Mark Pope calls Kentucky’s loss to Ohio State “devastating” and “worst ever”

The Kentucky Wildcats are 10-2 on the young season and are coming off their worst performance of the Mark Pope era thus far.

Playing in the annual CBS Sports Classic, the Cats faced off against the Ohio State Buckeyes in a game many viewed as a likely win for UK in New York City.

No one told the Buckeyes that as they came out and dominated the Cats from the tip in Madison Square Garden, scoring a 20-point win.

On his Monday radio show, Coach Pope talked about the loss, and you can really tell how much he wanted to win this game for the BBN.

“What a bad night. Just devastating. It was just the worst, the worst ever. To do it in that venue wearing this jersey, it’s devastating.” Pope said.

The hope is that this loss will help Kentucky will learn from this performance and use it as fuel to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

“There’s nothing you can do with it but help dig in and help it make you better, right?” Pope stated. “And in long conversations with our guys and our staff and digging into the numbers, the nuts and bolts, it’s also exciting to grow and get better and to move forward.”

Once again, this is a message that just shows that Coach Pope gets what this program means to the Bluegrass State.

Now, the Cats will turn their attention to a matchup with Brown on New Year's Eve as they look to get back into the win column before the gauntlet of the SEC begins.

Who does conference play start with? None other than a top-10 team in the Florida Gators coming to Rupp Arena.

Going to be an interesting few weeks to see how Kentucky responds.