Quick thoughts on Kentucky's opener
One game doesn't mean much, but there were some interesting things that happened!
Before Kentucky’s opener last Wednesday against Morehead State, I posted some thoughts on what I’ll be watching for over the Cats first few games. The Wildcats are stepping up in class with their next game on Sunday against the Richmond Spiders, but there are some interesting tidbits we can discuss before putting the Morehead State game to bed.
Lots and lots of garbage time
For my new readers, I prefer to filter out garbage time when looking at game data. Ken Pomeroy wrote a nice article a couple years ago that tried to determine when garbage time really is; that is, at what combinations of margin and time remaining is further team performance not really relevant? He found that there’s a bit of sliding scale: 25-point margin with 10 minutes left, 18-point margin with 5 minutes left, or 15-point margin with 2 minutes left.
There was a ton of garbage time in the Morehead State game, as Kentucky led by 30 with 10 minutes left and maintained that lead. For my purposes I exclude anything that happened in the last 10 minutes since it likely wasn’t meaningful action. You could argue that the game wasn’t meaningful earlier than that, and you might be right. But I have to set thresholds somewhere, so everything I’m going to cite is from the first 30 minutes of game time only. Sound good? Thanks!
Some things change, some stay the same
I wrote in my pre-season thoughts that Kentucky should be able to use their length and athletisicm to force more turnovers. Through one game, we can give that an emphatic “Yes”. Kentucky forced a turnover on 30% of Morehead State’s possessions. While this was one game against an overmatched opponent, that opponent turnover rate was the highest Kentucky has posted since January 3, 2017 against Texas A&M.
This allowed Kentucky to get out in transition and get some easier baskets. UK took 51% of their shots within the first 10 seconds of the shot clock during this game. Last season Kentucky only beat that figure twice (EKU and Fairleigh Dickinson), and was only above 45% one other time. It certainly seems like the expectation of transition excellence from this Kentucky team is going to hold true.
I also expected that Kentucky would be a stronger defensive rebounding team, shoring up a major weakness from last season. There wasn’t any evidence against Morehead State that the Cats have made strides in that area. While I noted that Olivier Sarr had a strong defensive rebounding pedigree, he collected zero defensive rebounds among 12 missed Morehead State shots when he was in, outside of garbage time. Overall, my data had Kentucky collecting 63% of Morehead State’s misses. That’s worse than Kentucky did in all but 6 games last season, and it came against a woefully undersized and overmatched low-major team. That needs to improve against Richmond. There were some encouraging signs, however. When Isaiah Jackson was in the game, Kentucky got 73% of defensive rebounds, and that jumped to 78% with the Sarr/Jackson frontcourt. Also, Kentucky collected 64% of their offensive rebounds, which is a ridiculously high number. They’ll probably be fine, but the Cats need to be able to get 70-75% of their opponent misses.
Some kinks to work out on offense
I also mentioned in my pre-season post that I expected some difficulties in halfcourt offense as a completely new roster meshes. That showed up against Morehead State in a major way. While Kentucky put up a sterling 67% effective FG% in their halfcourt offense (defined as >10 seconds into shot clock), that was largely due to strong jump-shooting. The Cats hit 43% of their threes and 70% of their midrange shots; over the last few years they’ve averaged about 35-40% on each. What’s concerning is that Kentucky only took 15% of their halfcourt shots in the paint; against such an overmatched team you’d expect the Wildcats to get there at will and take somewhere around 50% of their halfcourt shots from closer in. The only Wildcats to take shots in the paint in halfcourt offense were Brandon Boston and Terrence Clarke, which is a bit surprising given UK’s size advantage. This will get worked out over time, but Kentucky didn’t establish any real post game in this one. A lot of this was due to Morehead’s defensive scheme; they would send double teams when Olivier Sarr caught the ball near the post, and trapped ballhandlers in the pick and roll to keep UK from getting into their rim-run action. Sarr and Jackson did their damage on offense in the midrange, as they would frequently face up and take jumpers. That wasn’t Olivier Sarr’s strong suit at Wake Forest, but it’s worth watching to see if he can continue to have success shooting from midrange or if he can get more aggressive as a post scorer.
Much to learn about the point guards
This game wasn’t the best challenge to measure Kentucky’s point guards. Sunday’s game against Richmond will be a much stiffer test with defensive menace Jacob Gilyard looking to bottle up Davion Mintz and Devin Askew. That being said, it is a bit concerning that UK’s 2 point guards combined for 7 assist and 5 turnovers against a very weak opponent. Mintz had turnover issues at Creighton, and it seems unlikely that he’ll solve those after being unable to for three years. Freshman PGs like Askew also tend to have turnover issues. I’d expect this to rear its ugly head a few times for Kentucky, especially early in the season.
The Richmond game will also be a good barometer of Kentucky’s perimter defense. Cam’ron Fletcher drew plaudits after the game for his defense, and UK generally seemed engaged there, but the ability to contain ballhandlers at the point of attack will be a huge factor in containing opponents and keeping UK’s big men from picking up cheap fouls. It is encouraging that, prior to garbage time, there was only 1 occasion when a UK big man picked up a foul having to help stop a ballhandler (Sarr with 10:24 left in the first half). Richmond’s guards will provide a stiffer test, and it’s worth keeping an eye on how often the Spider ballhandlers get into the lane and draw help from UK’s bigs.
Overall, it was an encouraging debut for a completely new Wildcat team. The return to health of Keion Brooks should help shore up some of the defensive rebounding, as he was quietly very good in that area last season. I’d also expect Kentucky’s offense to see improved spacing as players settle into more defined roles and get more used to each other. Having tremendous length, athleticism, and skill on the wing is a nice place to start form while you’re figuring out the rest.