How UK has improved, and how much better they can get
The Cats have been R-R-Really good....
Over their last 8 games, Kentucky is 7-1. For all the talk that Kentucky teams tend to peak towards the end of the season, that usually isn’t the case record-wise; only 5 UK teams under Calipari have finished 7-1 or better in their last 8 regular season games (2010, 2012, 2015, 2017, 2020). This isn’t the product of beating up on a weaker SEC or an easy stretch of foes, either. Bart Torvik’s sorting tool rates UK 12th in the nation over the last month. Of the 5 prior UK teams to post a closing stretch like this, only 2012 and 2015 (both 1st) rated better among D-1 teams during their closing stretch.
That rating of 12th is even a bit misleading. UK has had a pretty tough finishing schedule, with 4 of the 8 games being of the Quad 1 variety. While Torvik’s rating accounts for that schedule, UK has been exceptionally strong in those Quad 1 games. Over the last month, UK rates 3rd nationally among all teams in games against Quad 1 opponents. Before this stretch, Kentucky hadn’t been disitnguishing themselves against elite opponents. Prior to this 8 game closing stretch, UK was just 2-5 in Quad 1 games and rated at 50th nationally in those games, per Torvik.
How’s Kentucky doing this? One key factor is that the Wildcats are playing their best players together a WHOLE lot more than they were before, plain and simple. It begins and ends with the 3 R’s: Reed Sheppard, Rob Dillingham, and Antonio Reeves.
Good Thing Come in 3’s
It’s not a controversial statement to suggest that this trio represents UK’s 3 best players this season. They are the team leaders in points per game and 3 pointers made, and Sheppard and Dillingham are 1 & 2 in assists and steals. Prior to SEC play, however, this trio had been together on the court for less than 20% of Kentucky’s game time. Against Kansas, for example, this trio played 4 total possessions together out of 83 possible. Despite the limited playing time, UK had outscored their opponents in every single game during the time this trio shared the court, with a total margin of +102 in 165 possessions before SEC play began.
This trio got a little more time together as SEC play got going, playing about 25% of UK’s minutes together through the Gonzaga game. However, that number is inflated due to DJ Wagner (UK’s only other guard option) missing 3 games. If we exclude the 3 games Wagner missed and the 1 game Dillingham missed, the 3 R’s played just 18% of UK’s minutes together…including just 2 possessions in a close loss to Gonzaga.
Business has picked up since that Gonzaga loss. UK deployed their star trio for 14 possessions against Ole Miss, the most they’d played together with a full rotation since Jan 20th. Beginning with the Auburn game, UK has played the 3 R’s together for 24 or more possessions in every single game after doing so just 4 times prior, and only once (vs Miss State) with a healthy DJ Wagner available.
The results have been fantastic, as expected. From the Auburn game forward, here are UK’s splits with the star trio in/out:
With all 3 in: 195 possessions, +55 pts
With 2 of the 3 in: 229 possessions, +26 pts
With only 1 in: 101 possessions, -18 pts
The game by game results show that UK’s winning margins are usually created when all 3 are in the game, and if not, it happens when 2 of the 3 are in:
Kentucky has consistently been losing the possessions when only one of their star guard trio is in the game, but that time has generally been limited enough that UK is getting wins.
They Can Win With Anybody
Kentucky has been dominating opponents with this trio, regardless of who else plays alongside them. From Auburn onwards:
With Onyenso at center, this trio is +21 in 76 possessions.
With Ivisic at center, it’s +30 in 81.
With Bradshaw, it’s +10 in 38.
With Edwards at PF, it’s +41 in 74 possessions. (Edwards is 4-6 on threes with this group!)
With Thiero, it’s +12 in 84.
With Mitchell, it’s +11 in 27.
With me, they’d probably be +1 in….well, I won’t go that far. But the point remains, fill in Sheppard, Dillingham, and Reeves around the perimeter and UK is extremely likely to build a lead.
The only thing that’s slowed them down are flukey bad shooting nights. Against LSU, UK only hit 40% on twos with this trio in with an uncharacteristic 0-3 showing on them by Reeves. Against Tennessee, Reeves and Sheppard had a run of 1-6 on twos with Dillingham out before picking things up alongside him. That’s it. So, for UK to lose the minutes when at least 2 of their 3 are in requires a frigid stretch inside the arc.
Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?
So what can Kentucky do to take this to an even higher level? Well, a reasonable place to start would be giving this trio even more time together.
Over the last 7 games this trio has played about 35% of UK’s minutes together. UK’s scoring margin per 100 possessions is about +26 better with this trio than with any alternative, per hoop-explorer.com. Using Evan Miyakawa’s site, and hoop-explorer, I found a few other teams who have dominant trios like this…and most of them tend to play an even higher percentage of their team’s minutes:
Houston’s trio of Shead/Cryer/Francis scores +18pts better than the alternative and plays 47% of the minutes
Tennessee’s Zeigler/Knecht/James trio is +18pts better than the alternative and plays 55% of minutes
Creighton’s trio of Ashworth/Alexander/Scheierman is +26 pts better than the alternative, and plays a whopping 80% of their minutes
If Kentucky could shuffle the rotations a bit so that the 3 R’s played together for about 5-6 more minutes per game, they’d get to about 50% of UK’s minutes. That should be worth about 3-4 points per game. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but Kentucky only had 4 games this season that they would have lost if the Cats had scored 4 more points in regulation.
Making that adjustment would mean playing DJ Wagner fewer minutes, which may seem a bit unfair given his reputation. However, over the 8 game sample where UK is 7-1, the Cats have been outscored in Wagner’s minutes by 12 points. UK is simply not winning the minutes Wagner is playing, and at some point you’ve got to go all in on what is working at a ridiuclously high level.
UK can absolutely make the Final Four this year, and if they do it’s going to be largely because of the stretches of the game where their star trio of guards outscores the other team. UK might flame out in the tournament, and they might have an absurd cold spell at the wrong time and lose a game. However, based on all of the evidence, UK’s best bet for success is to let the 3 R’s rock together as much as possible.