What UK needs from their freshmen, and Oscar's not really going to shoot threes, is he?

Last season's UK offense was elite and can stay that way if two freshmen can contribute in specific ways. Plus, should Oscar Tshiebwe be shooting threes?

Kentucky’s offense has almost always been very good under John Calipari, and it’s often been elite. According to KenPom.com, only the 2021 season ranked outside the top 40 in adjusted offensive efficiency. In 13 seasons, the Wildcats have been in the top 25 in this stat 11 times and top 10 5 times. In recent years Kentucky had slipped somewhat, however. From 2017-2021, UK never ranked higher than 12th in adjusted offensive efficiency after posting top-8 offenses 4 times in the first 7 years under Calipari.

I’ve written before about some of the issues that plague Kentucky offenses, with a dependence on low-quality midrange shots causing bad stretches along with turnover issues. In recent years, Calipari-led UK teams have taken a large portion of shots from midrange and turned the ball over at fairly high rates. Last season’s offensive renaissance was due in part to improved accuracy from midrange as well as improved ball security. However, some of the key contributors who drove this improvement are gone, and in their absence UK will need two promising freshmen to continue the trend.

Another reason for UK’s offensive resurgence last season was the inside play of Oscar Tshiebwe. His dominance in offensive rebounding is already the stuff of legend, and his combination of volume and accuracy on shots around the rim is unmatched at UK in the Calipari era. This offseason there’s been talk that Oscar will look to expand his shooting rangeto the three point line in a bid to improve his NBA stock. I have some serious questions as to whether this will offer any benefit for Kentucky, however, and I’m skeptical that we actually see that come to fruition.

In this edition of Hoops Insight, I analyze the role UK’s freshmen need to play in keeping the offense elite as well as offering the reasons I’m not a fan of Oscar Tshiebwe: Three Point Shooter.

Keep taking care of the ball

Under Calipari, Kentucky frequently plays with two or more guards at once who have lead ballhandler skills. Whether it’s Wall/Bledsoe, Ulis/Murray, Hagans/Quickley/Maxey, or Wheeler/Washington, it’s been a staple of the Wildcat attack. Last season’s duo was the most effective Kentucky has had in a long time in one particular area: assist-to-turnover ratio. A strong college point guard will usually be above 2:1, and last season both Wheeler and Washington were above 2.3:1. Only Tyler Ulis posted a better mark in his Kentucky career since Calipari became head coach. As a team, Kentucky registered 1.4 assists for every turnover last season, the highest team mark since the 1996 title team. Most years under Calipari the Wildcats barely register more assists than turnovers; the 2021 disaster even saw the Cats turn the ball over more often than they assisted.

According to KenPom.com, UK ranked 61st nationally as they turned the ball over on about 1/6 of their possessions in 2022. That broke a 4 year streak where Kentucky ranked 122nd or worse in that stat. UK doesn’t tend to register assists at a high clip relative to the rest of D-1, as they’ve never ranked in the top 100 nationally in assist rate (% of baskets coming off an assist), although last season UK did reach a high water mark under Calipari by ranking 109th.

Much of the driving force behind this increased ball security has now departed. The players UK lost off last season’s team combined for an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.65:1, with TyTy Washington, Davion Mintz, and Kellan Grady all performing very well by this metric. The primary contributor was Washington, who registered 120 assists and just 51 turnovers. Among UK freshmen guards, only Tyler Ulis had ever put up over 100 assists with an assist-to-turnover ratio above 2:1. Cason Wallace has some big shoes to fill in this regard, but he’s got a very solid pedigree. In 19 games of EYBL play last season, Wallace registered 58 assists and just 24 turnovers, for a 2.4:1 ratio. Washington had posted a similar 2.5:1 ratio during his high school career, so it seems reasonable to think Wallace can perform at a comparable level.

Wallace will be the primary replacement for Washington, but he isn’t the only Wildcat who can make plays while taking care of the ball. Wheeler returns of course, but two other Wildcats have a solid history in assist-to-turnover ratio. Last season Jacob Toppin was above 2:1, bringing some playmaking to offset his limited shooting, while CJ Fredrick was near 3:1 in this metric at Iowa. Neither records a high volume of assists or does much playmaking off-the-dribble, but both can move the ball around with creating many problems. On the flip side, Antonio Reeves registered more turnovers than assists at Illinois State, and Chris Livingston did the same in his EYBL play. Kentucky should have enough to have a solid season in regards to ball security, assuming Wallace adjusts to the speed of the college game.

Making the most from midrange

Longtime readers of mine know my frustration with Kentucky’s tendency to take midrange shots. For those who are less familiar, it boils down to this: 2 point shots away from the rim are low-quality shots, and every year Kentucky takes more of them than just about anybody. These shots are low-quality because they tend to go in about 40% of the time and are worth only 2 points. Research with NBA tracking data shows that FG% drops off a ton when you get about 4-5 feet away from the rim, then drops off very slowly until about 28 feet. It is much more effective to look for shots at the rim (which go in much more often) or three pointers (which give you 50% more points). However, Kentucky doesn’t do that. Therefore, they need to hit those shots at a relatively high rate to keep the offense effective.

The data service Synergy classifies shot attempts into several categories, three of which I consider to be “midrange shots”: runners, jump shots 17 feet and in, and jump shots from 17 feet to the 3 point line. Kentucky almost always takes a ton of these shots; last season they were in the 92nd percentile in frequency of runners (meaning only 8% of teams took more), 76th percentile for <17ft jumpers, and 99th for >17ft jumpers. But for the first time under John Calipari, the Wildcats actually were pretty effective at hitting these relative to their peers. In terms of points per possession, Synergy rated UK in the 90th percentile in scoring on runners, 81st on <17ft jumpers, and 62nd on >17ft jumpers. UK had never ranked this highly across these 3 shot types, and had never ranked above the 80th percentile on both runners and <17ft jumpers.

This type of accuracy is needed if UK is again going to take lots of midrange twos, and let me assure you, dear reader…they are going to take lots of midrange twos. Cason Wallace and Chris Livingston in particular will need to be capable on these shots, because they will likely fill roles of two departed Wildcats who were excellent on them: TyTy Washington and Keion Brooks.

Last season, Washington and Brooks combined to hit 53% on runners and 55% on <17ft jumpers. The rest of UK’s roster hit 37% on runners and 31% on <17ft jumpers. Antonio Reeves was excellent on these shots, hitting 43/88 (49%) on runners and 15/26 (58%) on <17ft jumpers, but UK is going to need either Wallace or Livingston to excel on these shots as well. None of UK’s returnees hit better than 42% on runners or better than 37% on <17ft jumpers, so UK’s offense is likely to suffer a dropoff in this area if Wallace or Livingston can’t replicate what Washington or Brooks did. Being able to convert these shots is especially important given that UK has an elite post player, so ballhandlers driving into the lane will almost always have a defender waiting there. Here’s an example of TyTy Washington converting one of these opportunities when Tshiebwe’s man steps up to cut off his drive agains Tennesssee:

Here’s another example from the same game where Washington drives into a crowd of defenders near the rim, but is crafty enough to convert in a tough spot

This is probably my biggest concern for next season. UK has shown no willingness to reduce their diet of midrange shots, even when they aren’t good at hitting them. I don’t have access to shot location data for Wallace or Livingston from EYBL or high school, so I’ll be watching closely to see if they have the touch to convert on these tricky two pointers.

Oscar Three-bwe?

This offseason, there’s been quite a bit of chatter around the Kentucky basketball program about Oscar Tshiebwe expanding his shooting range to better develop as an NBA Draft prospect. While that would be an interesting development for his NBA future, I’m skeptical that 1) it will happen and 2) that it will benefit Kentucky at all.

Before I explain, I’ll set some thresholds on what I think will qualify as Tshiebwe “expanding his range”. Oscar is 0-1 over three college seasons from 3 point range, so pretty much any attempts would qualify as “more”…but in order to actually demonstrate shooting range, let’s set the bar at >2 3 pt attempts per game and 35% 3pt FG%. That’s in the range of what recent NBA draftees like Luka Garza, Jalen Smith, Chet Holmgren, and Santi Aldama put up prior to being drafted.

So why am I skeptical that Tshiebwe could reach that bar? First, that would be a major transformation for a Calipari team to have a center shoot from the outside that frequently. Only 1 starting center has taken even 25 3 point attempts in the Calipari era: Reid Travis (26 in 2019). Travis had taken 61 the season before at Stanford, so he had some track record, and he went 7-26 at UK…so I don’t think it was a success. Second, it would be EXTREMELY rare for a college big man to go from not shooting to suddenly making 35% on >2 3PA per game. I did a Basketball Reference search for centers since 2012 who hit 35% on >2 3PA per game in their junior or senior years, and only two made the leap from no volume to that threshold in a power conference: Thomas Welsh at UCLA in 2018 and Adreian Payne at Michigan State in 2014. Welsh was 1-1 over 3 years before exploding as a 40% shooter on 3.5 att per game, but he hit almost 50% on midrange twos and 89% from the FT line as a junior prior to his senior year outburst; Tshiebwe is a 37% midrange shooter and 69% from the FT line. Payne hit 42% on 3.4 att per game as a senior after being a poor midrange and FT shooter as a freshman and sophomore, but did hit 38% from 3 on 1.2 att per game as a junior. Tshiebwe would have to be the only big man to make a leap to becoming a shooter late in his career without having shown any previous signs of being capable of doing so.

The second point is less relevant for his NBA Draft potential but much more relevant for Kentucky fans, and that is I think it would be a detriment to Kentucky’s offense for Oscar to start shooting threes….even if he hit the near-impossible threshold of 35% on 2 att per game. Yes, that would make Oscar an above-average shooter on a team that will probably need some shooting, but I think the tradeoffs will be a net negative. First, hitting 35% on threes would actually reduce his effective FG%. Oscar put up a 60% eFG% last season thanks to hitting 76% of his shots at the rim; 35% from three equals 53% eFG%. Oscar did hit 37% on long twos, per Synergy, so it would be a positive tradeoff if he shots threes instead of those, but I’ve been waiting for UK to exchange long twos for threes for years now and it hasn’t happened. Nate Sestina is the only UK big who took more threes than long twos under Calipari; PJ Washington, Patrick Patterson, and Kevin Knox didn’t even do it.

Second, having Oscar spot up outside the three point line is going to make him a less effective offensive rebounder (and UK as a whole). Last season, UK rebounded 34% of Oscar’s missed shots at the rim, with Oscar himself collecting 25%. When Oscar missed a shot away from the rim, UK rebounded just 23% as Oscar got just 16%. That’s going to drop even further as he moves out past the 3 point line. One of the saving graces for UK was that they rebounded such a high percentage of their own misses; that will not be the case if Oscar is on the perimeter.

Lastly, I think there’s some misunderstanding of the value of big men shooting threes. It’s not about them scoring point as much as it is about the defense (particularly shot blockers) being stretched out away from the basket, opening driving lanes for guards/wings to get high-value shots at the rim. There is no rule that says Tshiebwe’s man has to guard him at the three point line, and it’s unlikely that his man will guard him there until there’s a real track record of him being a willing and capable shooter. Last season Sahvir Wheeler hit 31% on 1.7 3PA per game; if he had made 1 more three every 15 games, he would have hit 35% on 1.7 3PA per game. Wheeler was famously ignored by his defender behind the three point line. Is it really likely that a center with no history of even taking threes is going to command more respect from his defender?

In my opinion, the most likely outcome of Tshiebwe shooting threes is that he will hit mybe 30% of them, and his defender will keep patrolling the lane. This means that Tshiebwe will not be available for post touches (where he hit 57% and drew fouls on 1 out of every 5 plays), other UK players will get no additional driving lanes, and UK will get fewer offensive rebounds. To see what that might look like, check out this GIF from UK’s game against Arkansas last February:

As Tshiebwe screens, his defender drops way off of him to focus on the driver even though the on-ball defender gets over the pick. Simultaneously, Jacob Toppin’s man leaves him to also cut off the drive. This is how a defense is able to shut off driving lanes when they don’t worry about shooters. It’s going to take a long time before defenders guard Tshiebwe any other way. Here’s another example where Tshiebwe was spotting up near the 3 point arc, but his man dropped way into the lane to cut off a drive:

In both cases, UK’s ballhandler was not helped at all by the fact that Oscar was out near the 3 point line. His defender chose to help shut down driving lanes, and no spacing was created.

UK’s offense was elite last season, thanks to a combination of dominance at the rim and rare shotmaking on shorter midrange shots. With Tshiebwe, Jacob Toppin, and other promising frontcourt players, the dominance at the rim should continue. Cason Wallace and Chris Livingston will need to contribute efficiency in the midrange in order to replace departed Cats. It remains to be seen if UK’s coaching staff tries to have Oscar Tshiebwe extend his game to catch the attention of NBA scouts, or if he focuses more on being a college-dominant but maybe less NBA-valued low post big.