6 hours Ago By Ben Grunert
Ohio State shocked the college basketball world by upsetting No. 4 Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden . The Wildcats had one of their worst shooting nights in recent memory, hitting an abysmal 29.
8% of their field goal attempts and 18.2% of their 3-pointers. Kentucky head coach Mark Pope was brutally honest about the defeat in his postgame press conference.
“A ton of credit to Ohio State,” Pope said, per Zach Geoghegan of Kentucky Sports Radio . “They beat us in pretty much every facet of the game, and they deserve a lot of credit. Congratulations to them.
“There’s a lot of ways we can get a lot better. I felt like our guys were trying to find some juice, find some energy, find some fight. We just fell really short.
” Not one Kentucky starter shot better than 33.3% from the field. Meanwhile, Ohio State junior Bruce Thornton dropped a career-high 30 points.
Mark Pope sends optimistic message about his team’s mentality Despite the humbling loss, Pope seems confident in his team’s ability to take the defeat and learn from it. “We’re gonna lose a lot of sleep over this,” Pope said . “It’s hard to go into a break with a loss like this.
We gotta find a way to do better when we are under duress like this. This is going to be one of the lynchpin moments in the season that is going to change us for the better.” Kentucky’s first chance to bounce back will come in a New Year’s Eve matchup with Brown University.
The Wildcats could use a win before they take on a loaded SEC schedule in January. Pope’s squad will face four top-12 teams in seven January outings. Kentucky fans might be worried about their team moving forward, but Pope certainly isn’t.
“I know exactly how these guys will respond.”.
