BY ALEJANDRO LOPEZ
Of the four teams who entered the World’s Most Famous Arena on Tuesday for the Champions Classic none left with their heads hanging as low as Kentucky.
The Wildcats were thrashed by Michigan State in an 83-66 blowout. Kentucky head coach Mark Pope wants to make sure it’s a feeling him and his program never experience again.
“It’s not great on my part,” Pope told reporters while reflecting on the defeat. “All kinds of emotion, as you’d expect, frustration and misery, and all the things that happen in a game like that.”
It took Mark Pope 55 minutes to talk to the media after Kentucky’s 83-66 loss to Michigan State.
Pope talks about the tense postgame locker room.
“It’s not great on my part… All kinds of emotion, as you’d expect, frustration and misery, and all the things that happen in a… pic.twitter.com/Q6BNzygxNa
— Tristan Pharis (@TristanUda) November 20, 2025
Pope took an unusually long time to come out of the locker room and address the media after their defeat, taking over 45 minutes after the final buzzer to sit in front of the microphone. When he did sit down, it was easy to see the defeated expression on his face.
“We’re going to feel this pain, so that we want to never feel this pain ever again,” he said.
While Kentucky did appear non-competitive in the Champions Classic relative to the other participants, it is still one regular season loss in November. But, Pope undoubtedly wants to make sure that this experience is the lowest him and his program get the rest of the season.
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