How big of a red flag is Kentucky’s defense going into the NCAA Tournament?

Kentucky can score on any college basketball team in the country. And any college basketball team in the country can score on Kentucky.

Going into the NCAA Tournament, that’s a bad combination for the Wildcats.

UK took one more major step backward defensively in its final game before March Madness begins, losing 97-87 to Texas A&M in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals Friday night in Nashville.

“Just got to guard better,” John Calipari said afterward. “Eighty-seven points is enough to win most basketball games, unless they score 97. We’re going to have to lock in.”

The Cats were most definitely not locked in Friday night, for the umpteenth time this season. And while A&M has some talented players — All-SEC guard Wade Taylor IV chief among them — the Aggies aren’t exactly world beaters with the ball in their hands. The win over Kentucky in Nashville was Texas A&M’s 33rd game of the season and just the second time the Aggies had scored 90-plus points. The first time? A&M’s 97-92 win over UK in College Station on Jan. 13.

The Wildcats went into Friday’s game at No. 96 nationally in the KenPom defensive efficiency ratings. By the next morning, UK had dropped to No. 108 in the country in that stat.

Not where anyone wants to be this time of year, no matter how much they can score.

The last time a team finished the season with a defensive efficiency rating outside the national top 100 and made it to the Final Four? The Dwyane Wade-led Marquette team that defeated Kentucky in the Elite Eight in 2003. That was 21 years ago.

Only three other Final Four teams in the past 20 NCAA tournaments — a pool of 80 teams, mind you — have ended the season rated outside the top 50 in defensive efficiency: Miami (99th last year), VCU (78th in 2011) and Texas (58th in 2003).

But can’t Kentucky’s high-octane offense — fifth nationally in the efficiency ratings after the Texas A&M loss — overcome its relatively bad defense? Probably not, history says.

Since 2003, a total of 38 teams have finished up top 10 in offense but outside the top 100 in defense. That ’03 Marquette team is the only one to make the Final Four. One other — Notre Dame in 2016 — made the Elite Eight. And 31 of the 38 were done playing by the end of the first week of the NCAA Tournament.

The stats are even worse for anyone hoping to see a new national championship banner in Rupp Arena after this season. Of the past 20 national champs, Baylor — rated No. 22 in defensive efficiency in 2021 — has been the worst in that category. And 17 of the last 20 title winners have been ranked inside the top 15 in defensive efficiency.

The lowest finish in defensive efficiency by a John Calipari-coached team at Kentucky was 88th in 2013, the season in which Nerlens Noel was lost to injury. Only two other UK teams under Calipari have finished outside the top 40: last year’s squad, which ended up at No. 68 in the country, and the 2019-20 team (52nd overall).

Kentucky still has time to improve, as Calipari and some of his players pointed out Friday night, but how realistic is that? The Cats have been talking about getting better defensively all season, with Calipari and his coaching staff carving out extra practice time to work on the details of cohesive, team defense. There have been gains here and there, but they’ve almost entirely come in spurts, not full 40-minute games. Rarely even 20-minute halves.

“It’s just about staying connected,” sophomore center Ugonna Onyenso said before the team departed for Nashville. “We all can do it. We all can play defense. We just choose not to play defense at some points. Not that we do it intentionally. It’s just a habit. … We break down at some points.”

Onyenso added that he takes “pride in defense.” The 7-footer is the team’s top shot-blocker, and his minutes have largely been tied to Calipari’s need for a stopper on the defensive end.

“I think this is the time of the year where we’ll start to lock in on what we do,” he said. “… I think this is the time of the year where you’ve got to take pride in your role on this team. You lock in and do what you’re asked to do.”

That didn’t happen Friday night. The next time it doesn’t happen, the season is probably finished.

Sophomore guard Adou Thiero — one of the team’s most aggressive defenders — said communication has been an issue all season, a problem no doubt amplified by the injuries and ailments that kept several key players sidelined at various points. Thiero said he’d seen improvements there in recent weeks.

“I think the communication is getting a lot better, because most of the actions that we’ve seen throughout the season, we’ve become more comfortable with calling out,” he said of these Cats getting on the same page. “… We’ve learned what to use for our terms for everything. And that’s made everything easier. It’s just getting in the gym. Playing against each other and working on it.”

But when he started critiquing Kentucky’s defense Friday night, Calipari went back to a lack of communication and connectivity.

“There were some times we had miscommunication,” he said, “Not enough talking. A young team. They don’t talk enough. A guy can’t hear what they’re saying and gets clipped a little bit.”

Perhaps a sign of desperation, Calipari even went to a zone against the Aggies. Briefly.

“Yeah, we’ve been working on zone,” he said. “We were good for a minute. You make a sub, one guy gives up two 3s. Part of it, we hadn’t played it that much, but we were prepared to go to it if their guards kept getting downhill.”

Taylor and backcourt mate Tyrece Radford combined for 55 points against the Cats on Friday night, hitting 3-pointers and getting to the basket over and over again. Two months ago, that duo scorched Kentucky for a combined 59 points by doing the same thing.

Calipari has tinkered with the zone before, but it would be wildly out of character for him to stick with it for an NCAA Tournament run. Barring a major shift in thinking, this team will win or go home based on its ability to go man to man with the opponent and actually get some stops.

Winning four (or six) games in a row doing that seems like a long shot for these Wildcats. But history says simply outscoring their way to the final weekend of the college basketball season would be, too.

“We got some stuff to figure out,” Calipari said. “But this is an unbelievable group that I’m coaching. All I told ’em is they got to stick together now. We’ve been on a run, it’s all been fun, you win. All of a sudden you get dinged and now the real stuff starts next week. We got to be in the right frame of mind.”

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