How can Kentucky get back to the top?
Kentucky's back to bringing in elite recruits. What need to happen for elite results to follow?
There was certainly a stretch in recent history where Kentucky was The Program in college basketball. It began in the 2009-10 season with John Calipari’s first team. Reasonable minds can disagree on exactly when it ended; some might say the 2015 team was the twilight, as UK made their 4th Final Four in 5 seasons. Others would extend the halcyon days to include the 2017 team with 3 lottery picks, or the 2019 team that made UK’s most recent Elite 8, or the 2020 team who won the most recent SEC title.
Regardless of the endpoint, it’s pretty clear that Kentucky is no longer the type of program that merits automatic inclusion in a preseason top-5 or lords over the SEC waiting to see which contenders want to finish second. Over the past 3 seasons UK is 4-12 against non-conference foes who finished in the KenPom top 100, with a winning record against those teams in none of those years.
Every member of BBN and everyone who spends time writing about UK has a theory about why this has happened and how to fix it. I don’t know that too many of them are any better or worse than the others, but Kentucky basketball success is a lot like the old Supreme Court definition of pornography, “I know it when I see it”. The best Kentucky teams usually:
Score at the rim at an incredibly high rate
Force a ton of opponent misses
Dominate the offensive glass
Draw free throws
Over the last few seasons, UK’s results in these areas have been pretty mixed. What’s more, the coaching staff hasn’t really adapted their approach to create success in different ways. Let’s just assume that these 4 things above are pretty close to necessary for John Calipari-coached Kentucky teams to have a successful season. How do the Wildcats put the pieces together to achieve as many of them as possible next season?
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A clear path to the rim needed
Last season Kentucky ranked 23rd in all of Division 1 in field goal percentage at the rim, per hoop-math.com, hitting 64.8% there. 23rd out of 360-something is really good! However, hitting a shade under 65% of their shots at the rim qualifies as a pretty big disappointment for UK. The previous year UK led the nation in FG% at the rim by hitting over 71%, and since 2012 the only year where the Wildcats shot worse at the rim than last year was the disaster of 2021.
The easiest way to get good looks at the rim is to get out in transition, and UK didn’t really have a problem there last season. UK got out more often in transition then the year before, and shot only about 2% worse at the rim there. The bigger issue is halfcourt offense, where UK’s FG% at the rim dropped from 72% to 63% in one season.
In 2022, UK had 5 of their top 7 players who hit converted 70% of more of their shots at the rim (Tshiebwe, Washington, Grady, Brooks, Toppin). In 2023, none of the rotation regulars got to 70%. UK’s guards in 2023 were not very good at all in finishing at the rim in halfcourt offense; Wallace ended at 61%, Wheeler 50%, and Reeves 49%. The prior year, Davion Mintz (52%) was the only perimeter player under 62%.
This wayward finishing didn’t come in any particular stretch of games or from strong SEC defenses. UK was about 6-7% worse in both non-conference and conference play than the year before. This issue didn’t fix itself with the exodus of Sahvir Wheeler; UK struggled before and after he missed games. As best I can pinpoint it, it seems to largely result from opponents sagging off of UK’s off-ball perimeter players to double post-ups and help on drives. The evidence for that is that UK’s finishing at the rim skyrocketed when they started playing Reeves and Fredrick together more, with two catch-and-shoot threats off the ball. These players got fewer open catch-and-shoot threes, but their teammates got clearer lanes to the rim:
With Reeves and Fredrick in the game during SEC play, UK hit 70% of shots at the rim
In all other SEC minutes, UK hit 60.6% of shots at the rim
The improvement came more from players who were driving to the rim as opposed to coming from Oscar Tshiebwe. Tshiebwe’s FG% at the rim ticked up slightly when playing alongside Reeves and Fredrick, from a hair over 65% to just under 67%. Reeves himself improved from 59% to 67% at the rim, Cason Wallace leapt from 52% to 89% there, and Jacob Toppin went from 67% to 100% at the rim with Reeves and Fredrick in. That’s right, Jacob Toppin hit every shot attempt at the rim when playing alongside Reeves and Fredrick.
This could be a problem for UK to duplicate next season. If Antonio Reeves returns he’ll get respect as an outside shooter, but if not UK will need to find someone to threaten defenses from deep. If DJ Wagner plays off the ball, it’s uncertain if teams will really guard him like a serious shooting threat. Wagner hit 35% from three in the 2022 EYBL, but 26% the prior season; he also hit just 65% of his free throws in the 2022 EYBL. Between EYBL and Team USA, Wagner has yet to piece together a sample of games where he hit >35% from three and >75% from the free throw line. Justin Edwards shows some promise, shooting about 37% over his EYBL sample, but lower FT% (62%) makes me question where his true shooting ability lies.
This issue will be exacerbated if UK is running a post-up heavy offense, which has been the case the past two years. UK’s guards in the past had a lot of success with rim-running bigs (Nick Richards, Bam Adebayo, Willie Cauley-Stein). Onyenso, Collins, and to an extent Lance Ware (not a rim runner but not a post-up guy) should largely leave the lane clear for drivers. If Oscar Tshiebwe or Hunter Dickinson is the starting center, UK will likely have a heavy diet of post-ups; Dickinson posted up even more than Tshiebwe last season, despite also stepping out to shoot threes a fair bit.
The bottom line is, UK needs to create situations for athletic guards and wings to have spacing to get to the rim. UK need to be converting 70% at the rim, not 65%, and that’s a lot easier with fewer defenders in the way.
Rim protection is a key
UK also struggled to defend shooters from almost anywhere on the court last season. UK allowed opponents to hit 59.6% of their shots at the rim, which put UK 225th in rim defense. UK also allowed opponent to get to the rim more frequently than they usually do. In SEC play, Kentucky opponents took and made more shots at the rim than the Wildcats did. Given that UK famously does not take many threes, it’s pretty tough to overcome getting outscored at the rim too.
Early in the season, pick and roll coverage was a major issue as opposing guards had little trouble scoring when Tshiebwe switched onto them. UK was able to counter this by going to a more aggressive pick and roll defense to force guards to pass the ball, but this led to opponents getting more open shots elsewhere on the court. UK gave up a higher portion of open catch-and-shoot threes than in any other year under Calipari, and as a result opponents shot their 2nd highest 3ptFG% since 2016. UK usually smothers opponent midrange shots as well, forcing a lot of tough jumpers that go in at about a 30% rate. This season, that jumped up to 35% as opponents were open more often on these shots, and converted more floaters and runners in the paint.
This was largely a systemic breakdown this season, stemming from a lack of rim protection. There wasn’t much of a sample size against quality opponents with Oscar Tshiebwe out this season to judge from, but in SEC play opponents hit 51% on twos and 34% on threes with Tshiebwe in and 46% on twos and 31% on threes with him out. UK’s guards didn’t always distinguish themselves with on-ball defense, but none of them was so bad that the defense improved meaningfully with them out.
The chances for improvement next season really depend on who UK plays in the frontcourt. Tshiebwe isn’t a rim protector, and these issues will likely persist if he has a featured role. Hunter Dickinson is bigger than Tshiebwe and blocked a few more shots, but Michigan’s defense at the rim wasn’t any better than UK’s…he’s not likely to solve this. Aaron Bradshaw offers some help, but the most interesting piece is Ugonna Onyenso. He barely played last season but racked up sky-high block rates when he did, and UK opponents scored at the rim at incredibly low rates. If UK wants to get their interior defense back to typical levels, Onyenso and Bradshaw are going to need to be prominently involved.
Rebounding by committee?
UK is going to miss Oscar Tshiebwe’s rebounding. Tshiebwe is one of the 4-5 greatest rebounders in college basketball in the past 30 years, and UK isn’t going to replace his contributions with any one player. Interestingly, it’s likely the defensive end where UK will find him more irreplaceable. The past 2 seasons have been the two best seasons under Calipari for defensive rebound %, while UK’s offensive rebound % the last two seasons is right in the ballpark of what UK was doing every year from 2010-2015.
The defensive rebounding will likely be a bit of a trade-off with shotblocking, as a missed attempt at blocking a shot means a better chance for an offensive rebound by the opponent. That being said, UK has built elite defenses with average defensive rebounding (2017, 2015, 2012). If UK has rim protectors, I’m less worried about the defensive rebounding.
Offensive rebounding is something that has been a staple of great Calipari offenses, as it leads to a higher volume of shots and offsets weaker shooting from the field. This is typically accomplished by having a lot of size at every position. If Bradshaw plays power forward and Justin Edwards is at small forward, UK should have the size to collect plenty of their own misses. Note that there may be some trade-off between spacing to create driving lanes and having good offensive rebounders; any shooting UK can find from Bradshaw and Edwards will be a huge help.
Using the charity stripe
The most effective source of offense is free throws. No team in the country shoots as wel from the field as the worst team shoots from the free throw line. Over the past 2 seasons, Kentucky has been unfathomably bad (by their standards) at drawing free throws. In 2023 UK drew 32 free throws for every 100 field goal attempt; in 2022 they were even lower at 28. Those are the two lowest free throw rates for any UK season under Calipari; UK was only under 40 FTA per 100 FGA 3 times in Calipari’s first 12 seasons.
A big part of the issue was the inability for UK’s guards and wings to drive into the paint due to the presence of 1 or more post players there. UK ran post-ups much more often these past two seasons than they had in other recent years, and depended on offensive rebounding to generate baskets. Unfortunately, both of these things relied on Oscar Tshiebwe being around the basket. While Tshiebwe himself drew free throws at a high rate, none of his teammates were able to.
The same things that help UK score at the rim will help drawing free throws, as the two go together nicely. Having bigs who don’t need to be parked in the paint to be effective would be a big help. UK had a lot of success in the past having a big on the weakside (known in the NBA as the dunker spot) and, if their defender rotated over to get in the way of a drive, the lob was available. What wasn’t noticed as much were all the times that the help defender was a little late, and the ballhandler either got a clean look at the rim or drew a foul. UK needs to get back to that style, which depends less on the talent of ballhandlers and more on the location and skills of the bigs.
For all of the issues with their offensive design, Kentucky can absolutely have a top-10 offense with the familiar principles they’ve used before: attacking the rim with athletic guards/wings, having bigs who can devour offensive rebounds, and drawing free throws. Similarly, Kentucky can get back to having elite defenses by prioritizing length and rim protection. However, it’s going to take an incredibly unusual set of circumstances for UK to have both.
The roster UK is putting together can show improvement, in theory, but there are a lot of unknowns. Will UK get away from running offense through the post so much? Can they field enough shooting to create space for dynamic creators? Will they play more athletic/long frontcourt players who can defend the typical UK style?
If UK can find one more shooting guard/wing to add (whether that be Reeves returning or a portal addition) and add a versatile frontcourt piece (whether that be Livingston returning or a shooting/defending portal 4), then I think fans can feel cautiously optimistic that the pieces are there. If not, UK will have to pick what to focus on and what to punt on. The last 2 seasons UK focused on offensive rebounding and post scoring, but punted on interior defense and the kind of creative guard play that had defined them. Pay careful attention to any further roster moves and see if UK is trying to add the right pieces to complete their style.
At the start of last season, when I saw that Oscar had gained 10 lbs, my initial reaction was thinking he'd have been better off losing 10 to be more explosive around the basket. No one has been able to manhandled him on the boards, but much of the time, taller guys had his number. If he returns, I just hope we can find a role that's significant enough for his abilities but doesn't leave us stuck relying on playing through him when it isn't working well.