UK's Weaknesses May Not Be A Big Problem
In this edition of the Kentucky Wildcats newsletter from Hoops Insight, I'm going to look at two areas of relative statistical weakness this year for Kentucky: Forcing turnovers, and defensive rebounding. I'll look at UK's game-by-game performances to evaluate whether these are vulnerabilities, and explain why I believe their defensive rebounding in particular is not much of a weakness. Lastly, I'll offer some potential matchups where I think these weaknesses may turn into possible strengths for the Wildcats...one of which is Saturday's game against Alabama. Hopefully the Cats live up to it and make me look good!
What are Kentucky's weaknesses this season?
There is a generally accepted concept in basketball analytics that there are four key factors that most affect a basketball team's performance: shooting, rebounding, turnovers, and free throws. These are cleverly referred to as the Four Factors, and the concept was recently popularized by Dean Oliver. Each of the Four Factors has an offensive and defensive component; for example, your team's shooting and how they limit opponent's shooting. I like to refer to these stats a lot, and I'd like to discuss how UK is performing this year in these areas. For each of the following, I'll list Kentucky's rank per KenPom.com, out of 351 NCAA D-1 teams:
Shooting Offense (effective FG%): 39th
Shooting Defense: 85th
Offensive Rebounding (% of available offensive rebounds collected): 25th
Defensive Rebounding: 166th
Offensive Turnover Rate (what % of possessions end with a turnover): 14th
Defensive Turnover Rate: 81st
Offensive FT Rate (ratio of FTA/FGA): 51st
Defensive FT Rate: 144th
These numbers are telling us that UK is among the elite teams at avoiding turnovers, and probably offensive rebounding. However, they are pretty average at defensive rebounding and forcing turnovers. This would lead you to believe that UK is vulnerable to teams that are good at offensive rebounding, and might not be able to take advantage of teams who usually commit turnovers. But, are these really vulnerabilities? For a more complete picture, we need to look deeper, at some other information:
How much does UK's performance in these areas depend on the opponent? For example, does UK shoot well against bad defenses but struggle against good ones?
How consistent is UK's performance? If UK has a 54% eFG% on the year, are they right around 54% most games, or does their shooting vary wildly?
Is UK able to consistently perform better in these areas than their opponent typically allows, or are opponents frequently able to keep UK in check?
For those who are more statistically inclined, I'm going to measure these using:
Correlation between UK performance and what opponents allow on average
Coefficient of variation
% of games UK outperformed opponent average
If you're reading this because you love basketball more than stats, don't worry...I'll keep it simple. As usual, I'm using season averages from KenPom.com for UK opponents, but per game statistics are from my own database. So, what can we find from digging into the data?
UK doesn't usually force many turnovers, but it's been know to happen
UK ranks 81st in the nation in the rate at which they force turnovers, and they had the benefit of playing the most turnover-prone team in the country in Stephen F. Austin. Below is a chart showing the rate at which UK forced turnovers each game, compared to that opponent's season-long turnover rate (click image to expand in new window):
UK's opponent's turnover rate for each game, compared to what the opponent has committed over the full season. For example, UK forced turnovers on 35.9% of possessions in the opener vs Stephen F. Austin, but SFA has committed turnovers on a nation-worst 26.1% of possessions over the full season.
UK has struggled to force opponents into turnovers this season. Only 63% of the time has UK forced turnovers more often than their opponent usually commits them. Given that UK is one of the best teams in the country, it's not a good sign that they struggle to even be above average in forcing turnovers.
Twice they've forced turnovers 30% or more of the time (Stephen F. Austin, Texas A&M), and 4 times they've been at 11.4% or less (UNC, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Tennessee). The best rate in the country is 30.4% by West Virginia and the worst is 13.6% by Central Florida. UK has twice forced turnovers more than the best team in the country, and 4 times they've done it less than the worst team. That's a huge spread! UK's coefficient of variation in forcing turnovers is quite high, at 32%, meaning that UK is pretty likely to be well above or below their season average in any particular game.
A sizeable part of that variation seems to be due to the opponent's propensity for turnovers. As you can see in the chart above, if an opponent is committing turnovers on 20% of their possessions for the season, they probably committed a lot against UK. LSU is the only team with a turnover rate above 20% on the season who managed to keep their rate below 20% against UK. Most of UK's worst games at forcing turnovers came against opponents who take care of the ball, like Arizona State, Hofstra, and UNC. But, if an opponent avoids turnovers reasonably well, it's anybody's guess if UK will force them. Valparaiso, Vanderbilt, and South Carolina are all around 19% for the season, but UK forced turnovers at a 24%, 9%, and 19% rate against them, respectively.
UK hasn't forced many turnovers on the season, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a weakness. If a UK opponent is prone to turnovers, UK will probably be able to force them. If a team doesn't usually commit many turnovers, they probably won't start doing it against UK. But, don't bet on UK not getting turnovers...on any given night they could be stellar at it, or terrible.
UK isn't very good at getting defensive rebounds...but not because of anything opponents do!
UK ranks 166th in defensive rebounding, getting about 71% of opponent misses. UK has actually always been pretty bad in this area under Calipari, never ranking better than 63rd, and only twice ranking better than 108th. UK's defensive rebounding issues are probably due to UK's tendency to block shots; UK has never been lower than 27th nationally under Calipari, and twice led the nation in % of shots blocked. This aggressiveness gives up defensive rebounding position to the opponent. To provide some evidence as to why I think UK's defensive rebounding is a product of design, and not opponent, let's look at a similar chart to the one before. This chart shows UK's defensive rebounding rates for each game, compared to what the opponent usually allows (click image to expand into new window):
UK's defensive rebound rate for each game, charted against what the opponent has allowed on the season. For example, UK got 58.8% of the available defensive rebounds against Stephen F. Austin, but SFA has allowed opponent to get 65.3% for the full season.
UK has had a few games where they laid some absolute eggs collecting defensive rebounds, and given their opponents lots of extra shots (Florida, Stephen F. Austin). They've also had a few games where they dominated the defensive glass (Duquesne, Vanderbilt). In 71% of their games, UK has gotten a higher percentage of defensive rebounds than the opponent typically allows. Given that UK rates at about average nationally, that's not a bad number! UK has actually played a pretty tough schedule, defensive rebounding-wise. Their opponents only allow a 67.7% DReb rate on the season; that would rank 312th in the country if a team averaged that. So, UK ranking 166th is actually outperforming by a good bit.
UK has actually been quite consistent in defensive rebounding. The coefficient of variation for this stat is 11%, which is the lowest of any of UK's Four Factors stats. That shows that UK has had a lot of games right around their average performance, and it's rare for them to have an exceptionally good or bad night on the defensive glass.
Lastly, UK's defensive rebounding isn't very highly influenced by their opponent's ability. The correlation between UK's per-game DReb% and what the opponent usually allows is only 0.25, one of the lower correlations for a UK Four Factors stats.Individual good or bad games are less dependent on the opponent and more on UK. For example, UNC is the best offensive rebounding team in the country, and opponents usually only get 57% of the rebounds when on defense. UK got 70.6%, right at the Cats' season average. Michigan State has been quite poor at offensive rebounding, but UK only got 66% of the defensive rebounds against them.
UK doesn't have a good defensive rebounding percentage, but they've played a lot of good offensive rebounding teams. 4 opponents (UNC, Texas A&M, Tennessee-Martin, and Louisville) are in the top 20 nationally. UK's defensive rebounding is actually quite consistent, and the variance isn't driven by opponents. The logical conclusion is that Coach Calipari wants his big men to challenge shots, which can give up offensive rebounds. However, if UK decided to change that strategy, they would likely be able to improve their rebounding. As evidence, take the UNC game; UK only got 2 blocks, but were much better at defensive rebounding than UNC opponents typically are. That helped win the game by taking away a strength.
In conclusion, UK's inability to force turnovers and prevent offensive rebounds this year seem like they would be weaknesses. However, UK is able to capitalize on an opponent's predisposition for turnovers, and UK's poor defensive rebounding is more often a stylistic choice than a weakness. UK showed against UNC that they can adapt their gameplan to focus on defensive rebounding against a team that doesn't commit turnovers and gets a lot of offensive rebounds. Additionally, UK can capitalize on high turnover rates by the opponent. A good matchup for UK would be a team who turns it over frequently but is very good at offensive rebounding, since UK can take advantage of the first and potentially mitigate the second. A few examples are:
Alabama
Texas A&M
Baylor
Indiana
Look for Kentucky to perform well against these teams if/when they play them.
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