Four things Kentucky must do to win it all

Kentucky needs to run its set offense through Oscar Tshiebwe if it wants to be national champion. (Vicky Graff Photo)

No one knows better than John Calipari how difficult it is to make a long run through March Madness — even with a very talented team. He’s seen a lot of teams that looked ready to win it all ultimately struggle and lose in one particular game during the run through the field of 68 and as we all know there is no tomorrow for the losing teams in this tournament.

So what does Kentucky need to do to become the last team standing at the New Orleans Superdome on April 4th? Glad you asked because I’ve got four things that I think the Wildcats must do to be crowned champions of the college basketball world in 2022.

Here they are.

First the Cats must get back to creating fast break opportunities. As the regular season wound down  most SEC teams realized that they needed to make adjustments to their offense to keep the Cats from getting out on the break after a missed shot. The adjustment that most teams made was to immediately drop players back on defense as the shot was going up. They were willing to drop a couple of perimeter players back and miss out in a few offensive rebounds in order to avoid a Kentucky layup. UK has to find a way to get the running game going again. Easy baskets could be the difference between losing a close game versus winning going away.

Since we are talking about teams stopping the UK fast break, we may as well talk about how the Cats need to run the offense through the low post. To be more exact they need to get the ball into Oscar Tshiewbe’s hands to start every possession where they run a half-court set.

UK’s offense is much more effective when teams have to drop players down to help with Tshiewbe inside. That opens up driving lanes on the opposite side of the floor for the guards and creates open looks from the three-point line. Having three guards run a perimeter weave for 20 seconds of the shot clock and then having Sahvir Wheeler or TyTy Washington try to figure out how to create a shot in the last 10 seconds is not championship offensive basketball.

Here’s the second thing that the Cats need to do if they want to keep playing and winning. They need to better understand their roles on offense (similar to how they were playing before all the injuries to Wheeler and Washington) and stick to the script. Wheeler needs to understand that he is option number five for any jump shot opportunities outside of 10 feet from the basket. Keion Brooks needs to stick with rebounding and putbacks with an occasional mid-range jump shot out of the low post offense. Tshiewbe needs to be a little bit more demanding to his teammates about getting him the ball down low.  Kellan Grady needs to show more leadership when the ball is in his hands and Washington needs to continue to probe the defense to find a mismatch that allows him to drive the basket or pull up and shoot the mid-range jump shot off the elbow screen.

If everyone does his  job and the shooters shoot and the rebounders rebound and the point guard looks to feed the low post the half-court offense functions very well. But when teams physically pressure the Cats on defense the point guards tend to get anxious and don’t take the extra time to feed the post. Instead, players start to go one on one and the entire set breaks down and bad shots ensue. I’ve seen that happen in several UK losses this season.

The third thing Kentucky must do to cut down the nets at the end of the season is to get back to playing championship-level defense. National championship teams always rank in the Kenpom.com top 20 in both offensive and defensive efficiency. Most champions are usually in the low teens or better in each category. The Wildcats are currently ranked fourth in adjusted  offense but only 27th in adjusted defense. That defensive number has to improve if these Wildcats want to hang banner No. 9 from the Rupp Arena rafters.

Lastly, the most important thing these players need to do to win a national title is to regain their confidence. They have the talent to win it all but losing to Tennessee in Knoxville — the worst loss of the season in my opinion — and then losing again to the Volunteers in the SEC Tournament seems to have sucked a little wind out of the sails of this team and they need to get it back.

They need to watch some film of the dismantling of No. 1 seed Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, or the beatdown they put on Rick Barnes’ Tennessee team in Rupp Arena. Those games show a Kentucky team that played hard, played fast and had confidence in both their defense and offense. Find that team and they will find the National Champions for 2022.

So there you have it. Four things that in my opinion have to occur for these Kentucky Wildcats to go down in history as the No. 9 National Championship team at Kentucky.

Can they do it? Absolutely. Will they do it? It all depends on the mental toughness of these players. Are they willing to sacrifice egos and personal stats to become servant leaders on a team full of talented players? Are they willing to pass up good shots for great shots by making the extra pass? Are they willing to sacrifice a little offensive playmaking to create more defensive stops?

Those are all questions they will have to ask themselves as they start this run through the tournament field and the only ones who can answer those questions are the players themselves.

Former Chairman and CEO of General Electric Corporation Jack Welch said, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”

This team needs to fully embrace that idea. If they are willing to lead by growing each other, the sky’s the limit. But if they look to themselves first and only think how they are playing, like Icarus in greek mythology who disregarded his instructions and in his hubris flew too close to the sun, they will see their wax wings melt and their season end just like Icarus’ long tumble into the sea.