Good analysis of cats/rebels game

[1 for the Blue]

Give coach Kennedy some credit, his game plan was notable:
some examples:
1) bring our bigs out front to open up the inside;
2) overload one side to weaken defense on other side;
3) double screen our guards
...etc
LINK

http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketball/story/2015-01-07/kentucky-ole-miss-upset-score-undefeated-calipari-platoon

LINK

 

[macyssocks]

What frustrates me is the fact that coach had to see these things going on in the game. Yet he stubbornly refuses to go to any sort of a zone or if he had
To stick with man defense why not give Lee more of a shot in johnson's spot. It might have been a good time to see what we coulda got with Hawkins and his on ball defense.

 

[Altro Cat]

Every team brings our bigs out, that's not something special Andy Kennedy tried to do. Every team we play has their bigs come out and set screens and Cal always tells our guys to switch if needed so that is how we always end up with WCS on guards and our other bigs out there a lot as well.

 

[UKGrad93]

The plan was almost perfect. Close, but no cigar.

 

[wldktz8]

Originally posted by macyssocks:
What frustrates me is the fact that coach had to see these things going on in the game. Yet he stubbornly refuses to go to any sort of a zone or if he had
To stick with man defense why not give Lee more of a shot in johnson's spot. It might have been a good time to see what we coulda got with Hawkins and his on ball defense.

You think Cal didn't know these problems existed? This team is best man to man team in the country. A zone would not have worked against Ole Miss. Cal has been to three championship games and won one of those. I'm not worried about what he does. He's also had two teams that have won the most games in a single season in the NCAA. BTW I don't care what the NCAA says Memphis won those games.

 

[Dream Team 13]

Originally posted by MdWIldcat55:
"Yet he stubbornly refuses to go to any sort of a zone"

Yeah, why didn't Kentucky zone? They couldn't hit anything from outside. We should have forced that kid with the dreadlocks to shoot.

And UK's man-to-man defense had been an utter failure going into that game, as evidenced in the game before that against Louisville.

LOL...

There is no gameplan that will work without an incredible shooting night and UK losing a bunch of 50/50 balls.

 

[Blueaz]

Originally posted by Dream Team 13:

Originally posted by MdWIldcat55:
"Yet he stubbornly refuses to go to any sort of a zone"

Yeah, why didn't Kentucky zone? They couldn't hit anything from outside. We should have forced that kid with the dreadlocks to shoot.

And UK's man-to-man defense had been an utter failure going into that game, as evidenced in the game before that against Louisville.

LOL...

There is no gameplan that will work without an incredible shooting night and UK losing a bunch of 50/50 balls.

100% this....that kid shot his ass off...that built confidence...

aside, one summer day playing hoops outside Haggin Hall, I had that day. I was in the zone, I was jumping higher and shooting like crazy, it was awesome. Some recruit stops by and plays with us. I am playing so well, he asks me what university I have committed too, or who is recruiting me hard...LOL That was the best compliment in my life (up to that point)

 

[stoneycat_20]

One think Cal might do different is when a team is on a roll like the starters was 12-0,, Do Not Sub them out... ..It completely killed the momentum,Cal saw this and put the starters back in after 1.30....He has said he has never done this and looks to others for how to do it....It's trial and error..thank goodness we won..

 

[ukwizard]

Ole Miss exposed Kentucky. Clearly Kentucky is weak if you shoot out of your asshole against them and make tons of contested shots.
This post was edited on 1/8 5:39 PM by ukwizard

 

[OldEvilleCat]

He must've came up with that game plan at the 17:26 mark in the first half, prior to that he was getting his ass handed to him....

 

[FiveStarCat]

Good thing Cal played his trump card: Make the dude going off on your team get cramps during crunch time.

 

[DaveUK4life]

Why the hell would we zone a team that was shooting the way Ole Miss was?

 

[UKCatnNC]

Originally posted by DaveUK4life:
Why the hell would we zone a team that was shooting the way Ole Miss was?

^^^^^^ This! Go Cats!!

 

[BLEEDBLUE444]

The Plan is the easy part, the execution against our length and athleticism is another story... They simply couldn't miss... Kennedy ran a lot of baseline action, also staggers and pin downs, it's nothing we have not seen before, they were just drilling shots and the refs had a right whistle going, it was the perfect storm... ALMOST

 

[dreadpirate]

Originally posted by DaveUK4life:
Why the hell would we zone a team that was shooting the way Ole Miss was?

Welp....clearly if they're raining 3s with hands in their faces and falling sideways, they'll miss if their shots are uncontested.

Basketball 101, really.

 

[St.PatterSoN-54-]

Felt like the only one that didn't go in was the end of OT.

 

[Kerry Kat]

Is there any chance that people might be over analyzing this game? I mean Kentucky had a nine game lay off and the rebels came in with a lot of energy and just caught the cats napping. Could it be just that simple?

 

[ukdesi]

A stat that is disturbing to me is that we shot 35% from inside the arc, while Ole Miss shot 47% from inside the arc.
Teams will have games where they shoot well from 3, or their asses off like in this game, but those percentages have to be reversed.

 

[mikeywayne726]

LOL...

There is no gameplan that will work without an incredible shooting night and UK losing a bunch of 50/50 balls.

100% this....that kid shot his ass off...that built confidence...

aside, one summer day playing hoops outside Haggin Hall, I had that day. I was in the zone, I was jumping higher and shooting like crazy, it was awesome. Some recruit stops by and plays with us. I am playing so well, he asks me what university I have committed too, or who is recruiting me hard...LOL That was the best compliment in my life (up to that point)

When was this? I too has that night at Haggin. My freshman year on campus,
1993. Remember it like it was yesterday. I Couldn't Miss.

 

[KMKAT]

Improve on all those 2 pt shots....14-40 will keep opponents in games.

Oh, and a few more clutch free throws.

All those 3s would have been for naught had that happened.

 

[Aike]

Originally posted by Blueaz:

Originally posted by Dream Team 13:

Originally posted by MdWIldcat55:
"Yet he stubbornly refuses to go to any sort of a zone"

Yeah, why didn't Kentucky zone? They couldn't hit anything from outside. We should have forced that kid with the dreadlocks to shoot.

And UK's man-to-man defense had been an utter failure going into that game, as evidenced in the game before that against Louisville.

LOL...

There is no gameplan that will work without an incredible shooting night and UK losing a bunch of 50/50 balls.

100% this....that kid shot his ass off...that built confidence...

aside, one summer day playing hoops outside Haggin Hall, I had that day. I was in the zone, I was jumping higher and shooting like crazy, it was awesome. Some recruit stops by and plays with us. I am playing so well, he asks me what university I have committed too, or who is recruiting me hard...LOL That was the best compliment in my life (up to that point)

That was Ramel Bradley, right?

 

[crawfords corner]

The plan was almost perfect. Just about every prayer they threw up there went in. They bricked a free throw and it fell in. Not to take away from what they did because they did make some tough contested shots, but there were half a dozen shots that had no business going in. If I'm not mistaken there was bank shot prayer in there at one point that went in.

 

[BlueSince92]

Originally posted by wldktz8:

I don't care what the NCAA says Memphis won those games.

Damn Skippy.

 

[westerncat]

Originally posted by DaveUK4life:
Why the hell would we zone a team that was shooting the way Ole Miss was?

Was thinking the same question when I started reading this .

 

[arenk]

What a ridiculous statement. Every team looks weak and can be beaten if their opponent makes a ton of difficult shots. Duh!

 

[hotelblue]

the irony of this game is we contested their shots as good as any all season. they just hit tough shots over and over. go back and watch the ku game and they actually had a lot of open threes and couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. we dominated them in the paint and that had a lot to do with their offensive psyche, but it's still interesting to me.

 

[IL Wildcat]

Regardless of what his plan was, and I don't mind giving him credit for the things you mentioned, the real key to them staying in the game was the fact thag they made jump shots at a very high rate. They made them with a hand in their face, fading away, leaning, bank shots, and etc. Otherwise none of the rest of his techniques would have done anything more than keep the margin a bit smaller.

I posted a thread earlier stating this very thing. The blueprint for beating UK hasn't changed. You've got to be able to have multiple players make contested jump shots and you've also got to stop UK from matching you. Ole Miss made those contested jumpers at a rate I've rarely seen in college basketball.

Kennedy was saying that he hopes his team will be able to duplicate their "effort" in the UK game for the rest of the season. But it's not the effort they need, it's that ridiculous shooting. Now if they can duplicate that, they'll win the rest of their SEC games. But they can't do that every night, and they will lose a bunch of games taking contested jumpers.

 

[hotelblue]

one other thing...the rebs shot early in the shot clock the whole game. seriously, half their possessions consisted of one pass, with maybe one or two screens for an isolation. beyond that it was a lot of one-on-one moves, dribbling and waiting to get their man off balance to make a move. they DID not hold the ball. i stopped counting how many times they made only one pass before they would shoot in the half court, because it was evidently a part of their strategy. they ran an nba style (and i mean simple) offense. we probed and ran sets way more than they did from what i watched. had we not, there's no telling how many more possessions there would have been. even then, it was a high scoring game. one that showed me yet again that cal will not impose a system on the opposition, but will instead just let people try what they want against us and hope for the best. we have won almost every kind of game you can, against a variety of strategies. you won't see people score 70 on us very often. it was an interesting strategy by the rebs, but if not for their tough shot making you can't really say if it was more effective than others. in fact our depth in a faster paced game is generally going to work against you, and that was evident when moody went down with cramps multiple times.

 

[bigblueinsanity]

Yes everyone is over analyzing that game. Ole Miss hit insanely contested jump shots; and did it all game long. Every game plan works when your players can't miss.

The possessions they didn't hit a crazy shot, they were given free throws thanks to iffy officiating.

 

[OldEvilleCat]

Originally posted by bigblueinsanity:
Ole Miss hit insanely contested jump shots; and did it all game long. Every game plan works when your players can't miss.

A game plan is all about execution.... I was getting pist at how well Ole Miss was executing.

As John McKay (Coach of the Tampa Bay Bucs in the 80's) once said when asked about his teams execution...."I'm in favor of it!"