Why is Kentucky struggling?
Looking into what's worse than usual, and anything that's better
Kentucky basketball really shouldn’t be this bad. The coach is deservedly in the Naismith Hall of Fame, the roster has a mix of veterans and pedigreed recruits, and the schedule hasn’t been terribly difficult. But yet, here we are.
Duke, North Carolina, and Villanova are other standout programs struggling to find their usual footing, but all of them recently lost their Hall of Fame coaches. Indiana’s been in the wilderness for at least a couple decades now, but that was largely precipitated by firing Bobby Knight and 2008 sanctions that depleted their roster. Michigan State has been through a couple rough years, largely traceable back to failure to replace Cassius Winston and some awful transfer portal work.
Maybe it really is a talent issue. 2017 was the last season Kentucky had multiple healthy freshmen who were top-10 recruits. Only 6 players on the roster were top-100 recruits out of high school, but North Carolina has 11 such players and that doesn’t seem to be helping. Maybe it’s the influx of transfers from less successful schools, but Texas’ top 6 scorers transferred in from Minnesota, New Mexico State, Utah, Iowa State, Creighton and Vanderbilt and they seem to be figuring things out. Even if the reason for UK’s decline is talent, then it seems to hold true that the extreme level of talent at Kentucky has been covering for some real deficiencies elsewhere.
I tend to think that the main issue is a mismatch between Kentucky’s rigid offensive/defensive strategies and the strengths/weaknesses of the current roster, and there’s a lot of evidence that points to that. I’ll explain what I mean, and preview the UK-Mississippi State game in the context of these issues.
Kentucky’s familiar identity
There are a lot of stylistic markers that have been consistent through John Calipari’s tenure at Kentucky. The Wildcats have tended to be good at:
Offensive rebounding (never worse than 94th in 14 years, 9 times in top 20)
Drawing free throws (9 times in top 50)
2 point FG% allowed (8 times in top 25)
3pt FG% allowed (11 times in top 75)
Blocking shots (10 times in top 20)
FG% at the rim (10 of previous 11 years in top 30)
At the same time, Kentucky has had other areas that weren’t a priority, such as:
3point FG% (only 4 times in top 100)
3 point frequency (only 2 times in top 250)
FG% on midrange shots (3 times in top 150)
Forcing turnovers (only 3 times in top 200)
Defensive rebounding (only 5 times in top 100)
Calipari’s UK teams have tended to prioritize athleticism and size, especially in the frontcourt. This yielded impressive results. Prior to this season, 11 of Calipari’s 13 UK teams finished in the top 25 in offense and 7 finished in the top 25 on defense. The biggest issue on defense was a tendency to allow a large volume of shots because of a lack of turnovers and a tendency to allow offensive rebounds while chasing blocked shots, but that wasn’t enough to make Kentucky anything resembling “bad”.
The last 2 seasons Kentucky has been at or near their best at defensive rebounding under Calipari, so you’d expect the results to be pretty good with that weakness shored up. Instead, UK is having their worst defensive season under Calipari and a below-average offensive season. What’s gone so wrong?
Strengths becoming weaknesses
Kentucky has gotten much worse in some key areas that have usually been strengths. Of the 6 typical strengths I listed above, Kentucky is having:
Their worst season in 14 years in 2pt FG% allowed and block rate
Their 2nd worst season in 14 years in 3pt FG% and free throw rate
Their 4th worst season in 14 years in FG% at the rim
Only offensive rebounding is anywhere near normal levels, and even that is only at the 6th best level it’s been under Calipari.
The 2pt Fg% and block rate are related, as Kentucky has very little rim protection among the players who make up the regular rotation. Oscar Tshiebwe and Jacob Toppin play the majority of the frontcourt minutes, and neither is in the top 15 in block rate among SEC players. This issue has been highlighted as teams have uncovered a soft spot by running non-stop pick-and-roll, forcing Tshiebwe to defend in space and opening driving lanes to the rim with little resistance. The 3point FG% defensive issues are related, as Kentucky has had to help and rotate away from shooters more often in an effort to try to slow down drivers, which is opening up more catch and shoot opportunities. Per Synergy, 48% of opponent catch and shoot jumpers are unguarded, the highest rate of ungarded jumpers UK has given up under Calipari. Opponents are hitting 37% from three on these, so it’s not like UK is just leaving bad shooters open. For reference, last season UK allowed 41% of catch and shoot attempts to be unguarded and opponents hit 36% from three, so things are much worse this season.
The low free throw rate and low rate of scoring at the rim on offense are also somewhat related. Kentucky’s guards don’t get to the rim very often, which limits their ability to draw free throws. Kentucky’s top 4 guards (Wheeler/Wallace/Reeves/ Fredrick) combine to take about 5 shots per game at the rim in halfcourt offense. In 2020, UK’s top 3 guards (Hagans/Maxey/Quickley) took about 7 shots at the rim per game in the same situation. The issue is that Oscar Tshiebwe is frequently in the paint, which closes off driving lanes. Oscar takes almost 5 shots at the rim per game in halfcourt offense by himself, compared to 3 for Nick Richards in 2020. UK’s guards are used more as spot-up shooters than their 2020 counterparts, but that type of play leads to very few free throws. UK’s 4 guards this season combine for about 10.5 free throws per 40 minutes, whereas the 3 main guards in 2022 combined for 16.5 themselves.
Normally, you’d read the above and think “well, it’s a better thing to have Oscar shooting at the rim even if it leads to fewer free throws”. The problem is that Oscar has been far from an elite finisher at the rim. He’s hitting a bit under 66% at the rim in halfcourt offense this season, which seems good until you learn that Nick Richards was at 82% his junior year in 2020. Last season Oscar was at 76%, which is more where a dominant interior player needs to be. One contributing factor is that UK uses Oscar in very different ways from their usualy big men, and even different from how they used him last year. 43% of his shots come on post-ups, which are almost always heavily contested; he hits 52% on these. About 45% of his shots come on a combination of putbacks, cuts, or as a roll man; these are all much less contested shots and quick actions, where Tshiebwe hits 61% from the field.
Even just last year, Oscar was much less dependent on post-ups. He took 34% of his shots in those actions last year and hit 57%, vs taking 56% of his shots on putbacks/cuts/roll man actions and hitting 64%. UK used Richards similarly to how Tshiebwe was used last year, 1king about 1/3 of his shots on post-ups. He was worse than Tshiebwe there (43% FG%) but hit 75% of putbacks/cuts/roll man shots.
Kentucky’s strategy on offense seems to really be bogging things down, and it’s not using Oscar Tshiebwe in the ways he’s most effective. At the same time, the lack of rim protection is taxing their defense and starting to open up holes as they try to compensate. To make things worse, UK isn’t leveraging things that should be their strengths because of a number of factors….
Unable to use strengths
Kentucky does have a few clear strengths this season, at least relative to their usual standard, and Kentucky is:
5th nationally in offensive rebounding, getting 37.5% of their misses
Allowing opponents to get 25.7% of their own misses, the 3rd best rate under Calipari and 65th nationally
Hitting 36.6% of their threes, tied with 2016 for the best UK rate since 2012
However, there’s more context needed to understand these strengths. \
Ranking 5th in offensive rebounding seems very impressive, but that 37.5% figure is only the 6th best under Calipari. The issue is that fewer teams pursue offensive rebounds; in 2015, UK ranked 8th at 39.5%. Purdue leads the country at 38.7% this season; in 2010 that would have ranked 14th. While UK has only ranked better than 5th nationally in offensive rebounding twice (2022 and 2014), that honor doesn’t quite mean what it once did.
UK’s defensive rebounding is flat out impressive for a Calipari team, who usually doesn’t do well in that area. However, that’s a measure of how often UK rebounds an opponent’s miss…and UK is worse than they’ve ever been at forcing misses. The result is that, per Synergy, UK opponents are scoring on 41.4% of their possessions. That’s the worst UK’s been under Calipari, behind 2013’s 41.0%. Otherwise, UK has never allowed opponents to score on 40% of their possessions.
The 3 point shooting is a similar story. UK’s is among the best for a Calipari team, but they shoot so few that it doesn’t really move the needle. UK ranks 328th in D-1 frequency of three point shots. If UK was leading the country in 3 point FG% at 40.2% per game but shot them at the same frequency, they’d be about 0.7 points per game better.
The core issue is that UK has revamped their offense to feature the reigning national player of the year, but done so in a very inefficient way. His defensive limitations are becoming a bigger issue than ever before. Despite Tshiebwe being a historically great rebounder, UK’s team rebounding is either just typical for UK (offensively) or largely offset by the inability to defend (defensively).
So, where does that leave Kentucky against Mississippi State?
A rock fight with the Bulldogs
Mississippi State is an elite defense and a putrid offense, similar to some other recent opponents (Florida, Arkansas). The Bulldogs get there in a little bit different way, however. They aren’t amazing at blocking shots or allowing a low FG% at the rim like Florida, but Mississippi State just doesn’t allow many shots at the rim (18th nationally). They do contest midrange shots extremely well (4th in the country in FG% allowed on midrange), but they allow a surprisingly high number of attempts from three (25th-most in D-1). The Bulldogs will be looking to aggressively help on drivers and keep them from getting to the rim, while also looking to force turnovers (15th highest rate in D-1). The interesting thing is that Mississippi State is exceptionally good at recovering to close out on shooters, as only 35% of catch and shoot threes against them are unguarded.
Mississippi State has slipped a bit recently in their perimeter defense, as over their last 5 games opponents have generated 40 guarded catch and shoot threes and 40 unguarded catch and shoot threes. However, 6 games ago they held Alabama to 5 unguarded looks and 20 guarded ones, so they can definitely turn it up.
The Bulldog defense is likely to cause a lot of problems for Kentucky, as they are excellent at defending the midrange shots that Kentucky creates and will likely keep the Wildcats from getting shots around the rim. Given that UK will likely be shorthanded again, players like Livingston, Toppin, and Thiero will take a bigger role. These players are more adept drivers than shooters, which plays right into Mississippi State’s strengths.
The saving grace is that the Bulldog offense is a mess. The only thing they do well is collect offensive rebounds, and that runs up against one of Kentucky’s strengths this year in defensive rebounding. Mississippi State runs a lot of post-ups, which Oscar Tshiebwe is very good at guarding, and very few pick and roll sets, which UK has struggled with. The Bulldogs are awful at scoring with either the ballhandler or roll man in pick and roll, so Kentucky’s weakness in guarding the rim shouldn’t be as big of a deal.
Oddly enough, this is probably the one SEC opponent where Oscar Tshiebwe is the best option out of Kentucky’s bigs. It would be wildly ironic if Calipari benches him here. Kentucky will need to hit some threes tonight, and their non-shooters will need to do a good job moving the ball around to take advantage of the short windows for open shots. Mississippi State won’t present the same type of defensive challenges as Georgia did, since Georgia used smaller lineups with quicker ballhandlers to get past UK’s wing defenders and Mississippi State plays bigger wings. Kentucky should probably get aggressive helping off shooters and trying to create steals, as the Bulldogs can be turnover-prone.
Predictions for tonight:
UK takes at least 16 threes
Cason Wallace has 3 or more steals
UK commits 14 or more turnovers
UK blocks at least 6 shots
UK shoots 40% or worse on 2 pointers
UK 59, Mississippi State 57