Three things to like and one to be concerned about with UK basketball

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Devin Askew's improvement has been part of UK's recent improved play. (SEC Photo)

I will be the first to admit that I’ve been very critical of John Calipari’s coaching this season. I’ll also be the first to admit that in my opinion it was criticism well-deserved. But, in the interest of fairness, I have to give credit where credit is due.

So after UK’s 70-55 beatdown of Tennessee in Knoxville on Saturday, here are three things concerning UK’s game that have greatly improved since the beginning of the season and one area that still continues to be the team’s Achilles’ heel.

First of all, the three areas of improvement. The first would be defense, team and individual. Early in the SEC season Kentucky’s defense was so porous that it looked like teams didn’t even have to work to get a straight-line drive right to the rim. After UK’s historic 85-65 loss to Alabama in Rupp Arena in early January Calipari said about his team’s defense, or lack of, “We got beat every which way but loose. We were late to everything and we were backing away from players (on defense).”

In other words the UK players were continuously getting beat off the dribble and once they did it opened up a straight-line drive right to the rim or allowed a kick out pass to the perimeter for a wide open 3-point shot. And if you remember Alabama didn’t miss many of those that day.

Now fast forward to last Saturday, UK was playing a Top 15 team in Tennessee. Also recall that Tennessee beat UK in Rupp Arena by 11 earlier in the season after UK had a total defensive collapse in the second half, gave up a 10 point lead and lost the game by 11. But not this time. Against the Volunteers in Knoxville Kentucky built a 15 point lead at the half and expanded it out to 20 during the second half — all on defensive effort and execution.

No longer were UK players giving up straight-line drives to the basket or wide open 3-point shots on the perimeter. Tennessee had to earn every point they got — and they didn’t get many. The 55 points the Vols scored was their third lowest total in a game all season. John Calipari was so pleased with his defense against the Volunteers that he said this after the game, “The biggest thing is we are a good defensive team. We learned about playing them (Tennessee) the first game. We knew it would be hand-to-hand combat and we didn’t back away. This is a Top 15 team and one with a chance to get to the Final Four and we didn’t back down.”

So overall defense for UK has improved tremendously.

So has point guard play. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Devin Askew is the second coming of Kyle Macy or John Wall but his game has come a long way. He has reduced his number of turnovers per game and increased his number of assists. Take the first Alabama and second Tennessee games for instance. Askew had two assists and three turnovers in 36 minutes in the blowout loss to No. 6 Alabama at Rupp Arena. Against Tennessee last Saturday — another Top 15 team — Askew had four assists and one turnover in 31 minutes. Those are numbers you can live with from your freshman point guard.

The third area of improvement has been finding ways to score the basketball — specifically free throw shooting. There should be no easier shot in basketball than shooting a free throw. Anytime a team can hit 75 percent or better on free throws they are well on their way to winning, especially if they learn to draw more foul calls during the game. UK has done just that over this three game winning streak. They are a combined 58-for-70 on free throws over the last three games. That is an unbelievable 83 percent on free throws — and they are averaging a little over 23 free throws per game. Those numbers sure can boost an offense that has been pretty anemic all season.

Now for the Achilles’ heel. In my opinion that would be the inability to develop a “go to” player that can create offense when the game is close in the second half and UK is struggling to score. Against the Volunteers in the second half Kentucky only managed to hit 21 percent from the field but pulled out the win. Had they not played suffocating defense and hit 85 percent of their free throws it could have been a different ballgame.

The lack of a scoring guard ala Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or De’Aaron Fox has, at times, crippled UK this season and unfortunately with the lack of development from BJ Boston and an injury plagued season for Terrence Clarke it doesn’t appear that is going to happen from this group of UK guards. That means if UK is to continue to win games they must come up with a player that can get buckets when the team hits that dreaded scoring drought as they have done all season.

They had a little glimmer of hope Saturday when Olivier Sarr hit a much needed jump hook down the stretch and Devin Askew drained a 3-pointer. Those were both big time shots at key points in the game. So it looks like the solution to this problem might be to draw more free throws and try to squeeze out a few more baskets from a whole group of players and not one individual. Anyway, it is a problem to keep an eye on because eventually it will come back to bite these Cats.

So, in the interest of fairness, I will say that John Calipari has molded this team into a top notch defensive unit over these last few games and has pulled the offense up from terrible to slightly below average. If he can figure out a way to continue to manufacture points at the free throw line he may be able to win enough regular season, make-up and tournament games (provided they aren’t cancelled due to COVID problems) to get this team to .500, which would be a miracle in itself considering where they were four weeks ago.

— Keith Peel, Contributing Writer

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