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Jasper Johnson built his national reputation as an elite shooter and Kentucky coach Mark Pope called him the “most dangerous shooter in high school basketball” last season.
However, after Kentucky beat Nicholls in its season opener Tuesday night, Pope wanted to talk about Johnson’s defensive play.
“Jasper had a huge challenge in the last couple of days and we talked about him on the defensive end. I thought he was much, much improved tonight,” Pope said after the win.
Pope was not surprised that Johnson took the coaching to heart to help improve his defensive play from what it was like the previous outing against Georgetown in an exhibition loss.
“The one thing about Jasper, man, is when you give him an assignment, he takes it seriously and he came into practice on Saturday with a vengeance, like just determined to guard,” Pope said.
“He was going to find a way to guard and I thought he gave us great minutes defensively and he is so creative offensively. He’s always going to give us great stuff there.”
Johnson finished the game with 11 points on 3-for-7 shooting, including only 1-for-4 from 3, along with four assists, one rebound, one steal and one blocked shots.
Malachi Moreno, another freshman, had five points, nine rebounds and one assist in 17 minutes.
“It’s funny because he’s only one game into the season but he’s already played three really big games (counting exhibitions) and he’s just going to be a force to reckon with as he becomes more and more comfortable,” Pope said. “His goal is to be a four offensive rebound a game guy and he started off well (with four against Nicholls).”
Kentucky struggled with ball screen defense in the loss to Georgetown and that was an emphasis in practice going into the Nicholls game.
“It’s really important. Is going to determine how good we are this year. I like the fact that our guys are far enough advanced right now that you could make simple adjustments like that in the game and you can actually go execute them pretty well and it’s going to be important for us to be able to do that this season,” Pope said.
“It’s really important. But it’s fun. Guarding is fun, it’s inspiring and actually, it’s pretty great.”
Pope said it is important for his team to learn how to gather energy based on defensive success.
“We cannot lose our energy because things are a little discombobulated offensively. It’s going to be important for this team,” Pope said.
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Here are Tuesday night's individual efficiencies, adjusted for opponent strength and venue, based on the actual outcome of the game. At team ANE of 0.26 is better than last year's team posted for the season, which is good. However, this ANE is typical of a Sweet 16 team not a final four team. Final four teams typically have ANE values of 0.3 ppp or higher. I have not seen many, if any, with an ANE over 0.4 ppp.
Three players performed at this high level in the first game. The rest were short of that goal, and some are languishing in the red numbers. The low performance is nearly all attributable to poor offensive performance by the team.
7-27 from the arc is not acceptable. That is 1 in 4, and it must be over 33% to justify taking the shot in the first place, and should be in the upper 30s% range to be an effective offensive tool.
12-22 from the line. Give me a break.
This team missed too many shots at the rim, and one player missed a slam dunk. Nevertheless, this team did shoot 22-35 from inside the arc, and this could have been even better by finishing at the rim.
This table shows the game ANE by player, sorted highest to lowest.
Last Name ANE
CHANDLER 0.669
GARRISON 0.502
DIOUBATE 0.335
ABERDEEN 0.280
JOHNSON 0.269
OWEH 0.169
MORENO 0.169
JELAVIC -0.165
WILLIAMS -0.331
NOAH -0.831
HORN
TOW
TEAM 0.253
Thanks again Professor for the numbers
Your analysis is always accurate and revealing.
Chandler & Garrison played at the level of a National Champion (0.360 or greater, which I learned from you) and as you noted Dioubate was at a FF level of performance. Those are 3 of my favorite players, which 5 I believe would make the best for chemistry. Moreno & Noah are my other 2.and their numbers will be much better after a few games. Noah put up some good stats last year.
Thanks for sharing the output of your hours of research & work!
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