...When you play a team that’s as long and tall, you can adjust the second game to fit your strengths, decide what you’re going to take away and decide what you’re going to give them. The second meeting is “easier” to defend. Back to topic at hand, Kentucky’s PPP against top 100 defenses comes in at 1.12 points per possession, again, far below the current “freight train” status and average of 1.25 PPP that they’ve been labeled at thus far in the tournament. However, match them up against a defense worse than 100th in the country, and they averaged a decent 1.23 PPP (in 14 instances). What’s really remarkable about this Kentucky team is that there has only been five, yes, five instances where Kentucky has been held below a point per possession on the year. In 38 games, Kentucky has been held below a point per possession only five times. Those games have come against:
Vanderbilt (0.97)
LSU (0.90)
Tennessee (0.97)
ODU (0.93)
Louisville (0.87)
Not a typo. And yes, that is Louisville. Louisville held Kentucky to their worst offensive output of the year on the road, in only their second true road game, at Rupp Arena. As you know, I’m a big fan of defensive guard pressure. It leads to transition, it leads to points, and there might not be a better team in the country that does it better than Louisville (maybe VCU…maybe). They forced 20 turnovers in that meeting, but getting back to the topic at hand which is defense, it’s certainly not surprising to me at least that they held Kentucky to such a low efficiency. The way this defense operates really picks out one central figure, neutralizes them, and they put a ton of emphasis on the rest of the team. As I’ve noted before, Kentucky is extremely balanced on the offensive end. Ever heard of the saying when you have two quarterbacks competing for a starting roster, you really have none? I don’t really want to make the comparison to this here because it isn’t entirely true, but it fits in a way. Balance doesn’t work against Pitino defense. You need a couple decent ball handlers (not saying KY doesn’t have any), but you need a couple guys who can distribute against pressure when times get tough. Maybe it’s b/c I haven’t seen times get tough for Kentucky all that much, but relying on scoring outside of the offensive sets will get you burnt in certain situations, and on the national spotlight of a Final Four, it certainly is possible. Back to this game and the 0.87 PPP, the lowest Kentucky’s been held to all year, what’s truly jaw-dropping is the fact that they shot 43 free throws and still were held below the 70 point barrier and below the 1 PPP mark. Call me crazy, but I find that insane. As I alluded to before, Louisville’s pressure has gotten them to where they currently stand. Granted, Kentucky has a week to prepare for a press and a zone, so that’s something that helps them, but I’m just not sure what they do. Sure, they’re familiar with the Louisville pressure, but they haven’t seen it come from all areas for a full game b/c of the first meeting’s foul-fest being a drawback in using it for the majority of the game. It’s not really something you can mimic in practice, so even with the full week, I’m not sure Kentucky can find a lineup that’s going to be effective against it. Bring some bigs up to help with the pressure so it’s a bit easier to beat? I can see Cal doing that as he utilized it at Memphis a few year’s back going against Tulsa, but I’m certainly OK with getting the bigs as far away from the hoop as possible, as early as possible. I guess what I’m trying to get at, is that a young team against a press in the spotlight would give me great concern, and one going against one of the best presses in the last couple years would give me greater concern, and one going against a press where they turned the ball over 20 times in a previous meeting where the opponent was only able to utilize it for half a game would give me even more concern than the greater concern I had before the last comma. From the looks of it, Kentucky has faced off against a total of five teams who like to pressure the ball (using turnover % as a barometer and the top 100 teams and also subtracting those who utilize a zone pressure or force more turnovers in the half court for example Penn State and Loyola MD totally different pressure). Before I get to the list of teams, and the turnover amounts, I will point out that the only two teams they faced in the top 10 in the country in terms of pressure were Louisville and ODU, and in those games they yielded 21 and 20 turnovers, respectively. Here’s the opponents, and the KY turnovers:
Kansas, 19
Old Dominion, 21
Louisville, 20
Lamar, 17
Arkansas, 12
This offense doesn’t want to be pressured, and again, the outlet is to go to the hoop and score. To show the importance of what they do, one can look at the FT attempts in these games against pressure. They get to the foul stripe quite a bit, but it’s gone up against pressure. In these five games, they went to the foul line a combined 147 times. That’s almost 30 a game. They haven’t put up all that great of offensive PPP totals even when they’re getting to the line that much...
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