Just OK is not OK for UK
Sometimes you get Great UK, and sometimes you get Just OK UK...and like the AT&T commercials say, Just OK is not OK. The Wildcats have stepped in some big games, but been puzzlingly mediocre in others...sometimes in the same week. Within a seven day span they beat Michigan State but lost to Evansville; within 10 days they lost to Utah and Ohio State but beat Louisville, and within 3 days they lost to South Carolina at home but beat Arkansas on the road. What is the key to UK's best performances this season? In this edition of Hoops Insight, I look at what makes the difference between UK against bad teams and good teams.
What You Should Know:
For the season, Kentucky is 18-5 with an adjusted margin of +17 points per 100 possessions. Adjusted margin is roughly equivalent to KenPom's Adjusted Efficiency Margin but excluding garbage time.
When Kentucky plays against teams outside the KenPom top 50, they are 12-3 with an adjusted margin of +14pts/100 poss; that's about the level of an NCAA tournament bubble team. But when Kentucky plays against teams in the top 50, they are 6-2 with an adjusted margin of +21pts/100 poss. A rating of +21/100 poss would put Kentucky about 12th nationally if they kept that up for the full season.
Kentucky has consistently performed better against better competition. Here's a chart showing their adjusted margin/100 poss by game.
The green circles represent games against top 50 teams, and purple are games outside the top 50. Of UK's 13 worst games this season (all below their season average adjusted margin), 10 came against teams outside the top 50. Meanwhile, 5 of Kentucky's games against top 50 competition saw the Cats play at a top 15 level at least.
What Is Happening?
Adjusted margin shows Kentucky performing at a much higher level against top 50 teams. I looked at UK's performance across the Four Factors (shooting, rebounding, turnovers, drawing free throws) to see if they tell the same story:
Huh. Nearly every single stat is worse for UK against top 50 teams. But adjusted margin says UK is better in these games...so what's happening?
The answer is in the word "adjusted". Adjusted margin is called this because it's adjusted for opponent quality. The Four Factor stats above don't have any such adjustment, so they are skewed by the fact that the top 50 opponents are better teams. What does it look like when I adjust the Four Factor data to compare them to what opponents typically allow?
In the table above, red indicates figures where UK underperforms vs opponent averages and black indicates overperformance. For example, UK's effective FG% of 49% against top 50 is actually 3.2% higher than those teams normally allow, while their effective FG% of 51% against other teams is only 2.5% better than those teams allow. Put another way, UK has a 49% eFg% against teams who usually allow 46%, and a 51% eFG% against teams who allow 49%.
Looking at this table you can see areas where UK is clearly better against top 50 teams. The biggest difference is in opponent eFG%, where UK forces top 50 opponents to shoot 7% worse but only forces other opponents to shoot about 3% worse. Out of 100 possessions, that's a difference of about 5 points...a huge portion of the difference between UK's +21 rating against top 50 teams and +14 against everyone else.
This points to UK's defense as the biggest difference maker for them when the competition ratchets up. More specifically, it's UK's ability to guard opponents from 3 and in the midrange and limit them to much worse shooting than their season average. The Cats have held top 50 opponents to 26% shooting from 3 and midrange, even though these opponents average 35% from each area on the season. Of their 8 top 50 opponents, only Ohio State reached their season average on 2 point jumpers and none reached their average on threes. Mississippi State, Alabama, and Arkansas couldn't break 16% on 2 point jumpers against the Cats, and Michigan State, Alabama, and Texas Tech were under 20% from three.
UK has no such luck guarding the rim, however. Opponents take virtually the same amount of shots at the rim and shoot virtually the same percentage against UK as they do for the season overall. 3 opponents shot better at the rim against UK than their season average, and only Auburn shot worse than 58% there.
What Does This Mean for UK?
Clearly UK's guards are the strength of their defense. I went back to watch film of UK vs Alabama, where the Tide hit 16% of their 2 point jumpers and 19% of their threes. The ability for UK's guards to stay in front of dribblers means that there's not much need for help defense to rotate behind them, and the opportunities for opponents to create open shots are limited. I don't have this data available, but I'd guess that UK forces opponents into more shots off the dribble than most teams. Time and again UK's guards were able to contest shots in the midrange, and the rotations among perimeter defenders were generally very crisp.
The interior defense isn't quite as sharp for 2 reasons. First, UK's big men try for blocked shots a fair amount, and miss more often than they succeed. This leads to easy offensive rebound and putbacks, or interior passes for opponents smart enough to pump-fake. Second, UK's other players can sometimes get caught watching the big men try for blocked shots, and aren't always sharp guarding cutters or helping if a big man gets beat. It hasn't been a killer overall, but against Texas Tech (for one example) it was the main source of half court offense for the Red Raiders.
UK should be able to thwart opponents who like to shoot midrange jumpers, and who tend to succeed there. That's great news for a few upcoming matchups. Ole Miss (30th), LSU (106th), and Florida (52nd) all overindex in shooting 2 point jumpers. LSU in particular may be a good matchup for UK, as they rank 7th in FG% on 2 point jumpers. That plays right into something UK has been able to take away against good teams. On the flip side, Vanderbilt and Auburn shoot very few 2 point jumpers. Both teams shot very few against UK in earlier matchups, which mitigates what I think may be Kentucky's defining strength.
Kentucky seems to be able to flip a switch from Just OK UK to Great UK when they need to, and it's powered by their perimeter defense. This helps offset issues forcing turnovers and sending opponents to the free throw line. It's encouraging that UK does seem to be able to produce consistent results with their defense, but fans should always be wary of the Cats coming out flat in games against lesser foes. You'll know that they decided that Just OK is not OK when they bring that same level of defense against lesser opponents.
I want to thank you for subscribing to my newsletter. At Hoops Insight, I hope to use data to find insights that reveal things you didn't realize about the Kentucky Wildcats. I'm using play-by-play data to track what's happening, who's doing it, and who is in the game, in order to show you things the box score can't. Check out my past newsletters in the Hoops Insight Archive, and read about the stats I like to use in my stats glossary.
If you have any questions about things I'm saying, the data behind it, or if you just want to debate a point, feel free to contact me on Twitter at @hoopsinsights or email at sean@hoopsinsight.com. I'd love your feedback on the newsletter and how I can improve. Thanks, and I hope you enjoy my work.