Quick thoughts on UK's GLOBL JAM play
Mostly positive, but a few concerning areas
After a pretty brutal April and May, the vibes around Kentucky basketball are pretty positive right now. They went 4-0 representing the USA in an international tournament and looked pretty sharp, especially on offense. That being said, it does feel like the GLOBL JAM wins are being used to wipe the slate clean in the eyes of UK fans and media when I don’t know that it really changed a whole lot about this team’s expectations…at least for me.
I know the UK fanbase and media have been pretty desperate for any good news this offseason, but I think the takeaways from these Canada games are split between encouraging and worrisome. Here’s a rundown of what I’d put in each bucket, and what I would consider as irrelevant:
Encouraging
UK moved the ball well to create baskets, assisting on 103 of 142 made FG (73%, 4% better than the best in D-1 last year)
UK had multiple playmakers, with 5 players racking up 12+ assists vs just 2 hitting that mark in the Bahamas last year
Tre Mitchell was MUCH more effective on offense than I expected watching his West Virginia film
UK was more active at the rim and from three than from midrange; they took more shots at the rim and from three than midrange in all 4 games, something they only did 8 times all last season
UK’s “midrange” shots were mostly around the paint instead of longer jumpers, and UK hit 44%. That would have been top-10 in the country on midrange shots last year and the best by some distance under Calipari at UK.
UK contested interior shots fairly well, allowing only 55% shooting at the rim despite missing any interior defenders.
Worrisome
Efficiency for Dillingham, Wagner, and Edwards; none of them hit 50% on twos or more than 33% on threes despite the competition level. There’s not a good reason for top-10 recruits to be that inefficient in a well-spaced offense against lesser competition. Last season every Cat except Lance Ware hit at least one of those marks in the Bahamas, and most were well above. Dillingham went 9-29 after being inefficient in OTE as well, so I’d consider that a major red flag.
Rebounding was expected to be rough without the top 2 bigs, but it was really a disaster. UK collected 27% of their own misses and 66% of opponent misses, and the opposing teams were well below SEC level in big man talent. If Bradshaw and/or Onyenso miss any time, UK may have immense rebounding struggles.
UK allowed more free throw attempts than they took, which is really strange considering that a lot of UK’s roster profiles as aggressive drivers and UK had an athleticism advantage. This is likely a byproduct of missing interior defenders, but this is something to watch when UK starts playing high-major teams.
Largely Irrelevant
The overall number of threes. UK took 117 in 4 games, which made up 39% of UK’s total shots. Both the per-game amount and the % of FGA are higher than UK has ever averaged under Calipari, but I’m not convinced it means UK is going to shoot a ton more threes. First, that was largely a function of having no interior players, which also led to the rebounding issues; unless he’s forced to, I don’t see Calipari punting on rebounds in favor of shooters during the regular season. Second, UK took 105 threes in 4 games in the Bahamas last year with Oscar Tshiebwe and Damion Collins combining for 10 attempts…and then 5 the entire regular season. Calipari uses these summer events to play loose on offense, and then tightens up when the games actually count.
Literally any plus/minus stat from these games. Yes, those are numbers. Wonderful. There’s a reason people post the plus/minus numbers but don’t try to interpret them…they don’t know what they mean, but they hope you look at them and come to some conclusion. It’s like listing the number of miles a bunch of cars drove and absolutely nothing else.
Kentucky is probably a fringe top-20 team with their full roster, and theoretically they could have some upside if several freshmen improve significantly during the season. The defense and rebounding hinge on Onyenso and Bradshaw, or whatever other big men are scrounged up over the rest of the summer, and that feels risky. Assuming Wagner and Edwards improve their efficiency, this team has some scoring weapons and will look awesome some nights and less so other nights. Other than Tre Mitchell and maybe Adou Thiero, I don’t know that any Wildcats looked significantly better than I would have expected, but nobody really looked much worse either. Still a lot of question marks, and still worth watching to try to figure it out.
These games are fun to watch. Who doesn't love the chance to watch the Cats in July? That said, I can remember having set what turned out to be unrealistic expectations following UK's dominant performances in the two previous summer events, so I've decided to spare myself the unnecessary emotional pain of doing so a third time. Our guys seem athletic and talented and I'm eager to see what they've got in November.
I'm not trying to get into it with other subscribers or anything, but I value your inclusion of the negative takeaways in your assessment. I want to know what the data suggests is most probable. If it's something that I find emotionally devastating, I can talk it out later with my therapist.
Reed didn't look better than you expected? Reeves playing the way he did on offense wasn't better than you expected. Agreed it's not all sunshine - Edwards and Rob weren't as good as I was hoping - but to say the way these guys looked was fringe top 20 is just another feather in your Eeyore cap