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The No. 6 Kentucky Wildcats will take a hit in next week’s Associated Press poll following their 79-62 loss at South Carolina on Tuesday night. The Gamecocks were led by Ta’Lon Cooper on offense, scoring a game-high 20 points. He was joined by Meechie Johnson and Jacobi Wright (14 each) in double-figure scoring.
For the Wildcats, Rob Dillingham had 16 points, Antonio Reeves had 15 and Tre Mitchell had 13.
What plagued Kentucky was allowing the Gamecocks to shoot 48% from the field and a whopping 45% from the three-point line. Did South Carolina make a few tough shots? Sure. But most of their looks were wide open and they made Kentucky pay.
Tuesday night’s loss was the ninth consecutive game Kentucky gave up more than 70 points. They’re allowing opponents to shoot 43% overall and 31% from behind the arc during that stretch. While that isn’t “terrible,” it’s also not you would like to call championship level defense.
That ultimately continues to be the fatal flaw for this team. If Kentucky’s offense can’t play perfectly, they have found themselves on the losing end now four times in 18 games. And, unfortunately, it appears that fatal flaw won’t be fixed anytime soon.
Coming into Tuesday night’s game, Kentucky ranked 303rd out of 351 teams in scoring defense. They ranked 108th in field goal defense and, more specifically, 80th in three-point defense. The Wildcats also ranked 119th in turnovers forced per game. The bottom line is Kentucky isn’t good in any defensive category, let alone great.
What has to be troubling for both head coach John Calipari and Kentucky fans is why Kentucky is so bad defensively.
They have tremendous athletes at every position, allowing them the ability to switch in the half court and get back on defense in the fast break. They’re one of the more deep rosters in the country, which should lead to fresher legs. Kentucky is loaded with five star talent, which usually means the player(s) can excel at both ends of the court.
But Kentucky isn’t doing any of that well. Time and time again the opposing team has a wide open look. Their opponents make one or two extra passes and Kentucky is almost always late in rotation. Open shots are crippling the Wildcats and ultimately limiting their ceiling for how far they can realistically go this year.
Can all of this be fixed? Anything is possible. And the bright spot (if there even is one) for Kentucky is defense mostly comes from effort and communication – both factors Kentucky can immediately change if they want to.
Let’s hope this loss was a reality check for Calipari, his staff and the team.
Coming up, Kentucky will prepare for another road trip as the Wildcats head to Arkansas on Saturday. Tip-off for that game is scheduled for 6 PM ET with television coverage on ESPN.
2 Responses
Like I said, if we don’t toughen up, it’s going to be a long season. We have lost 4 of the last 7 games to South Carolina, including a home loss last year. Calipari whines about fouls not being called but that is life on the road in the SEC. He can keep crying and keep losing or he can make our practices rougher. Coach Hall knew what was coming on the road and his practices made you get tough or quit. Calipari has to start his best 5 and play them 30 minutes. We have lost to 3 teams, so far, that we should have never lost to…never. Last week I said that if we didn’t toughen up, we would lose another 5 games before tourney time and boy did you Calipari lovers squeal. Tonight is one of those 5, 4 more to come…if not more.
I agree completely with above first comment and the article. My first question is is CAL actually putting in the time at practice to coach these guys up on their defense? Obviously, very few of us know the answer, but it sure couldn’t hurt if he is. But I agree that in the end, good defense comes mostly from good team communication, good effort, and the heart and desire to get out there and get stops. It’s about the "want-to" and the competitive fire and competitive spirit within. This defensive struggle is such a huge disappointment with this team–because I have said all year long that if this team ever got themselves together defensively, they would be the best team in the country–handsdown! The way that theyve shown they can already score WITHOUT playing well defensively– think about how good they would be if they ever got it together on that end too. Think about how unstoppable they would be, esp in transition, with getting steals, blocked shots, rebounds, etc, and then flying back down the other end on the break–they would be capable of going on runs like the teams from the 90s–runs that would just demoralize and take the life out of their opponents–it would take a major effort on other teams’ part for anybody to beat them. Remember, CAL’s best teams at KY have all been great defensive teams–and they all always got better with it during the second half of the season–during conference play. So far, we have not seen that jump with this team–but they are FAR, FAR BEHIND where they need to be with that at this point of the season. They have much further to go with their defense than just "improving" it. It’s a major concern at this point for the long-term, and it’s going to end up being the difference between whether this team will just be "good" or "elite", and will determine how far they will go in both tournaments. They have the talent, depth, athleticism, and size to become a great defensive team–The only things they lack are physicality from the big guys and a true rim protector–they do have speed to make up for some of that–but we don’t have big guys who can bang inside and get to the foul line, nor a major shot-blocking presence who makes ppl just scared to even try to take it inside–Just my thoughts—i will be cheering for a turnaround but I’m not holding my breath–u can’t always expect to outscore every single team u play in a track-meet-type game–there are going to be different styles they come up against from different teams, and different coaching strategies, as we saw against A&M and SCAR–so u have to be able to get stops sometimes too to win games–thats where COACHING comes in to play, CAL!!!! thanks for the articles, Larry, as always!!!
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