Mark Pope says that foul trouble threw off their game plan when they lost to Clemson.

One thing about Mark Pope is that he knows a lot about the game. He is always looking for ways to improve his basketball IQ, whether it’s how to be a better coach, how to handle his players better, how to make the game move better, or anything else. Pope would rather learn, but losses often show what needs to be learnt because they bring out and make worse weaknesses.

Going into the game, Clemson had a clear plan to attack Kentucky with tough play. So I would say that they learnt that from how Western Kentucky played against the Wildcats, but Clemson already plays a tough style of basketball. As a result, the Tigers stepped it up to throw Kentucky off guard and stop the fast-break points that the Wildcats love so much.

Because both teams were being so rough, fouls were called. However, Kentucky was hurt the most when Lamont Butler and Andrew Carr each got two early in the first half. Once that happened, the game changed in favour of Clemson.

The difference in points that David Sisk pointed out in the tweet above is shocking. Not having Butler and Carr on the court made Kentucky a very different team from having them. But they both got two fouls early in the second half, so Mark Pope took them out of the game.

Pope told the press after the game, “It was hard to deal with Lamont’s foul problems in the first half and his injury in the second.” He also said it was likely that he should have played Carr and Butler with two fouls and trusted them. With that many points between them, those two were very important to get the win. It was hard to stick to the game plan because of these fouls, which caused players other than Butler and Carr to play more minutes than expected.