Kansas takeaways and Ole Miss preview
Where do the Wildcats need to get back on track against Kermit Davis' crew?
The perception of momentum can be a weird thing, in both real life and college basketball. You can be sitting in a parked car, but when the car next to you backs out of their spot your mind can briefly convince you that you are moving forward; pretty quickly you figure out what’s really going on, but that transition can be a little jarring. A college basketball team can win 4 games in a row and have the fanbase convinced that they are on a ride back to the top, but a single loss can shake loose those optimistic thoughts and bring back questions that had been set aside briefly.
Kentucky had an opportunity against Kansas to snag a precious Quad 1 victory that would bolster their NCAA resume, and fell a little short. They’ll have additional opportunities, but upcoming are a couple of Quad 2 games that absolutely have to be wins. Of their 5 remaining Quad 1 games (home vs Ark & Tenn, away vs Ark, Miss St, & Florida) KenPom projects Kentucky to be favored only at home against Arkansas. Auburn at home COULD be a Quad 1 game as the Tigers are right on the bubble of being in the top 30 (which qualifies an opponent as a Quad 1 game at home). Kentucky needs to improve a little bit over their full season average in order to snag wins there, and needs to avoid slip-ups anywhere else.
The Kansas game provided a bit of a blueprint on what a disappointing Kentucky performance looks like, especially:
Losing the “shot volume” battle
Trouble creating good looks for perimeter scorers
Opponents scoring inside the arc
I’ll explain what I mean by each of these and offer some ideas on how Kentucky can adjust, plus I preview Ole Miss, for premium subscribers below!
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