UK vs UofL 2017 Preview - Strengths and Weaknesses
This is part 2 of my 3 part preview of the 2017 UK vs UofL game:
Part 1: The Season So Far
Part 2: Strengths and Weaknesses
Part 3 (Friday): How Each Team Can Win, and my prediction
Strengths and weaknesses of UK and UofL
For this 2nd part of my UK/UofL preview, I'm going to look at each team's statistical strengths and weaknesses. When I refer to "strengths", I'm looking at stats where either team ranks in the top 50 nationally per KenPom.com. For "weaknesses", I'll be talking about stats where either team ranks 250th or worse nationally per KenPom.com. In addition to listing these, I'll note how some players or lineups are driving these, so fans can watch for these impacts during Friday's game. With that out of the way, let's dive in, starting with the Kentucky Wildcats.
Kentucky's strengths leverage their athleticism, but their weaknesses stem from their youth
So far this season, UK ranks in the top 50 in 4 stat categories:
Offensive rebounding percentage (15th)
Opponent free throw rate (42nd)
Percentage of opponent shots blocked (16th)
Percentage of own shots blocked (33rd)
One thing all of these stats have in common is they correlate with long and athletic teams...and Kentucky certainly has that in spades. That length and athleticism makes it easier for the Wildcats to rebound their own misses, defend without fouling, contest shots, and get shots off over their defenders. None of these stats rely much on veteran know-how or savvy, which isn't a strong suit of these young Wildcats. Now let's take a look at which players or lineups are driving some of these performances.
No single Wildcat has proven crucial to their offensive rebounding. Nick Richards has the best individual offensive rebounding rate, but the Wildcats are actually a bit better at offensive rebounding with him out of the game (I wrote about his rebounding impact in my last UK newsletter). UK's greatest success with offensive rebounding has actually come when they play Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Hamidou Diallo together. As oversized (for college) guards with strong athleticism, these two are able to chip in on the offensive glass in a way that Quade Green just isn't. When SGA and Diallo share the court without Green, UK gets 39% of their own misses, up from 36% overall. When you add Wenyen Gabriel in the frontcourt to those two, the offensive rebounding rate goes up to a dominant 46%. That helps make up for the fact that lineups with that trio shoot slightly worse from the field than UK's team average, and turn it over slightly more often.
When it comes to avoiding fouling, UK's starting lineup of Green/Diallo/Knox/Washington/Richards is the biggest contributor. While UK commits fouls on 24% of opponents possessions, their starters only foul on 17% of possessions. That's not entirely good news, however...some of this is likely driven by a lack of defensive aggressiveness. The starters also force opponents into turnovers at a much lower rate than UK's team average (16% vs 19% as a team). UK doesn't use the press as much with their starting lineup, likely to conserve energy. This helps keep their fouling down, but also reduces the turnovers forced.
UK has a number of strong shot blockers on their team, who also are able to finish in traffic. Nick Richards and Wenyen Gabriel are both in the top 100 in frequency of blocking shots, and PJ Washington is just outside the top 200; Sacha Killeya-Jones would be in the top 100 if he had played enough time to qualify. Every single 2 man combo of UK's rotation frontcourt players blocks more shots than the opponent, and the 12 most common UK lineups all have blocked more shots than they've had blocked.
UK does have some notable team weaknesses, however:
Offensive turnover rate (252nd)
Offensive steal rate (261st)
Free throw percentage (255th)
Turnover rate and steal rate are very closely linked, since steals are a common form of turnovers, so we'll deal with them together. UK turns the ball over very frequently, which is a pretty common trait for young teams. Gilgeous-Alexander, Green, Washington, and Knox all have very high turnover rates; in fact, only Hamidou Diallo and Quade Green have higher assist rates than turnover rates. UK's turnover rate is 20% for the season, but it jumps to 24% when Diallo leaves the game. The only game where UK really avoided turnovers when Diallo sat was against Virginia Tech; that also marks UK's best scoring margin per possession with Diallo out.
UK also has struggled from the free throw line this season, shooting just 68%. Amazingly, their opponents have actually been slightly worse, at 67.6%, so it hasn't hurt them much. The biggest offender has been PJ Washington; he shoots just 58.5% from the line but has shot 53 free throws, more than any other Wildcat. However, UK fans shouldn't get too down on UK for poor free throw shooting. Even through UK has shot worse than most teams from the line, drawing free throws is still a big positive. If a team shoots 68% on free throws, they will score 1.36 points per trip to the line (assuming they get 2 shots each time, for simplicity). A team would have to shoot 68% on 2 pointers, or 45.3% on three points, to generate that many points per shot, and that doesn't factor in turnovers. It's almost always a net positive, offensively, to draw free throws, even if a team is subpar at hitting them. Even Washington's 58.5% free throw shooting generates more points than his 54.3% effective field goal percentage.
Louisville has a lot of strengths, but their weaknesses negate some of them
Louisville ranks in the top 50 in a number of categories (and 51st in another):
Effective field goal percentage allowed (8th)
Offensive turnover rate (46th)
3 point field goal percentage allowed (25th)
2 point field goal percentage allowed (9th)
Percentage of opponent shots blocked (4th)
Percentage of own shots blocked (29th)
Free throw percentage (51st)
This statistical profile reflects a team with strong overall athleticism and experience. It also is pretty consistent with Louisville's statistical profile under Rick Pitino; his teams always ranked highly in field goal percentage defense, blocked shots, and avoiding turnovers, although the free throw shooting is an entirely new development. Louisville hasn't ranked in the top 100 in free throw percentage since 2005; it appears that David Padgett has emphasized this more in practice.
Louisville's field goal defense has really been a team effort; for the most part, none of their rotation players has a negative impact on their field goal defense.The one possible exception is Ryan McMahon; while it's a small sample, UofL has allowed opponents a 48% eFg% when he plays, and 42% when he sits. He's only played 4 games, however, so that's not a meaningful number. The biggest positive for UofL has been their defense when they go to smaller lineups. Lineups with one big man and Deng Adel at power forward have not played a ton, but have allowed a 38% eFg%. These lineups get killed on the boards, but do force turnovers at a very high rate. I think it would be worth UofL taking a longer look at these types of lineups.
It would be reasonable to expect that UofL's low turnover rate is a product of having a senior point guard who is a three year starter. While Quentin Snider has done a great job of avoiding turnovers, UofL's turnover rate has not been meaningfully different when freshman Darius Perry comes in the game; UofL's turnover rate sits at 17% regardless of which player runs the point. That's a great sign that UofL's ability to avoid turnovers is not specific to their veteran players.
Louisville's shot blocking is almost entirely a product of the abilities of Anas Mahmoud and Ray Spalding. Mahmoud ranks 7th in block rate nationally and Spalding sits at 63rd. While Louisville's blocked shot rate drops in half when Mahmoud and Spalding are both out of the game, that only amount to 10% of total game time. Interestingly enough, however, UofL's defensive rebound rate rises as their block rate goes down. This is an indicator that the aggression in going after blocked shots is leaving rebounding opportunities for the opponent, and UofL may do better to focus less on blocking shots and more on positional defending and rebounding.
UofL's free throw shooting has been a surprise, and it's driven by a combo of newcomers and improvement by veterans. Freshman Darius Perry is 21-22 from the line (96%). Quentin Snider (89%) and Deng Adel (81%) have both increased their free throw accuracy from the mid-70's last year. If UofL has a lead late, they can feel comfortable knowing that their ballhandlers can seal the win from the line.
Louisville doesn't have a lot of glaring weaknesses, but the two they do have act as a bit of a counterweight to some of their strengths:
Defensive rebounding (276th)
Frequency of free throws (247th; not technically in my 250th and worse rule, but close enough)
As I mentioned above, UofL's aggressiveness in going for blocked shots leads them to be out of position for defensive rebounds on occasion. When Mahmoud is in the game, UofL blocks 16% of opponent shots, but only gets 66% of opponent misses. When he sits, they block 9% of shots and collect 72% of opponent misses. The trade-off between the two is basically even, as UofL allows 0.91 points per possession in each scenario. So, the weakness in defensive rebounding is caused partially by the shotblocking prowess, and the two basically cancel each other out.
Similarly, while UofL shoots a strong percentage from the free throw line, they don't get there very often. UofL only gets 18% of their points from the free throw line, despite shooting so well. Conversely, UK shoots poorly from there, but gets 20% of their points from the line. UofL's starting guards, Quentin Snider and VJ King, both draw fouls at a relatively low rate. When they are in the game, UofL draws fouls on 19% of possessions. When Darius Perry comes in the game, that jumps to 29%; with Perry and Dwayne Sutton in, it's 33%. UofL isn't really able to capitalize on their strong free throw shooting or get opponents into foul trouble, since their starting guards aren't drawing fouls.
Both the Cardinals and Wildcats have some clear strengths and weaknesses. In part 3 of my preview, I'll look at how these factors (and others) might combine to help either team win, and I'll make my best guess as to what might happen.
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