You can't tell anyone how to fan lmao, our defense is trash, as previously stated. Stating the obvious isn't crying dumbass.
Bottom line Pope has to do something about the defense
- Thread starter Dreklie
- Start date
He will next year because he will have better athletes. 5th year players are not going to change. I guess we could play more zone but I think we would get torched more than we do now.
This team may be built to score but we better find some defense to make a long run in both tournaments. Bama is a very good offensive team but giving up 102 to anyone is not a recipe for success. I’m not expecting to hold them or people to 60 points but how about 80 instead 100??? Is that a lot to ask legit D1 players & older experienced players at that, we go thru scoring droughts so why can’t we get a new stops in that time so we’re not playing catch up so much.
I realize Williams can be pretty frustrating to watch at times, but his PER 40 rebounding is #7 in the country right now.
2024 NCAA College Basketball Rebounds Per 40 Minutes Leaders & Stats - Rebounding Stats | FOX Sports
View 2024 NCAA College Basketball Rebounds Per 40 Minutes leaders and Rebounding stats.www.foxsports.com
If hes that high on any metric, the metric needs reworked. Multiple times a game he gets out worked or out physicaled by his man, giving up an offensive board. For someone of his measurables, that just cant happen.
I wonder where hed be on there if it was just sec play? His numbers are probably skewed from earlier vs the weak competition.
Pope said in the post game that they're working on it and will get better. He mentioned on screens the big is getting wrapped up by the guard and we need to be tougher in that regard. He knows what he's doing and the limitation for our team maybe athleticism. Defense is alot of want to. I think our guys will get better. Bama is darn good offensively.
Yeah, but every team has played weak competition, most teams have a much weaker schedule than UK does.
The early tough competition for uk was a good matchup for amari considering duke had a very talented, but young and thin, big man.
Clemson was probably the first time we saw a team with some physicality. We struggle every time vs those teams because we can't keep them off the boards. Him being dominated by Florida's big man almost cost us that game.
Amari has every measurable needed to be an amazing rebounder. He even showed it recently in the second half vs a&m iirc. He just needs to do it all the time.
In the Bama game:
BAMA: 15 OREB, 27 DREB, 42 TOTAL
KY: 13 OREB, 25 DREB, 38 TOTAL
fwiw ...
Here's another thing to talk about. You know, this team is so good offensively, top 5 good and actually averages the most points in the country. We may never get that again. Coach Pope is an amazing offensive coach, but he's doing it with some guys that are in their 5th year of college, thanks to covid, well, this is the last year of the covid year guys.
I see no reason why we can't be a good defensive team. We definitely shouldn't be last in the league (we are), even Arkansas, Vandy and South Carolina, are better defensively. That tells me we are doing something very wrong.
You can convince me that we just don't have the players to be great defensively, where you lose me, is when you say we are what we are. You're going to try to justify us being the worst defense in the league? I'll buy you telling me we are 9th best in an 18 team league, even 12th best, but how the hell are we 18th?
Pope has a shot to make a run THIS YEAR, he has an ultra elite offense, all he has to do is get this defense to be servicable. There is no tournament run with the defense being this bad.
I see no reason why we can't be a good defensive team. We definitely shouldn't be last in the league (we are), even Arkansas, Vandy and South Carolina, are better defensively. That tells me we are doing something very wrong.
You can convince me that we just don't have the players to be great defensively, where you lose me, is when you say we are what we are. You're going to try to justify us being the worst defense in the league? I'll buy you telling me we are 9th best in an 18 team league, even 12th best, but how the hell are we 18th?
Pope has a shot to make a run THIS YEAR, he has an ultra elite offense, all he has to do is get this defense to be servicable. There is no tournament run with the defense being this bad.
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He is obviously doing something the metrics like.
I mean, the metrics can be easily gamed, the proof is when you see Gonzaga and Michigan ranked ahead of us in almost all of them.
Also, that dude at Florida is going to make a lot of guys look weak. He's a beast.
So....what do you want the coach to do to 'fix the defense'?
Just pointing out a good defensive team is often a grinder...slow pace, pound it inside. That what you want???Slow the game DOWN???
Yeah, yeah, yeah....let's go to ZONE all the time.
We do realize that let's every team with a 3 point specialist....which most teams today have two or more of those guys...have free reign to bomb away.
OR do you want coach to pull a mid-season trade with someone to swap a couple shooters for a dominant post player?
Of course it could be as simple as yelling and screaming at the player "rebound!!! Fiiiiiiggght!" Instead of 'gooooo and ruuunnn!'
Inquiring minds want to know how you're gonna fix this with a bakers dozen games left.
Just pointing out a good defensive team is often a grinder...slow pace, pound it inside. That what you want???Slow the game DOWN???
Yeah, yeah, yeah....let's go to ZONE all the time.
We do realize that let's every team with a 3 point specialist....which most teams today have two or more of those guys...have free reign to bomb away.
OR do you want coach to pull a mid-season trade with someone to swap a couple shooters for a dominant post player?
Of course it could be as simple as yelling and screaming at the player "rebound!!! Fiiiiiiggght!" Instead of 'gooooo and ruuunnn!'
Inquiring minds want to know how you're gonna fix this with a bakers dozen games left.
Some players are good at offense and bad at defense. Some are good at defense and bad at offense. Most are not efficient on both ends.
Your analogy makes no sense. I guess since Ben Wallace was so athletic and such a great defender he should have led the league in scoring.
On top of everything else, Alabama is one of if not the top offense in the country. Oats teams are sink or swim...when they are hitting they are near impossible to beat.
And oh yeah...Nate Oatts pointed out Alabama rode one of the absolute worst defenses in the land to the Final Four last season. So there's that odd fact.
It’s not that we don’t get stops our issue is closing out the possession with the ball - we seem to lose every loose ball battle or struggle grabbing the rebound couple that with fouling so much it makes our defense even worse than it probably is
Is Auburn a slow, grind it out team? What about Iowa State, Duke, Florida, Marquette, Tennessee, Alabama, Ole Miss, Missouri etc… ?
What other top 10 teams are rated in the 80's in defensive efficiency?
You can't say it is one, or the other and those are the only choices, when most of the teams in the top 25 are much better defensively and are not grind-it-out teams.
Nobody is saying Pope needs to be Kelvin Sampson, you don't have to be the best defensive team, you just can't be the worst.
I hate it when people get on here and argue using extremes.
I guess this is why you started a thread saying you should have known better than to post on the rivals board, because the people over there are so stupid.
That's a seperate stat and even if it was part of it, that's not why we are last in the SEC in defensive efficiency. Teams are scoring on us at will and we aren't creating turnovers.
It’s not separate.
Our first shot defense is not that bad.
It looks bad on KP nerd numbers because he doesn’t count offensive rebounds as a possession.
But they are just nerd numbers.
When you give up an offensive rebound it is a possession. And your defense is not set.
When Dennis Rodman used to win defensive player of the year it was due in large part to his defensive rebounding.
Like others are suggesting the biggest deterrent for bad defense a coach can have, is lacking on this team. What's that? "a player who can do what you do and take your playing time". It would be difficult for Pope to call his players out on what SHOULD be called out, and then replace them with Perry or a walk-on, if he wanted any chance of winning. Talent makes other players better, directly and indirectly.
They're not nerd numbers, we give up 88 ppg in league play dude, that's good for last place.
I bet you were saying the same thing last year, shall we talk about how that season ended?
It's funny, you don't believe the numbers when they mean we have a flaw, but you are all over the "nerd numbers" when they say we are the #2 most efficient offense.
Stop talking out if both sides of your mouth.
I agree. AND We better be ready at Vandy. They play a guard heavy offense and can shoot the 3 ball pretty well. Their bigs aren't that big, 6-7, 6-8 but they out rebounded UT Saturday. They will be aggressive going to the basket as well.
I hope we get healed up because we will need all hands on deck to beat them in Nashville.
We can't afford to allow them 15 O rebounds and hope to win IMO.
I’m sorry, but if you think we’re even close to being in the same team as last year, then you don’t even know what you’re talking about
I'll say it again, nobody is saying UK should have the best defense in the SEC, that's crazy, but there is absolutely zero reason to he the worst defense in the SEC.
Seriously, how are we worse than Arkansas, LSU, Texas, Oklahoma and South Carolina?
If Pope can be good enough to get this new team to he the 2nd most efficient offense in the country, there is no reason he can't get our defense to at least be respectable. We are rated 84th right now, that's awful.
I didn't even make an analogy, haha.
Second, your analogy (which you actually used), incorporates Ben Wallace, hahaha, which makes no sense, as no one is trotting out 5 Ben Wallaces at once on the court, lol)
My original post in this thread was in response to posters saying UK doesn't have the athletes to play solid defense. That is patently false, as any team that has the athletes to put up 90+ a game can play defense better then what Pope and UK are. Simple as that.
Who keeps telling our players to go under screens, giving teams wide open looks? You are telling me that can't be fixed?
I was just saying that our defense is just like last years defense neither team can guard anyone
Good thread, good exchanges.
To my view, a good defense needs to be able to get stops when they’re needed. We simply cannot do that on any kind of regular basis, at least, not right now. There will be times when we will need our defense to win the game, most probably in tourney play.
To my view, a good defense needs to be able to get stops when they’re needed. We simply cannot do that on any kind of regular basis, at least, not right now. There will be times when we will need our defense to win the game, most probably in tourney play.
You can scheme an effective offense , there’s not much you can do to overcome a lack of athleticism on defense. And you realize Pope had a very short time to assemble a team right?
Always easy to tell the ones that never played the game.
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Excellent post.
We have damn good players, great individual defenders and super seniors, yet we have the worst defense in the league.
Does Vanderbilt have better players? Oklahoma? Texas? South Carolina?
The answer is no.
Here's the deal, we have praised Pope for everything he has done since he took the job, it has been amazing, but it's okay to say he's doing a poor job coaching defense. Honestly, I think he would agree. This is coaching and scheming, it is not the players.
Vanderbilt has the 69th rated defense, if we were the 69th best defense, we win that game yesterday. 69 >> 84
The coaches at Vanderbilt and West virginia had the same amount of time, we have better players, better individual defenders, but they are far better than we are.
Heck, even Arkansas is better and they have the worst coach in the country and a much younger and disconnected roster.
How will it improve?
Butler - Good defender, banged up
Oweh - Decent on-ball defender but his strengths rely on him to take high risks
Robinson - Not exceptionally quick laterally, not strong enough to defend physical guards
Carr - Extremely slow laterally, hampered by ongoing back injury, not skilled to guard perimeter
Williams - Motor issues, average to below average perimeter defender, good paint protector
Brea - Abysmal lateral defense, too slight to defend slashers
Perry - Tiny frame gets punished by drives, slow defensive reads, short wingspan on shot contests
Almonor - Undersized for position, too slow to guard perimeter, not skilled rebounder, not paint defender
Garrison - Too slight for physical matchups, poor defensive IQ
We are what we are defensively. We are not waking up tomorrow morning to a top 30 defense. All the complaining in the world isn’t going to fix our personnel.
Im not saying we have the team to be a good defensive team. All I’m saying is IF the defense stays like it has been then we are a 2 win team in March at best.
I don’t know that that’s true, as in factually not true. Alabama and Miami made the final four in ‘24 and ‘23 respectively with similar or worse KenPom defensive rankings. We would all like the defense to be better but we need to be realistic. This was a portal built roster and there were always going to be significant flaws
I bet if u look at the defensive number for those 2 teams for the first 4 games of the tournament I bet you’ll find that they were among the top of the 68 team field.
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