How meaningful was the Bahamas trip for UK?

4 exhibition games gave fans a sneak peek at the Cats. What did we learn?

Fans of the Kentucky men’s basketball team got a mid-summer treat last week with actual live basketball from their favorite team. As expected, the Wildcats went 4-0 and showed their fans why much is expected this season. After 2 months of practice notes and breathless eyewitnesss reports about pickup games, these exhibitions finally provided the first meaningful action for the 2022-23 Wildcats. Just how meaningful were these games, though?

I honestly have no idea how good the competition level really was. UK won by an average of 50ppg, which is quite impressive when playing any college or national team. I expected a bit stiffer competition, but the Wildcats were clearly a level above everyone but their Bahamian opponents; in that case, UK was on their 4th game in 5 days and still won by 22. For comparison’s sake, Florida State won by 68 total points against 3 Canadian college teams (including Carleton, who UK beat by 62). Auburn won 2 games against lower-tier Israeli national teams by 87 combined points before losing to the Israeli senior team (featuring Washington Wizard Deni Avdija). Arkansas went 4-0 against Spanish and Italian pro teams, but 2 of those wins were by 24 total points. If a UK fan wanted to puff their chest out about this exhibition tour, they could justify it.

At Hoops Insight, however, we like to dig into the data and discover the story of what happened. In my last article, I wrote about what I was going to be watching for:

What to watch for on UK's Bahamas tour

Now that I had a chance to watch, I have some thoughts on Jacob Toppin, Antonio Reeves, Damion Collins, and more….read below to see what I think.

Toppin finds another gear

As I wrote in my Bahams preview, I expected UK to use this tour to enable Jacob Toppin and Damion Collins to settle into more prominent roles. UK used their last preseason tour as a coming out party for PJ Washington, and let Nick Richards show his skills; I expected much of the same for Toppin and Collins.

Through 1.5 games, I was pretty concerned about Toppin, to be honest. At halftime of the game against Monterrey Toppin had played 33 minutes across 2 games and posted:

• 8 points on 2-7 shooting (0-2 from three)

• 7 rebounds

• 1 assist vs 2 turnovers

• 5 blocks and 3 steals

The defensive stats are great, and the rebounding is OK, but those numbers aren’t what you’d expect from a Jacob Toppin breakout. That works out to about 10 points and 8.5 rebounds per 40 minutes, with 8.5 shot attempts. Toppin shot and scored more often than that the last 2 seasons at Kentucky, and if he was going to be a productive offensive player this season it would be helpful to show more assertiveness.

Whether he realized it on his own or the coaching staff said something, a switch flipped for Toppin after halftime against Monterrey. Over the next 2.5 games, Toppin played 66 minutes and posted:

• 59 points on 24-39 shooting (8-13 from three)

• 15 rebounds

• 9 assists vs 1 turnover

• 3 blocks and 4 steals

Toppin kept the rebounding and defensive stats, and dramatically increased both his shooting and playmaking assertiveness. In 2x as many minutes he took 5x as many shots! Toppin has too often in the past floated in halfcourt offense and been unwilling to shoot; he’s taken only about 15% of UK’s shots when he has been on the court the last 2 years. Over 5 halves of basketball, he completely changed his approach on offense for the better. That’s what UK needs from their power forward.

Newcomers flash their skills

Antonio Reeves made a splash in his debut action as a Cat, winning MVP awards and leading the team in scoring on the trip. The most interesting thing to me is that Reeves did so mostly as a three point threat, which historically hasn’t been his strength. Last season at Illinois State Reeves hit only 18 of 59 spot-up threes (31%) in halfcourt offense per Synergy; he was better working off dribble handoffs or catching and shooting in transition. Per Synergy, Reeves was one of the best scorers in the country as a pick and roll ballhandler or running isolation last season. However, he didn’t get much of an opportunity to show that part of his game as Sahvir Wheeler and Cason Wallace did most of the ballhandling. I think there’s still another component to Reeves’ game that he can show, and that’s creating off the dribble late in the shot clock.

Speaking of Wallace, he flashed some impressive defensive chops on the tour. He recorded 12 steals in 4 games, even surpassing the 8 in 4 games that Ashton Hagans put up in the 2018 tour. Hagans’ thievery was a preview of what he would do later that season as he ranked 65th in the country in steal rate; I expect Wallace to similarly put up a big season recording takeaways. Hagans is the only guard Calipari’s had at UK who ranked in the top 100 in steal rate per KenPom (Nerlens Noel did it as a big), and I think Wallace may end up joining him.

Not much range from the bigs

After a lot of practice videos and whispers about Damion Collins and Oscar Tshiebwe extending their range to possibly shoot threes this season, I was anxious to see how they looked shooting the ball. The results in their first game action weren’t great. They combined to go 0-10 from three and 4-16 on shots listed as “jumpers” per the play by play. Neither player looks all that comfortable firing away from the outside, so more work is needed before that is going to be taken seriously by opponents. On a positive note, they shots 34 of 38 on their other shot attempts, so those two should have no problem finishing inside. The fact that they were so active in getting inside shots is a good sign as well. In the game against the Bahamian team, all of their misses were on jumpers or threes, despite the inside presence of Bahamian defenders.

Adjustments to style of play

Kentucky hasn’t really changed much about their style of play in the 13 seasons under Calipari. Per Kenpom, they’ve only been in the top 100 in tempo twice, only outside the top 75 in offensive rebounding twice, and only in the top 125 in forcing turnovers once. The Cats usually take very few threes and a lot of free throws.

In some ways, UK seems to be following familiar patterns. The Cats took about 1/3 of their shots from three, which is higher than normal but likely inflated due to the competition. The Wildcats absolutely dominated the boards, but that’s predictable given the competition level.

What is interesting is that UK forced a huge number of turnovers; 83 over 4 games by my count, which is about 28% of opponent possessions. Anything above 20% is a huge number; UK has only toppped that figure once under Calipari. The odd thing is, despite the high scores UK put up the pace of the games wasn’t very fast. By my math UK averaged about 77 possessions per game; in the 2018 tour UK averaged 81 possessions per game. This time around UK was just incredibly effective at scoring on those possessions, which creates the illusion of a faster pace.

UK did fast break very effectively, scoring 131 points in transition vs 28 for their opponents. It’s more important that Kentucky be very good at scoring in transition rather than just fast-breaking a lot without much effectiveness.

The preseason exhibitions are fun for fans and they are a great way to establish team chemistry while helping define roles. They aren’t a sure path to a great season, but they do lay the groundwork and show where progress has been made. In a few months, I expect we’ll be talking about Jacob Toppin’s improved scoring, Antonio Reeves’ bucket-ness, and lamenting the lack of shooting from bigs. UK will probably not be particularly fast paced (although some of that is due to defensive tenacity), but will have an excellent offense thanks to scoring in transition. That’s what I gathered from last week, anyway.