Only thing that bothered me last night

[KYFOSSIL]

I think we might have a top5-6 coach in the making, who is working with mid-major type talent... and it's also NEW talent to him, and new to each other. So there's a lot of room to improve. But I've been a little worried about this roster since it was put together.. much more so than worried about Pope's abilities as a coach.

I also don't think any game has a team play 100% perfect, and the losing team play 100% poorly. Kentucky did a lot of things right in the 2nd half against Duke (and a lot of that goes to my point above in coaching).. and Duke did a lot of things wrong.. or rather, have a lot of things "go wrong" for them. Their center was basically useless due to cramps, and they lost a good bench piece in Sion James due to injury.

I agree, but we didn’t play a perfect game either and Jackson Robinson had what one point

 

[LineSkiCat14]

I agree, but we didn’t play a perfect game either and Jackson Robinson had what one point

I don't disagree, we didn't play a perfect game either. We looked in the first half against Duke, like we did for most of the game last night.

I will say Jaxson Robinson having 1pt at Duke.. again, this might be signaling more of the norm from him, as opposed to being some 16pt/night scorer. He's having a slow start.

But I still think a lot of our troubles are due to the inexperience of this team with each other, with the coach, and the coach with them. Not worried yet. Maybe just not sure I'm ready to think this team has what it takes to win a title.

 

[Aike]

One thing to consider is where these guys have been most of their college career and all the sudden they are ranked fourth in the nation. Maybe they started to believe praise.

Or just start to feel the weight.

 

[fatguy87]

Think some things that get coded as effort, offensive rebounding and forcing turnovers, are areas we won’t be strong in this season.

In the case of the Clemson game, they had a higher offensive rebound rate and took better care of the ball. It’s why they edged us out despite similar shooting.

 

[TNCatfanforever]

Missed free throws irk me. Seen us lose too many games at the line.

Make free throws and today we’re talking about a close win instead of a close loss

 

[Aike]

Think some things that get coded as effort, offensive rebounding and forcing turnovers, are areas we won’t be strong in this season.

In the case of the Clemson game, they had a higher offensive rebound rate and took better care of the ball. It’s why they edged us out despite similar shooting.

I think we have to get better at offensive rebounding, but it doesn’t come natural to this group. It should improve as we become better at running our offense.

On that note, part of the effort I saw missing was failure to run through the bumps. We allowed them to take us out of our offense.

For this team to click on all cylinders, they have to make teams pay for being overly aggressive. I think they know that. But it’s like Tyson says, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

We will have lots of chances to improve. SEC will be a war.

I’m as analytics heavy as anyone, but there are layers to this. One layer is, “ we went 7-27. Hit 9-27 and we win.”

Another layer is, “why 7-27?” Did we get all the shots we wanted and just get unlucky, or were there other underlying issues that put us in position to underperform? That is tougher to quantify, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t important.

For the record, I don’t think effort was the only reason we lost. I’m well aware that had we knocked down a couple more shots we win.


But knock down 2 more shots and we might only mask some other issues. Like being around a 1 assist/turnover when we’re usually closer to 2.

Total focused effort is the first domino, imo. It’s also the “easiest” to control. Again, imo, when the effort level is right, it makes a few other things go right as well.

If we do everything perfectly last night, we win by 20. I’m well aware we won’t do everything perfectly most nights. But I think we were 2-3 effort plays away from a win. In the scheme of things, I think it’s healthier to win that way than to knock down a couple extra bad shots.

 

[Wildcats1st]

Were the hustle plays. 50/50 balls.

We would have overcome putrid shooting and bad refs if our effort had matched or exceeded Clemson’s.

Wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen, and the second half was better than the first.

I had this modeled as pretty close to a pick ‘em, so a 4 point loss was far from the end of the world. The important thing is do we learn from it?

Long season full of hot and cold streaks, but effort is non-negotiable.

I saw several plays where one guy is trying to make a play while others watched. Alot of ball watching and just not an overall great mental effort

 

[EliteBlue]

Maybe it was lack of hustle.. but it sort of seemed like we just didn't have that extra athleticism to GET those loose balls. I saw a lot of mistakes that made me think "De'Aaron Fox wouldn't have allowed that ball to get far" or "Randle would have cleaned up that board".

I can't help but feeling like I was watching a mid-major team out there. a VERY good mid-major team.. likeable, good basketball players.. but just a team thats kind of meh. I think we've had some past UK teams where not a single player on this team would start for (or at best, maybe 1 guy).

Butler starts at PG on every UK team since 2019 for any coach not named Cal. I’d take him over Hagans as well to go back to 18. There’s a few other years he could have started as well such as 2013…and he’s better than freshman Teague for 2012 but wouldn’t have started w Cal.

Oweh starts on at least 5-7 teams over the last 15 years as well if you remove the bias for freshman with draft projections and 5stars out of high school

Amari would have been the best big in last seasons team and really made that team complete (maybe even been better fitted in that system). Probably starts a couple other years like 2016 over Skal as well

 

[Digger-Cat]

Let's be honest tho, that guy can rebound. He's done it the last four seasons.

His defensive rebounding % last year was 26.5%. That's good for 26th nationally.
His offensive rebounding % was 12.2%. 84th nationally.

Maybe dude is just good at rebounding.

It helps when you can.go after balls like that and not get called for a single foul in 36 minutes.

Meanwhile, Butler picked up 2 right off the bus.

 

[Digger-Cat]

I saw several plays where one guy is trying to make a play while others watched. Alot of ball watching and just not an overall great mental effort

I've been saying this for weeks now and I don't know why it continues to be a problem. This team ball watches like none I've ever seen before.
I mean, it doesn't seem to cross their minds to do anything but stand there and watch the ball fly through the air.
I will be stunned if we actually outrebound anybody in the SEC.