Why was Mark Pope brutally honest about where Kentucky's defense stands?

Mark Pope had a press conference this week and broke down a lot of things that have been going on during summer practice for the Kentucky Wildcats.

One of the things that came as a surprise was Pope's thoughts on the team's defense. Coach Pope talked about how the defense still has a lot to improve on before the season.

This freaked out some Kentucky fans because the players have been talking to the media for weeks and talking about how good the defense has been and how it could be the best defense in all of college basketball.

Coach Pope more than likely had a plan when talking to the media about the Kentucky defense. He first talked about how, in the first quarter of the La Familia scrimmage, the team gave up 1.8 points per possession to the alumni team.

This makes sense as it was the first time they defended someone else in a while, and it took these players some time to adjust.

While Coach Pope said the defense needs work, this does not mean it has been bad. Without question, the defense has stuff to improve on before the first game of the season, but the Wildcats will improve.

Coach Pope doesn't want to tell the media, "Hey, my defense is incredible and will be a big reason why our team will be elite". This would make the team complacent when there is still a lot of work to be done.

Kentucky fans shouldn't worry about the comments on the defense, as this team is full of athletes, and once they start playing together, it will be lock down.