Mark Story: After taking a horrid loss, this is what Kentucky must do to save its season

Mark Story, Lexington Herald-Leader on Feb 18, 2026

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — I was on a Louisville sports radio chat show last week when the host asked my opinion of what it would take from the 2025-26 Kentucky men’s basketball season to leave the Big Blue Nation satisfied with Mark Pope’s second year as the Wildcats head coach.

After UK (17-9, 8-5 SEC) absorbed a horrid 86-78 home-court loss Tuesday night to a previously reeling Georgia team that came to Lexington having lost five of its prior six contests, that question flashed through my mind again.

With their season slipping away, Mike White’s Bulldogs (18-8, 6-7 SEC) came into Rupp Arena and played with a desperation that Kentucky failed to match.

A 31.7% 3-point shooting team on the season, Georgia drained 45.2% (14 of 31) Tuesday against a lackluster UK defensive effort.

“We were not good defensively tonight,” a dejected-sounding Pope said after the game. “You know, in the second half they shoot 57% (actually 57.1% on 8 of 14) from the 3-point line. They are the lowest assist-per-field-goal-made team in our league, and they were 20 (assists) and seven (turnovers) tonight. That’s just a poor commentary on our defensive effort.”

With Georgia deploying the kind of physical defensive tactics that Vanderbilt employed when it throttled Kentucky 80-55 last month in Nashville, the Bulldogs forced 13 UK turnovers while committing only seven of their own. That led to a 22-9 discrepancy in points off of turnovers in favor of Georgia that was the difference in the game.

Putting the capper on a sour night, Kentucky’s penchant for errant foul shooting — the Cats were 12 of 20 from the free throw line — finally cost UK in a big way.

Kentucky wasted Otega Oweh’s 28-point performance, which tied his career high, as well as Collin Chandler’s 6 of 10 3-point shooting en route to 18 points.

“We just did a poor job, I mean, we really did,” Pope summed up.

Now, the path to UK compiling a season that would satisfy a fan base that is frustrated by what has been a five-plus-years run of relative Kentucky basketball mediocrity looks a lot steeper.

The 2025-26 Kentucky campaign began with stratospheric expectations. It crashed and burned amid blowout losses on big stages in the early season. It then rose toward respectability in SEC play. However, the loss to previously struggling Georgia undoes a lot of the good will the Wildcats had recently generated.

Says here this is what UK needs to do to make the BBN at least satisfied (which is not the same as happy) with the current season:

— Earn a double bye in the SEC tournament. Last season, Pope’s first on the UK bench, Kentucky entered the league tourney as the 6 seed.

To draw a bye into the quarterfinals, Kentucky needs to finish in the top four of the league standings.

UK played at Florida last Saturday with the league lead at stake. Two losses later, the Wildcats are now behind or tied with six other teams in the SEC standings.

Three of Kentucky’s final five SEC games are on the road: at Auburn (14-11, 5-7 SEC), at South Carolina (11-15, 2-11 SEC) and at Texas A&M (17-8, 7-5 SEC). UK also has home games with arguably the two best teams in the Southeastern Conference, Vanderbilt (21-4, 8-4 SEC) and Florida (20-6, 11-2 SEC).

Having lost to Georgia, UK may need to win out, or at least go 4-1, to have a shot at a double bye in the SEC tournament.

— Win at least two games in the SEC tournament. Amazingly, Kentucky has not won more than one game in the conference tourney since Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Wildcats to the 2018 league tournament title in St. Louis.

Getting back to winning multiple games in the SEC tourney would represent meaningful program progression.

— Make the second weekend of the NCAA tournament. Last season, Pope coached Kentucky into the second week of March Madness for the first time since 2019.

The Wildcats would have to make at least a regional final to improve on last season’s trip to the round of 16. With Kentucky down three players who figured to be starters due to injuries, that may not be realistic.

But returning to the Sweet 16 would back up what Kentucky did last season and, at the least, re-establish UK as a program that expects to win multiple games in the NCAA tournament every year.

Obviously, it would be best if Kentucky could exceed all these goals and win championships in 2025-26. Failing that, it would be a big boost to Pope as he enters his third season as head coach at his college alma mater if his second UK team could perform well enough down the stretch to gin up some positive momentum to take into what shapes up as an especially consequential offseason.

By failing to match the competitive ardor of a desperate Georgia team Tuesday night, Kentucky made the task of making this season something UK backers can feel satisfied with much more difficult than it had to be.

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