You almost couldn’t script it better.
On Tuesday, Paul Finebaum took a call from a man named Vance from Georgia. While waiting on hold, Vance casually mentioned that a tree had crashed through his bedroom. A full-blown natural disaster — inside his house.
And instead of hanging up to deal with it, he stayed on the line to talk college sports.
That’s the level of chaos surrounding the program right now. And somehow, Mark Pope’s Kentucky Wildcats look even colder than the weather outside.
Finebaum noticed.
“Why does this keep happening?”
Finebaum makes a living stirring the pot — but this wasn’t a hot take. This was reality. He finally asked the question Kentucky fans have been yelling for months.
“I’ve been a big supporter of Mark Pope,” Finebaum said. “But at some point you have to take a pause and go, ‘Why is this program continually getting blown out?’”
That’s the issue. Losing happens. Bad nights happen.
Getting run out of the gym repeatedly is something else entirely.
The numbers are brutal
There have been highs. Kentucky tied a national record last season with eight wins over Top-15 teams. That’s impressive. That matters.
But the lows? They’re historically ugly.
Kentucky has trailed by 17 or more points in seven of eight road games this season.
Nearly 22% of Mark Pope’s power-conference games have featured a 15-plus-point halftime deficit.
Read that again. This isn’t bad luck. It’s a pattern.
“They’ve been ineffective in the first half too often,” Finebaum said. “They dig themselves holes. And the way things are going in his second season, Pope has a lot to answer for.”
He’s right.
‘Eviscerated’ is the perfect word
Finebaum didn’t sugarcoat how this looks from the outside.
“He still has supporters,” he said. “But every time he goes on the road and gets eviscerated, it becomes harder to defend him.”
Eviscerated fits. Vanderbilt didn’t just beat Kentucky — they ended the game in the first 20 minutes. No fight. No edge. No urgency.
That’s the part that has fans nervous.
The mercenary response
And how did the players respond?
After the 25-point loss in Nashville, Denzel Aberdeen shrugged it off, saying it was time to move on and not think about it too much.
That response might work after a close loss. It doesn’t work when embarrassing blowouts keep piling up.
When a tree crashes through your bedroom — like it did for Vance from Georgia — you don’t stay calm and wait for the next segment.
You panic. You react. You fix the problem.
Right now, Kentucky isn’t doing any of that. They’re just staying on the line, hoping the next call goes better.
And that’s why Finebaum’s question hit so hard — because it’s the same one every Kentucky fan has already been asking.
