ST LOUIS — Kentucky coach Mark Pope spent the weekend in St. Louis questioning some of the numbers that were attached to this year’s team.
On Sunday, there was one that couldn’t be easily dismissed — the margin of defeat. The Wildcats’ 19-point loss in an 82-63 defeat against Iowa State was Kentucky’s largest defeat in an NCAA tournament game since 1972.
The seventh-seeded Wildcats were hoping to reach the Sweet 16 for the second-straight year since Pope was hired to replace John Calipari. Instead, they exited in the second round in a year that never truly came together for them.
“These guys won games in the NCAA Tournament back-to-back years, and at any other school, that would be good,” Pope said after the game. “At Kentucky, the uniqueness of Kentucky, that’s not the answer.”
The Wildcats (22-14) have one of the most storied programs in college basketball. Kentucky has 17 Final Four appearances in the men’s tournament, the fourth-most of any program in the country (excluding appearances later vacated by the NCAA). But Sunday’s loss at the Enterprise Center ensures that 2015 remains as Kentucky’s most recent trip to the tournament’s final weekend.
Iowa State (29-7) was without senior forward Joshua Jefferson, who watched from the end of the bench while he nursed a sprained left ankle. Cyclones coach T.J. Otzelberger said Jefferson will have an MRI on Monday morning to determine his status moving forward.
But the No. 2-seed Cyclones were able to easily handily Kentucky without Jefferson. After missing their first 11 3-point attempts, Iowa State found a rhythm at the end of the first half. Senior guard Nate Heise drilled a corner three at the end of the half that capped an 8-0 run and gave the Cyclones a 31-30 lead at the break.
From there, the route was on. Senior guard Tamin Lipsey scored a career-high 26 points and had 10 assists and five steals. According to ESPN Research, Lipsey became the third men’s player in NCAA tournament history to have at least 25 points, 10 assists and five steals since 1986, the first year steals were fully tracked as a metric. Junior forward Milan Momcilovic also scored 20 points and was 4-of-9 from beyond the arc.
But the most impressive stat was one that also will go into the record books for Kentucky. The Wildcats committed a season-high 20 turnovers. That also matched the most for Kentucky in an NCAA tournament game since 1993. Otzelberger credited the team’s approach throughout the season for that impact on Sunday.
“They’re relentless. Their spirit, their desire to win, competitive endurance when things get hard — they’re an unbelievable group,” Otzelberger said after the game.
For Kentucky, Sunday was a fitting end to an up-and-down season. Pope lamented key injuries that hampered the Wildcats throughout the year. Junior guard Jaland Lowe played in just nine games this season and had season-ending surgery in January. Sophomore forward Jayden Quaintance only suited up for four games because of complications from a torn ACL and meniscus in his left knee that he suffered last season at Arizona State.
Kentucky lost five of its last seven regular-season games. In the first round of the NCAA tournament, the Wildcats needed a half-court heave from senior guard Otega Oweh to force overtime in what was eventually an 89-84 victory.
After Sunday’s loss, Oweh and senior guard Denzel Aberdeen both cited a lack of consistent effort as a factor for the team’s struggles this season.
“We didn’t play fully hard for the full 40 minutes,” Aberdeen said. “We had to do a better job. I feel like for the most part we tried to turn it around as much as possible every single game.”
While Aberdeen felt like improvements were made over the course of the season, it wasn’t enough to send Kentucky into the next round. Instead, Iowa State is the team that will face either Tennessee or Virgina in next week’s regional in Chicago.
After the game, Pope continued to brush off the $22 million number that has been attached to the payroll for this year’s group. Even if there’s not enough context to see where that ranks among other teams in the NCAA, it was a signal of the investment made into a program seeking elite results.
But after Sunday’s loss, Kentucky will have to wait at least another year for that to happen.
