The name of the game in the postseason is “survive and advance”, and UK achieved that at least. The Cats didn’t look great against Vanderbilt but seized control behind a resurgent TyTy Washington to oust the Commodores and set up a semifinal tilt against Tennessee. The Volunteers are one of the best defensive teams in the country and a major test for the Cats, and in this edition of Hoops Insight I’ll take a look at that matchup and takeaways from the first tournament win for each. Unless otherwise noted, stats are coming from my publicly available stats engine at https://hoopsinsight.shinyapps.io/HoopsInsight/.
UK: Mostly good job, I have some notes
The bare minimum for success in a tournament game is to win, and Kentucky achieved that. The Wildcats didn’t look like their best selves for most of the game, but they didn’t need to in order to beat Vanderbilt. They will need to improve to oust the Vols, however.
My first takeaway is that Kentucky had an OK defensive game, with a couple rough patches. First, the good. UK forced turnovers on 16% of Vanderbilt possessions, the 3rd highest rate UK has forced in the last 9 games. UK was also excellent defending inside the arc, allowing 44% shooting at the rim. That number is even inflated by Vanderbilt getting som easy baskets off steals; the ‘Dores hit just 35% at the rim otherwise.
That brings me to the trouble spots. Vandy generated easy offense off of their steals, going a perfect 6 for 6 on the ensuing possessions. That’s a bit of bad luck for UK, but the points count the same. Second, Vanderbilt had quite a bit of success late in the shot clock shooting from deep. The Commodores went 4 for 8 on three pointers during the last 10 seconds of the shot clock; that represents almost half of their total late clock shots. In the 2 earlier matchups vs Vandy, UK forced a lot more midrange shots late in the clock but the Cats weren’t as sharp this game.
Both of these factors are worth monitoring against Tennessee, as the Vols can hurt UK in both areas. First, Tennessee is 6th nationally in generating steals per KenPom; if UK gets sloppy and Tennessee can generate offense off these it creates a lot of pressure on UK. In the first 2 matchups Tennessee was ineffective at scoring after steals, so hopefully Kentucky can keep that in check. UK also needs to keep the defense focused in late clock spots to not give up so many threes; Tennessee hit 45% of their perimeter shots in these spots against UK earlier this year. UK needs to guard shooters tightly late in the clock and force them into more midrange shots.
In the Volunteers first game against Mississippi State, there were a couple interesting stats that jumped out at me. First, Tennessee’s 3 guard lineup of Chandler, Vescovi, and Ziegler was absolutely horrific. They got outscored by 11 points in 21 possessions, forced very few turnovers, and allowed 67% shooting inside the arc. This group had a ton of success against UK earlier this year, outscoring the Cats by 13 points over the two matchups, forcing turnovers on 23% of possesisons, and allowing just 22% from two point range. That trio hasn’t been very effective since the last UK game, however, with Vescovi and Zeigler combing to go 6 for 24 from three in those games. If that lineup can’t establish a lead for Tennessee, the Vols will be sunk.
Tennessee did do a really good job of forcing Mississippi State to use a lot of clock on offense. 19 of the Bulldogs’ 47 shots came in the final 10 seconds of the shot clock; even when Tennessee beat UK they only forced the Cats into late clock 18 of 59 times. UK’s major weapons late in the clock are TyTy Washington and Sahvir Wheeler, who do a lot of damage inside the arc. For me, a huge factor in this game is whether Washington and Wheeler can hit about 50% of their shots in these late clock situations. They combined to go 8 for 13 in these spots in the first two games against Tennessee, so they’ve shown the ability to do it already.
My key thought on the matchup is that I don’t believe Tennessee can score enough to keep up with Kentucky. With Vescovi and Zeigler slumping from three lately, Tennessee is losing a major weapon. Unless Tennessee scores 10+ points off of steals or gets hot from three again, I think Kentucky has too much firepower for the Vols. Survive and advance, Cats.