stretch kind of floated away from us. As the game went on, there were just a couple of plays that didn’t go our way. Outcome of the game happens, but we can only move on to the next day.”
On the 10-minute drought in the second half …
“I think shots just weren’t falling for us, but we’re always going to shoot the next one, and we’re going to live or die with that scenario.”
On how to flush this one out moving forward..
“We’re just going to flush this one out and move on to the next one. We’re just going to come in. We’re going to be ready. We’re going to be prepared. I think we just need to come together when things get tough and just run out the battle.”
Hubert Davis – North Carolina Head Coach
On what he liked about the minutes of Derek Dixon in the second half…
“I thought he was really good defensively. He’s a big guard and so we were having trouble, especially in the first half, guarding their pick and roll action, keeping them out of the paint. I mean they had 42 points in the paint. It felt like 30 points in the paint in the first half, but I thought he did a really good defensively. Containing the dribble-drive, keeping them out of the lane, and making them take shots, rebounding the basketball, and then him just running the team. There was situations where we ran a play, and we just didn’t get what we were looking for. In those times, you just need players to step up and make plays, and Derek made a number of them. I’m really happy for him.”
On the things UNC was doing to make Kentucky miss 13 straight shots…
“I thought we weren’t—from a defensive standpoint—making mistakes. Kentucky is an unbelievable team, but I felt like especially in the first half they were scoring off our mistakes, and I felt like we were sound and simple on our defensive end. We were standing between them in the basket. We were giving them one contested look, and then we were boxing out and rebounding. I always go back and say that rebounding is the most important factor in the outcome of a game, and we got 20 offensive rebounds, and we out rebounded them by nine and that to me was the ballgame.”
On the resilience he saw from his team…
“One of the things I always tell them is I’m not a really big stats guy, but I will use them to confirm what I already know. I keep telling them ‘This is who we are. We have to get to the offensive glass; we have to get second-chance opportunities’ So I’ve got great evidence that what I’m telling them is beneficial not only to them personally but also as a team, which is a huge factor for us.”
On Caleb Wilson struggling on the floor and what they saw taking him away..
“Caleb is not just a scorer, he’s a dude. This guy can score, he’s an elite passer, and he led our team in assists. More teams are now loading up on him, double-teaming him, and trying to make him more of a passer than a scorer. That actually benefits us because he’s such an elite passer, and we always talk about making plays—not just in scoring, but what can you do out there to be a benefit to the team. He checked a number of boxes there, and I think some of the shots we got were because of how much attention was paid to him, so he was fantastic tonight.”
North Carolina Student Athletes
#8, Caleb Wilson, F
On Derek (Dixon)’s three at the end…
“I’m so happy for him. That was fun. I’m glad he had the confidence to take it, honestly. He’s a great player, and he’s just going to keep showing it.”
On getting more attention offensively…
“It’s just something I have to figure out. I missed shots today that I should not have missed. I’m not really tripping off of it, but just knowing where the stuff is coming from, watching more film to prepare, and just having my teammates communicate with me.”
On what the team has been working on in practice in regards to late-game plays…
“Just details—just screening, communicating, being physical. Just simple stuff like that once you’re in games.”
