Vicky Graff Photo
Otega Oweh understands that even the best basketball teams can have an off shooting night — and Kentucky certainly did against Ohio Saturday in its 85-65 loss in New York.
What disappointed Oweh, who scored 21 points but was only 4-for-13 from the field, was that Kentucky did not find a way to compensate for the poor shooting.
“Sometimes the ball won’t go into the rim. But you just gotta find other ways,” he said after the game. “And we didn’t today, but we will next time. We just have to find ways to just have high energy at all times, even when the ball’s not going in.
“On the defensive end, I feel like we could have sparked some energy there — maybe get some easy baskets by creating turnovers — but unfortunately, we didn’t. “But it’s OK. We’ll learn and get better.”
Kentucky shot a season-low 29.8 percent from the field and made just four 3-pointers. The previous field-goal percentage low was 38. percent against Clemson when the Cats were held to seven 3’s.
Kentucky averaged just 0.97 points per possession, well below its season average of 1.22.
Kentucky did get to the foul line 32 times and made 27, an 84 percent mark. Oweh went 13-for-13 at the line and Andrew Carr went 7-for-9.
“We tried to shrink the game a little bit with some of our offensive possessions and felt like we needed to make them guard longer in the half court in those moments,” Ohio State coach Jake Diebler said. “That’s a respect to what they’ve been able to do.”
As bad as the UK offense was, the defense was worse. Ohio State tried to slow the pace but still scored 85 points because it shot 57 percent from the field. No other team had shot over 50 percent against UK this season.
Ohio State was 15-for-20 on 2-pointers and outscored UK 24-10 in the paint in the first half.
“We’ve been pretty good in ball-screen situations this year. We felt like that was something we could utilize,” Diebler said. “We’ve certainly built a reputation, I think, from the 3-point line, but when we’re clicking, a lot of our 3’s come from inside out. And so we’ve been conscious of attacking the paint and playing with poise when we’re in there.
“I was proud of our guys for just kind of keeping the game plan, staying in that attack mode, and we were able to get some good things from it.”
Pope made no excuses for his team.
“It was just surprising, we’ve been pretty solid in that space and so, and we just got rejected over and over and over again. It was a schematic issue on my part in terms of, I’ve been fighting to push our bigs out to the point of the screen and thinking we can manage it,” Pope said. “And so when you push your bigs up to the point of the screen, and you’re getting rejected, the lane is wide-open.
“So that’s an issue that I had that I’ve got to fix. We tried a bunch of different scheme changes and, we just, at the end of the day, I mean (Bruce) Thornton (30 points) was too good for us. That was just today. Kind of, everything we tried, it seemed like he had a pretty good answer for us.
5 Responses
We have a few issues. Presently, we have no offensive philosophy, we are playing Calipari ball which is hero ball or every man for himself. Secondly, we don’t have confidence in our 3 point shooting in game conditions. We don’t have any pride in our defense. We don’t play with an edge, a killer instinct. We don’t welcome a fight, we shy away from it. We should want and expect the other team’s best, grab it by the throat, and throw it back at them. It’s hard to develop that in one season. Tennessee and Auburn believe they are the best team when they take the court, they never doubt it even when behind, and they play hard to prove it. We showed that kind of fight in the Duke and Gonzaga games, but those games weren’t physically intense. The Clemson and Ohio State games were brutally physical and we backed off. We are not good enough to overpower teams with one on one play, we have to play as a team to do that. This won’t change unless Butler initiates it first. If he starts going one on one, everybody else does too. If he starts the offense with a pass, the team will follow. Regardless, we will have to play a lot of zone this season. The Brown game will be a tune-up game but Florida will show which direction Butler is going to run with.
Totally Agree with Mr Pritchett on all points! I would like to see better defense! Players not scared to take a charge! No one get an easy score like all the layups OS got! Make them feel every point they get! And on Offense throw some hard picks to get shooters open! These guys better toughen up for SEC games or they will get run out of the gyms like Ohio State Punked them! I watched the game again and it was so showing that they were scared every time they tried a layup and only made 3 out of 27 attempts!! Coach should have had them running wind sprints after the game!
Oweh needs to be 100% TEAM 1st instead of so many solo selfish shoot first possessions. The ball Is in his hands far too often without anyone else touching it. Selfish play by 1 or 2 players (Robinson & Oweh) has been the FRACTURE FACTOR in disrupting a brilliantly built TEAM by Coach Pope & his staff through the 1st 5 games.
Once the SEC games begin and the 10 day break before the Brown game is over, UK players getting the most minutes will either be 100% on board to recover the TEAM in the early games…
OR
The season will be a monumental collapse because SOME players are too selfish to play FOR UK instead of FOR THEMSELVES.
Watched the replay and it looked like the Used Car Salesman was back coaching! Didn’t look nothing like all the previous games! Dribble Drive and throw up a crazy shot or bad pass! Everyone standing around not wanting to rough it up with the Men of Ohio State! No Toughness on any one of them!
The SEC is not a finesse league, especially now that they know Kentucky is SOFT! The way you counter physicality is with quick, sharp passes to guys coming off of screens who in turn make one or two more passes which eventually results in an open 3 point shot or a layup at the basket. Screens and cutting are equally as important as multiple passes. We did this in the 2 exhibition games and against Wright State and Bucknell. That means we can do it again, IF we choose to do so. Butler needs to watch the Tennessee game against MTSU. Zigler had 15 assists and 17 points on only 8 shot attempts. UT was behind at the half and did not take the lead until 12 minutes were left but went on to win by 18. Zigler trusted his teammates to make shots instead of trying to be the hero. Oweh and Robinson need to buy in on this as well. There will be plenty of shots for everyone. Moving the ball like that keeps the other team from facing guarding Brea like they are doing, but he has to stop giving up drives to the basket just because he is afraid of picking up a couple of early fouls. Play for the name of the front of the jersey not the one on the back!