NEW YORK — On the 25th floor of the team hotel Tuesday morning, Kentucky players went through their customary day-of film session. At the end of the 10-minute scouting report through Michigan State’s roster, a brief hype video played. The words “FIGHT NIGHT AT THE GARDEN” accompanied Kentucky basketball highlights interspersed with boxing prize fights of yore at Madison Square Garden.
Kentucky’s coaching staff knew Michigan State was going to arrive looking for a brawl. Associate coach Mark Fox had the scout and offered succinct advice.
“Pack your switchblades,” Fox told the team. “It’s gonna be a street fight.”
Nobody checked the cargo on the way to the bus. Kentucky forgot their weapons and showed up with lemons to a knife fight.
Michigan State — a team that entered the day shooting 21.7% from deep, ranking 352nd out of 365 teams — sliced UK in a most shocking way, sinking 11 of its 22 3-pointers and rollicking to an 83-66 Champions Classic win.
“Did we make more 3s today than we made all year?,” MSU coach Tom Izzo said. “That’s not meant to be funny.”
What Michigan State did to Kentucky and its roster worth a reported $20 million-plus was no joke. The 12th-ranked Wildcats were outshot, out-hustled, out-schemed and outplayed by the 17th-ranked Spartans. Mark Pope’s had only a few head-scratching losses in his 41 games running the program. Tuesday night’s defeat was alarmingly bad, the worst of his young tenure.
It was also the first time Pope ever coached against a Tom Izzo team, and boy did it look like it.
“The No. 1 failure of communication is assuming you’ve done it,” Pope told CBS Sports prior to Tuesday’s loss, later adding, “words mean different things to all of us. Experience to attach those words to, they mean something very different.”
The words would prove prophetic, because Kentucky is out of sorts and Pope is taking on all the blame. His messaging is…
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