A Pope and a plan, Kentucky's back
Through seven games, the Wildcats look great...can it last?
Statistics cited here from the excellent (and free) hoop-explorer.com and BartTorvik.com
Nobody knew what to expect from Kentucky’s first season under new head basketball coach Mark Pope, and surely nobody expected everything would work out this well. As of this writing Kentucky sits 8th in the AP poll, 12th at KenPom.com, and 9th at BartTorvik.com. The Wildcats are leading the nation by scoring 96.7 points per game. They beat Duke in the Champions Classic, even! There’s a lot of season left, but there’s literally nothing better you can do in your first 7 games than go 7-0.
Pope’s new-look Kentucky Wildcats are getting this done with some notable strengths on each side of the ball. These strengths appear to be the result of a strategic approach by the staff, executed at a high level by the players. It’s been a while since I said that about a Kentucky team…let’s look at what’s happening.
On Offense
This is the more notable side of the ball because of the premier scoring attack in America, as I mentioned above. The outcome (scoring a lot) is especially notable because of how Kentucky is doing it.
Kentucky isn’t scoring solely because of a fast pace. Per hoop-explorer.com, Kentucky is top-10 in the nation in points scored per 100 possessions. The two key factors are that Kentucky is 9th in effective field goal percentage and 13th in turnover rate. These compensate for the Cats gathering their own misses and drawing free throws at slightly-below-average rates.
Kentucky’s effective field goal percentage sits at 60% this season, but that’s actually not being driven by hot shooting from deep. The Wildcats are hitting just over 38% from three; adjusting for the extra point, that’s an effective FG% of just over 57%. So, Kentucky’s three point shooting is actually pulling down their team-wide effective FG% a bit. Instead, the key is that the Cats are leading the nation by hitting nearly 78% of their shots at the rim. The structure of the offense, with frequent possessions with no player starting in the paint and a group of shooters surrounding a big man looking to pass, helps leads to a high FG% at the rim because it pulls away help defenders who could challenge shots. Kentucky is leading the nation in scoring off of perimeter cuts because of the space provided. This isn’t just a fluke of this roster, either. Last year’s leader among D-1 teams in FG% at the rim? Mark Pope’s BYU team.
I was a bit too harsh on the three point shooting earlier but categorizing it as “bringing down the team’s effective field goal percentage”. The reality is that Kentucky is 39th in the nation in 3pt FG%, and has a wealth of catch-and-shoot threats. In fact, the Wildcats also lead the entire nation in points scored off of what hoop-explorer calls “Inside Out” actions, with a big passing out of a post-up to a shooter.
When Mark Pope was hired, it seemed likely that his offensive structure would bring a different kind of dynamism that what Kentucky fans were used to seeing. That’s been as advertised, and UK’s strengths are likely to continue. The defensive end of the court may be where there’s been more of a surprise…what’s going on there?
On Defense
Hoop-explorer and Bart Torvik both rank Kentucky as top-20 defensive outfits, while KenPom is a little more skeptical but places the Wildcats at 30th on that side of the ball. Kentucky has had very little success forcing opponent turnovers, but has an outstanding defense so far because of several other factors:
Excellent defensive rebounding (22nd best in America per hoop-explorer)
Giving up very few free throws (37th best)
Coaxing midrange shots from opponents (3rd highest rate)
Giving up almost no shots at rim (6th lowest rate)
Opponents hitting 25% from three (6th lowest rate)
Factors 1, 3, and 4 were all hallmarks of Pope’s BYU team last year; in fact, his Cougars elicited the largest share of opponent shots from midrange in the country last year and were 21st in defensive rebounding. Pope and his staff designed the defense to do exactly what it’s doing now, and the players are executing to create these results.
Kentucky might not give up so few free throws the rest of the season, simply because that hasn’t been a hallmark of Pope teams. On the flipside, Pope teams aren’t usually quite this bad at forcing turnovers either…so those factors could even out.
The one area where Kentucky is benefitting from a lot of defensive luck is in opponent three point shooting. Nobody’s opponents hit just 25% from three over a season, because opponents don’t let bad shooters take those shots very often. There’s no evidence that teams hold opponents to low three-point shooting because they leave bad shooters open; there’s not law that those players have to shoot, after all. Evidence from the past two seasons indicates that UK’s opponents will hit more than 25% of their threes over the remainder of the season…but the evidence also suggests that those opponents may not do a whole lot better.
Over the past two seasons, 12 high-major teams have held opponents to a 3 point FG% of 25% or less over the first month of the season. Oddly enough, one of those 12 was Pope’s BYU team last year! Of those 12:
1 team (2023 Tennessee) held opponents below 30% from three the rest of the season
4 more held opponents below 32%
6 more held oppponents below 34%
1 (2023 Arizona State) allowed 37% shooting from three the rest of the season
So, while building a defense that relies on opponents shooting 25% from three isn’t the best recipe for success, it’s also not likely that opponents will suddenly hit 40%. Kentucky has a LOT of length on the wing; per KenPom, UK’s effective height at each position is greater than the national average by at least 1 inch. It’s plausible that UK continues to do a solid job of contesting threes and opponents hit 32% over the rest of the season, say. That would be more like a top-40 defense, but a top-10 offense and top-40 defense is good enough to be a top-4 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
There’s also a very recent data point that shows how Kentucky isn’t solely reliant on outshooting teams from deep to play well this season. Against Georgia State, Kentucky went 7-26 from three while allowing 11-21. That complete flip in 3-point advantage would normally be expected to lead to a subpar Wildcat performance, but not this time. Kentucky was projected by Bart Torvik to win by 27 and by KenPom to win by 24, and the Cats won by 29 on the strength of:
Hitting 22-24 at the rim and allowing just 6-8 (yes, Georgia State took 8 shots at the rim)
Collecting 85% of opponent misses
Scooping up turnover on 23% of possessions
There will probably be games where UK’s defense struggles as opponents hit a high percentage from deep, and don’t turn the ball over, and hit midrange shots at a high rate….but those will be the very rare exception.
The Takeaways….Kentucky is really good
The Wildcat defense won’t look this good all season, but there’s no reason to think it will collapse. Meanwhile, the UK offense is built to do exactly what it’s doing right now. Enjoy it, Wildcat fans, you’ve got a coach who built a Final Four contender from scratch in one offseason.