To save its season, Kentucky basketball needs to mimic one team

We are living through an extraordinary period in Kentucky men’s basketball history.

In its first nine Southeastern Conference games of 2023-24, UK has scored 90 points or more six times — and lost three of those games.

Last week, John Calipari’s Wildcats played twice at Rupp Arena, scored 91 and 92 points, respectively, in those two contests — and went 0-2.

My first-hand memory of UK men’s hoops traces back to Adolph Rupp’s final season (1971-72) on the Wildcats bench (when I was 7). Over all those years, I don’t ever remember a Kentucky team that was, concurrently, so good on offense and so bad on defense as are the 2023-24 Cats.

“We have to be a little more sound defensively in what we are doing and we are going to have to be a collective defensive team,” Calipari said Saturday night after UK’s 103-92 loss to Tennessee. “I keep saying it: If one guy stops playing, it’s going to hurt this group. We do it together, we can hold our own.”

So far this season, Kentucky is fielding what I’ve come to think of as a “Noah’s Ark” defense — you can all but count on two opposing perimeter players being able to torch the Wildcats in pretty much any game.

On Saturday night, it was the turn of Tennessee’s Josiah-Jordan James and Zakai Zeigler, each of whom had been struggling mightily to score in the games immediately prior to playing UK.

Before facing the “Mildcats’ defense,” James had shot 9-for-38 overall against SEC opponents, including 1-for-18 on treys. Against UK, he hit 9 of 18 shots, 4 of 9 treys and scored 26 points.

Prior to going against the “Wilcats” (get it, no ‘D?’), Zeigler had gone a combined 6-for-23 in the previous three games. Versus UK, the 5-9, 171-pound junior hit 8 of 11 shots, 3 of 6 3-pointers and 7 of 10 free throws en route to 26 points.

Versus Florida at Rupp on Wednesday night, it was guards Walter Clayton (23 points, 7 of 13 treys) and Zyon Pullin (21 points) who took it to the Cats in a 94-91 overtime win for the Gators.

In UK’s 105-96 win over Georgia on Jan. 20, it was the Bulldogs’ Jabri Abdur-Rahim (34 points off of 7-for-14 3-point shooting), and Silas Demary (22 points) who participated in the “light up Rupp” promotion.

When Kentucky fell 97-92 in overtime at Texas A&M Jan. 13, Aggies guards Wade Taylor IV (31 points, 6 of 13 treys) and Tyrece Radford (28 points, 3 of 6 3-point shots) had their way with Kentucky.

Heck, the tone of Kentucky’s SEC season to date was set in the league opener, an 87-85 UK win at Florida on Jan. 6, when the Gators’ Clayton and Pullin each scored 23 points.

Vanderbilt guards Ezra Manjon and Tyrin Lawrence — who gave UK fits last season when Vandy beat the Wildcats in two of three meetings — are likely relishing Kentucky’s arrival in Nashville for Tuesday’s 8:30 (EST) tip between the Commodores (6-15, 1-7 SEC) and the Cats (15-6, 5-4 SEC).

As I am sure you will have surmised, the Wildcats overall defensive stats are horrid. Out of 351 NCAA Division I men’s basketball programs, UK stands 319th in average points allowed, 78.4 (which, obviously, is also somewhat due to playing at a fast pace).

While a robust No. 7 in the adjusted offensive efficiency rating in the Pomeroy Rankings, Kentucky is a relatively woeful No. 102 in adjusted defensive efficiency.

It won’t take much of a Google search to figure out that No. 102 in defensive efficiency is not the profile of a team capable of winning the NCAA championship.

“Some of the breakdowns, we can talk about and get better,” Calipari said of the Kentucky defense following the loss to Tennessee.

This late in the season, it seems unlikely Kentucky is capable of producing a substantial defensive improvement. So the Wildcats will need to improve around the margins. One area to start would be to figure out how to consistently and effectively defend against baseline out-of-bounds plays. Continuing a season-long pattern, UT scored on three such plays against UK Saturday night.

“The guy out of bounds was supposed to be standing under the basket and he wasn’t,” Calipari said of the out-of-bounds play defensive failures versus the Rocky Toppers. “They threw it right at the basket. The guy that got screened had to fight a little more. Knock the guy down, do whatever you have to — you cant give them that. And then we fell asleep on the corner. They had two layups and a corner 3.”

For that segment of the Big Blue Nation still looking for optimism, there is some to be found in college basketball’s immediate past.

A team with Kentucky’s defensive metrics might not be a likely national champ, but just last year a team with similar profile — explosive offense, porous defense — made the Final Four.

Jim Larranaga’s 2022-23 Miami Hurricanes reached the NCAA Tournament national semifinals with a statistical profile quite similar to Kentucky’s current one. Miami ranked No. 6 in adjusted offensive efficiency last year, but was No. 99 defensively at kenpom.com.

With just a small amount of defensive improvement — which appears, frankly, to be all UK is capable of — combined with its dynamic offense, maybe Kentucky can still guide its season down the “Miami road.”

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