Saw the weaknesses of our team against WKU

[gracetoyou]

This is just me but I'd like our guys to be more intentional looking for Brea when he's in the game. Bigs need to post simply to set something up for him & guards need to drive with the purpose of looking for him. His shot is SPECIAL...& should get 8 attempts from 3 every single game. He ought to be our one volume shooter.

Robinson takes some bad shots at times...to me Brea cannot take a bad shot. Seems like there's a shorter leash on Brea than Robinison.

 

[blue cincy]

Bad passing kept Western in the game, along with poor shooting, and horrible foul calls on both sides.
It seemed as if the game would never end with all the fouls being called.

Officials did not want to see the family at Thanksgiving. They wanted to stay in Rupp and enjoy the lovefest fans have again with UK Basketball!

 

[megablue]

This is just me but I'd like our guys to be more intentional looking for Brea when he's in the game. Bigs need to post simply to set something up for him & guards need to drive with the purpose of looking for him. His shot is SPECIAL...& should get 8 attempts from 3 every single game. He ought to be our one volume shooter.

Robinson takes some bad shots at times...to me Brea cannot take a bad shot. Seems like there's a shorter leash on Brea than Robinison.

Here are some three-point shooting metrics, including attempts and makes per minute of playing time.
It suggests to me that Brea, Carr and Oweh need to take more threes, with Robinson and Kriisa taking fewer. It's early, though.
Players ranked by minutes.

	MINS	3PT	3PTA	3PT%	ATT/MIN	MADE/MIN
CARR	150​	3​	8​	0.375​	0.053​	0.020​
ROBINSON	149​	13​	40​	0.325​	0.269​	0.087​
OWEH	144​	8​	18​	0.444​	0.125​	0.056​
BREA	136​	23​	34​	0.677​	0.250​	0.169​
BUTLER	132​	5​	14​	0.357​	0.106​	0.038​
WILLIAMS	116​	0​	0​	0.000​	0.000​	0.000​
GARRISON	111​	0​	5​	0.000​	0.045​	0.000​
KRIISA	92​	7​	24​	0.292​	0.261​	0.076​
ALMONOR	71​	7​	18​	0.389​	0.254​	0.099​
CHANDLER	61​	3​	10​	0.300​	0.164​	0.049​
PERRY	20​	1​	3​	0.333​	0.150​	0.050​
NOAH	18​	1​	4​	0.250​	0.222​	0.056​

 

[LineSkiCat14]

Im not too worried, but Duke in the 1st half and WKU did a good job of slowing us down, mucking it up, and I believe, generally exposing maybe a lack of overall talent. I still think we are missing the one complete offensive type player who you know can get you 20 to 25pts from all over the court. I think we have guys that CAN do this, but maybe not as easily when we're facing the nation's best teams in March.

I think this team is still really good, and Pope is clearly making them all look a little better than they probably are with his uptempo offense and general coaching ability. But I wonder if that might either run cold one night in the tournament and we get sent home

 

[Mike-D]

At least it took 6 games before people started freaking out and we still haven't lost. Wait till we do lose, some of these people will need a safe space

The few freaking out are either trolls or Calipari only fans.

 

[B.B.H.]

The few freaking out are either trolls or Calipari only fans.

Thank you for being honest and articulate. After we lose the first game, a lot of people are gonna show their true colors

 

[Mike-D]

Thank you for being honest and articulate. After we lose the first game, a lot of people are gonna show their true colors

We all know when JA will be back.

 

[B.B.H.]

We all know when JA will be back.

Who is JA? Is that a poster?

 

[BC_Wader]

I had to listen to the game and Leach made a comment about how it looks like the guys were looking forward to the turkey and fixins. I like to imagine the gameplay while listening and I thought we sounded like we played our worst game of the season. There was a lot of whistles and I'm sure that disrupted our flow but WKU was bringing the defense. Leach said something to the effect of WKU was like a 1st round tournament opponent and was laying it all out on the line and I thought that was a good comparison. We needed a game like this though I feel. I'm sure Pope will use the game as a teaching moment.

 

[JwUKFan11]

People that don’t think there will be least 6 SEC losses aren’t paying attention or are in fantasy land. This is a good team but there are plenty of other good teams in the SEC.

 

[Mike-D]

Who is JA? Is that a poster?

@JAPierce_2

 

[jeffky]

Really a thread about our weaknesses sounds trollish

 

[Seth_C]

We won. We didn’t play to our strength because the other team was specifically focused on that. We played to take what they were giving us, and it led to mistakes. It’s very early in the season. Two teams have played to try to take away our outside shooting. In both instances we took what they gave us and won. One of those games was against Duke.

I understand your concern. I don’t think you should be so concerned.

 

[Anthony B]

It was a good game for them. They need to be pushed by some better competition. They won't be blowing everyone out by 30 going forward. Last year we had a team full of shooters and we thought surely they wouldn't all go cold in the same game. But it happened and we should not have been shocked. When we play someone with a lot of beef inside AND the outside shots are not falling, we have a good chance of losing. But now we have a much better coach who should be able to scheme up something to be competitive at least.

 

[NerlensCat]

I know the game was never in doubt. However, observation reminded me of our game against Oakland. It seemed the game plan was to take advantage of the inside superiority. So, the offense that has been spectacular by an inside out game reversed to outside in which led to bad passes and turnovers. I will always be convinced that Reed's bad game occurred because he was Cal coached to get that ball to the paint players. It seemed to be similar against WKU and it also explained the missed 3's as they were rushed without the typical perimeter passing we had seen before. I will keep my fingers crossed that these issues will be corrected but it is the first game where I could see us losing to good teams.

I don’t think that was the game plan. That was just what was working. Pope makes adjustments based on what the opposing team gives him. He would rather be shooting 3’s, but they were extending guarding the 3 very hard, including many uncalled fouls in my opinion. So, the players and Pope did what they are supposed to do and pounded it inside. Harrison and Williams were a little better shooter, this would have been a 30 point game and they probably would have loosened up the 3 point defense. But to WKU’s credit they made it tough on us.

 

[Catfanlou]

I’m expecting to see a lot more lineup of Butler, Oweh, Brea, Robinson, Carr as the year progresses. We will lose some on defense, but with that lineup, Butler and Oweh will have the room to operate against these teams that are playing us out like this. I noticed yesterday that WKU was essentially doubling the handoff recipient when Williams was out top. He isn’t a threat to score and if he goes iso the offense becomes inefficient. If he doesn’t demonstrate some skill that makes him a threat there, it makes him almost unplayable in that action.

That’s my favorite lineup.

 

[TheBlueMist]

I was like "Sheesh, we are playing poorly" in the first half and then noticed that we still almost had 50 points. We are going to be okay.

 

[Edgarman]

I would be very surprised if we lose 6-7 games in the SEC. This is based on what we've seen so far. There will be tough games, for sure, and many like last night against the likes of UT, Auburn and someone like Vandy (from the hack-and-smack muck it up perspective). But to say we're likely to lose 6+ of them after what this team has showed us is extreme in my opinion.

I believe last night was one of our overall worse games and we still scored 87 and won by 19. 2nd worse game statistically was Duke, yet we also won. I can't imagine us playing worse than either of these two games, and I think WKU played WAY above their ceiling, which is a good thing because as many here have said, the way they played is a great trial for this UK team as we get closer to hack-and-grab teams in the SEC.

EVERY road game will be a war. Don't think otherwise. This will be true for every SEC team, including Auburn. They will lose whatgames they do lose on the road.

 

[chevyman 50]

This WKU team played good D even coach Pope bragged on it, hard to understand how this WKU team has lost 3 games.