Kentucky-Missouri Postgame Quotes
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY MEN’S BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE
January 7, 2026
Lexington, Kentucky, USA
Coach Mark Pope
Press Conference
Kentucky – 68, Missouri – 73
MARK POPE: We are really frustrated with the ending of the game. I thought our guys came and tried to compete the best they could and our execution down the stretch was poor. You have to be able to execute better to win games. Take questions.
Q Is on a 15 – 2 run, final 4.5 minutes. What specifically did you see over that time and especially that last minute with those two turnovers?
MARK POPE: Yeah, it was tough. We were up 8 and we have a time-out and we come up and give our horns duck catch that we had gone over and over and over and just got caught by surprise, really unfortunate at that point. We come down and we turn it over sideline out of bounds and we trail 5. Just a poor effort on cutting and getting catches and being disciplined and we just choose to turn normally and we get a 3 for Kam that we really like. We get a 3 for J Lowe that was okay. We would much rather had, he was having great success putting his head down and getting in the lane and then we had the two backdoor passes, the sidelined out of bounds backdoor pass where is just standard action for us when they take away the zipper we get a catch with the 5 and we go back door. And it just went out of Otega’s hands and inexplicably sometimes it happens that way. The look with BG and Kam on the back door on the other side is exactly what we like, it’s exactly what we do. It’s wide open and we just did not execute it. You know, we tried to reject the last screen and had good success on rejects and flips on that left side and J Lowe opted to go middle and we didn’t make the plays we needed. So, really frustrating. And I am grateful for our guys fight and I thought they competed. I thought the game was messy like you would expect this game to be with that much size on the floor. I thought we did what we needed to do and we just had things not go our way the last 4 minutes 30 seconds.
Q Mark, it was another slow start for your guys today. You trailed at halftime again. What’s been the biggest theme this season for why you guys have been out for a slow start?
MARK POPE: I think I’m really stressing with our pace and our movement. I’m just really frustrated. We are emphasizing every day about sprinting the screens, sprinting the screens, sprinting the screen. It is like we are in molasses out there and we are trying to simplify and dumb things down. But man, we are just, I’m disappointed with the pace and I’m disappointing in our willingness to get to the second side and I’m disappointed with our physicality ducking in. You know, when we do that, when we turn the corner on some of those things, we will be good. But we are not going to be good on the offensive side until we find some pace, we are just not. We found more space to play a little smaller than I thought we would in this game. We actually found some space to do it. I think when we did, we were effective. When you don’t have any pace, everything is easy. Ball screen defense is easy, screen aways are easy, flow action is easy when you don’t have any pace and we don’t have any pace right now.
Q Mark, obviously second game in a row that Jayden Quaintance has kind of struggled. What does this team need to do to put him in a better position and what does he need to do better to kind of see more success?
MARK POPE: I wouldn’t even call JQ struggling. Guys, he has not played basketball in 10 months and he’s coming back from a massive injury. The fact he was on the floor for 17 minutes and play with that kind of physicality, he’s tremendous. So, he’s going to get better every single day and he’s a superstar in the making. You know, it’s hard. This is a hard process for him. There’s no doubt about it. I was proud of him for stepping in the starting lineup and coming out being competitive and physical and he’s going to get better and better.
Q Mark, what was the message to the team that last time out and what did you see on that execution?
MARK POPE: Yeah, we just tried to keep it as simple as we could and wanted to go milk the same reject action we had. And we just didn’t inexplicably again, we had no pace running into it. We just were a little frozen. We just didn’t execute it the way we wanted to.
Q Mark, two-part question here. What is the message to the team as far as morale goes after a loss like that coming off of the Alabama loss? And then for you, what is the message to the BBN for the rest of the season when the morale is down like this?
MARK POPE: It’s a hard space. This is tough, it is not the way we intended to start SEC. But it is exactly what we have in our hands right now. When you go through hard times, which everybody does, the question is how much does it take to break you? And I’m not about to break, this group is not about to break, and we are no place there. The only thing you can do is grieve as quickly as possible and move on to the next incredibly challenging game, which we have on Saturday. With the effort of trying to get better. These guys will. BBN has the right to do and say and act however they want, they are the greatest fans in the world and I’m sure they are incredibly, incredibly frustrated and upset. So, they get the right to do whatever they want. In terms of this team, we don’t have that opportunity. Our job is to suffer all night long, figure out how to do this a little bit better, get a little bit tougher, dig in a little bit harder, execute a little bit more well and move on and win games.
Q Mark, you talked about the pace and being frozen. I’m sure you’ve had teams that you considered you had really great pace. What is missing or why is the pace not there?
MARK POPE: You know, we have some moving pace pieces. We are playing a little bit bigger. You know, we are working hard to really just simplify everything just so, so simple. It’s a work in progress and it is frustratingly slow. It is just so frustratingly slow. So, you know, getting our group to believe in what we do and actually execute what we do and then execute when the lights are on has been incredibly challenging so far. We got to keep going.
Q Mark, you moved Lowe and Quaintance into the starting lineup tonight. It’s only the fourth or fifth game that you played with all of those guys together in terms of the starters tonight. Are there certain benchmarks you are looking for in terms of how they work together just to see the continuity in order to get the pace and the kind of play that you want to be at?
MARK POPE: Yes. Our second side play was just nonexistent tonight. And that’s really disappointing. Actually, we kind of lost some of the physicality of our duck game, which should have been a crucial factor to what we did today. It was the first time going with this lineup. You know, we will probably morph the lineup a little bit as the game sees fit all through the season. There was a lot of benchmarks, and those being a few of them.
Q Mark, you guys won fast break points 24 – 7. Obviously, you want to get out there. But there was still times where you were just imploring guys to get down the floor. Is this stuff they are doing in practice and it’s not translating or do they still need to flip that switch and know to just go?
MARK POPE: We are having a tough time translating. I’m not sure exactly why. But we are having a really tough time translating. So, part of it is there is some new, for sure. Part of it is the weight of what’s going on, for sure. But we tend, the game kind of breaks a little bit for us in the second half like it did tonight where we kind of finally manufacture some pace into the game. You know, we do a poor job of pace in the half-court. Pace is twofold. You can have pace in transition, which is awesome, which we get to in games. Our pace in the half-court stinks all the time. And part of it is the personnel that we are playing with. Part of it is the guys may be overthinking. Give some credit to the defense also, for sure. Our pace in the half-court has been like the manifestation, the DNA of who we are on my teams. It is incredibly frustrating that we are not finding that right now. That is why we are trying to simplify everything and dumb it down, dumb it down so it’s incredibly simple so we can just at least execute with some pace and some decision-making. But we are not there yet, clearly.
KENTUCKY BASKETBALL POSTGAME QUOTES
KENTUCKY VS. MISSOURI
RUPP ARENA – LEXINGTON, KY.
JANUARY 7, 2025
KENTUCKY PLAYERS
#3, Kam Williams, F
On the final play …
“We drew up a little play call. Try to figure out what the best option was and their defense kind of did something different than we were prepared for, so we just had to kind of hoist up a shot.”
On the team’s slow starts …
“I guess it’s just putting more points on the board, trying to play with extra pace. Coach has been emphasizing about playing a little faster. So, I guess we just didn’t play fast enough to win this game. But we get to practice tomorrow and just get ready for the next game.”
On moving the ball on offense …
“We have everything that we need to win the game. We’re just not capitalizing on the plays that need to be capitalized on. So, you get back in the lab, get back to practice.”
On how Missouri’s closing stretch …
“They were just making shots and we were missing shots to sum it up. Pretty good guard play, good wings, good bigs. They played together. They knew where they wanted to go and, in late game scenarios, they found them.”
#10 Brandon Garrison, F
What made it difficult to guard the paint…
“I would say that our shots just weren’t falling tonight. I thought our guards were getting to their spot, but they just couldn’t get them to fall. I feel like we have to step up in that area on defense. I feel like we still have a great front court, but we must bring it every night.”
What’s the mentality in the locker room after a 0-2 start in SEC play…
“We’re trying to win every game of course, but we have to keep our heads high and try to forget about this game and go to practice tomorrow and get better and go and get this win on Saturday.”
How different is the offense this year from last year…
“Obviously, everybody knows we changed it a little, but we all need to get into the offense and have to run it right for it to work, but we’re still in practice and we’re still working on it and waiting for it to click for us.”
#24, Malachi Moreno, F
On how frustrating the game was…
“That last possession, you know, they had that offensive rebound. I should have done better on that. That was supposed to be my rebound, I’m going to take full accountability for that one. It wasn’t just that one, though.”
On not making the plays and turning the ball over…
“Our pace was a little messed up. We were still trying to figure each other out. We have guys coming back from injury, we are figuring out where people fit, different lineups and everything. We are just figuring that part out right now.”
On the message after the game…
“Just trying to keep the guys together. I think tonight we showed a lot of fight but we still didn’t play our best basketball. A lot of people say our pace is very intermittent right now but again we have a lot of people coming back from injury and we’re trying to figure out the different spaces where guys fit. We’re just learning every day and we’re trying to make the most of it.”
On the morale in the locker room…
“I can fully and confidently say that we are going to bounce back. I don’t think there’s a single soul in the locker room that thinks we won’t. We’re all here together. We’re here to represent this.”
MISSOURI HEAD COACH DENNIS GATES
On the gameplan in transition offense…
“Well, I think ultimately, part of their resilience in terms of Kentucky and Mark is to get the ball out in transition. And they did a good job. They minimize their three-point shooting, I believe, at the 10-minute mark, in the first and the second half, they had about 10 three-point attempts, so they lived behind the three-point line late in the game. And our zone, whatever it was, they made a few, but it put them in a stagnant situation. And like you said, transition was the way they got to the paint once we withstood and listened, not picking up fouls that were cheap, I think our guys ended up being able to rebound, keep plays clogged up the middle. Sean Phillips played a tremendous game. I’m absolutely proud of Sean Phillips, he is a tremendous player, and he just helps us out with his vocabulary, being able to talk point. And he was sort of an anchor down there. But again, Mark Mitchell, I created Mark and how he led his team.”
On the biggest key to settling into the game…
“Just focus here on this basketball. Our guys were able to play their best basketball. We minimized Kentucky’s transition. They didn’t make many three-point attempts. I thought we didn’t fight as much, but that last play in that first half hurt us, and from that point, they went on like a ten-zero run, and we kind of got our feet back up under us at that moment, and how we responded, this game wasn’t won tonight. It was won in shoot around. It was won in practice, and I just blew the whistle every single time a guy just even put their pinky finger on somebody in practice, even shoot around and disrupt it. And the way our guys responded after hearing a whistle was ultimately how we won the game. You look back at the clips, it was almost like they were cheering once we got a foul called on us, meaning our team. And that’s rare, but what’s rare is how they responded, how they stayed together, how they were able to execute the game plan, stay focused, remain resilient, and they were active listeners completely throughout the game. In every situation, they took over the hubs I didn’t want, and I don’t want credit. I don’t want any credit.”
On what he saw from his team at the five-minute mark…
“Well, I spent my last time out at the five-minute mark, I think, and at that point it became the players’ team. It did not become our team. And what we practice is being able to communicate at a high level. Again, I got our sports psychologist with us, who’s sitting right there, and he’s done a tremendous job with our team building program and everything else, but psychologically and emotionally, getting these guys prepared to play, but play for each other. And when you see no time out, every huddle, our guy’s echo, no time out, no time out, every single time. The other part of it is in that moment, whenever Kentucky called a time out, they helped us. They helped us get settled. They were able to help us huddle, and at that point, our guys ended up communicating, and we were able to steal some moments in in-game execution, and that’s what they did in our fire drill. We call it the fire drill, when we get under the two minute mark, out of bounds plays, things like that. We didn’t turn the ball, and that’s the part that won the game for us.”
MISSOURI PLAYERS
#25, Mark Mitchell, F
On what he saw from the team in the final four minutes…
“Yeah, I think that’s just us not breaking, it just accumulating. Obviously, what we’re doing, the core is important. But just the amount of time we spent together, the amount of just team building we’ve been doing, I think that was just an accumulation of everything. We didn’t win, we just stayed stronger, got closer, got more together.”
