Hopefully a tweak with three shooters in the lineup continues for Kentucky

Davion Mintz hit seven shots and scored 19 points against Georgia. (Vicky Graff Photo)

If you watched Kentucky  take down Georgia Saturday  92-77 in Rupp Arena you probably noticed a couple of things that helped lead UK to the victory. First, when Kentucky plays inspired defense it can be very good.

In the second half against the Bulldogs UK picked up the intensity of its defensive effort to get stops and began to consistently hit outside shots which then opened up the passing lanes to allow UK to post up Oscar Tshiewbe for several inside buckets.

The passing was so good that TyTy Washington, playing point guard in place of an injured Savhir Wheeler, broke John Wall’s single-game assist record with 17. Those assists helped Kentucky outscore the Bulldogs 46-26 in the paint and hit 57 percent of its shots for the game.

But make no mistake, it all started with defense. The defensive intensity in the second half seemed to feed the offense and also allowed the Wildcats to get their running game going a little bit more which allowed for some open transition baskets in the second half.

The second thing you may have noticed is that after Kentucky fell behind 7-2 in the first half John Calipari quickly went away from his two-guard-two-forward offense to a three-guard look by inserting Davion Mintz into the game. Mintz paid huge dividends by scoring 19 points on 7-for-10 shooting overall and 5-for-7 from behind the arc.

By having three shooting guards in the game the UK offense was much more difficult to contain. Even with sharpshooter Kellan Grady having an off night the trio of guards still combined to shoot 53 percent overall and that was enough to open up the offense and allow the Cats to score 92 points. 

Georgia coach Tom Crean admitted that the three-guard lineup took its toll on his Bulldogs.

“I would say that that’s the best their team has looked because the ball really moved and you’ve got to guard all three guys. So there’s no one in there that you can really back off of. They got down the court and they made some buckets and we just couldn’t get enough stops to overcome it,” Crean said.

He went on to admit that had Wheeler played the point guard position the intent was to back off Wheeler to allow the other defensive players to sag back and help on the inside against Oscar Tshiewbe. That couldn’t happen with three capable shooters in the game and Tshiewbe ended up scoring 29 points on 13 for 20 shooting with most of those points scored at the rim.

As much as I love the intensity and drive that point guard Savhir Wheeler brings to the Wildcat offense, I have to admit that after watching a three-guard lineup that included three capable outside shooters it appears to me the ceiling for this team is much higher with Washington at the point guard position, Grady and Mintz as shooting guards and Tshiewbe at center along with Toppin or Brooks sharing the forward position.

Opposing coaches know that when Wheeler plays they don’t have to guard him for any type of shot outside the paint and that ends up making the UK offense very one-dimensional and easy to stop for good defensive teams.

Some of the long stretches of non-scoring that UK has experienced this year may not have occurred if Kentucky had more outside shooting options in the game which would then open up the paint area for better passes and drives to the basket.

It will be interesting to watch the rest of the season to see if Calipari tries to build on this new three-shooting guard lineup or he reverts back to Wheeler and two shooting guards with Tshiewbe and Brooks.

One would think that once the bottle has been opened and the contents spilled out for all to see it would be hard to stuff it back in the bottle and act like it never happened but one never knows with Calipari. He has always marched to the beat of a different drummer.