During the heyday of Frank at K-State some fans wondered what JYC basketball would look like with a bunch of NBA players. Late Friday night we get to find out. Kentucky features a kenpom Top 20 offense (1.15 PPP) that cracks the top 10 in both oboarding (42.2%) and getting to the FT line (53.7%); many will say this team's offense is ugly, but its still very efficient. If you are scoring at a high rate, it really doesn't matter what it looks like. Calipari's team has made significant improvements from last year's team that lost in the NIT first round, but this is still his 2nd worst team since 2005 at Memphis.
The Blue Wildcats overall aren't a great shooting team and poor at shooting 3s, but they don't shoot a lot of them. Like K-State, they turn the ball over quite a bit and don't force turnovers at a high rate. They don't score off of assists at a high rate, but while I've read several say this means they are a poor passing team, I don't necessarily think that's the case. Calipari's teams never have a really high percentage of assists on made shots, but that's a reflection of having extremely talented teams. When players are that good, the offense is designed to create one on one opportunities and let your players make plays. This team happens to also draw a ton of fouls (though UK isn't a great FT shooting team) and some of that is probably due to the new rules. The fact that many of their points are scored from the FT line and from putbacks would also limit Kentucky's assist percentage.
Defensively UK is solid (#31 kenpom, .96 ppp) and like K-State their strength is forcing teams to shoot a low eFG% (45.0%, #22 kenpom). They don't force TOs at a high rate, but are solid on the defensive boards and limit FT attempts. They did slip slightly in SEC play; giving up 1.01 ppp against a league that averaged only 1.04 ppp (the Big 12 finished at 1.07). UK is very good at blocking shots, blocking 15.2% of opponent's 2PT attempts for the season (#12 nationally) while finishing in the Top 40 in 2PT% defense (44%). Opponents also shot less than 32% on 3s against them, but the SEC as a league only shot 33.5% from 3 compared to 34.7% for the Big 12.
This year's Kentucky was supposed to be the 2nd version of the Fab 5, with UK fans even printing up 40-0 t-shirts before the season. The Blue Wildcats regularly start 4 freshmen (bold below in the top chart). Callie-Stein did start more games than Johnson on the season, but Johnson started all 3 games in the SEC tournament. Polson is the only upperclassman that sees meaningful minutes and he doesn't play much. This is a roster that features 3 draft picks in this year's NBA mock draft and 3 more in next year's. Next to Kansas, this will be the most talented team according to those standards that K-State will face so far this season.
Kentucky is extremely long, so its no surprise that they are successful on the boards and blocking shots. 4 players have at least 156 FT attempts and all but Polson have FT rates above 40%. With the size of their guards, they make match-ups extremely difficult so the FT rate is not a big surprise. They also have tons of guys that can score with 5 guys over 20 PTs/100 and 3 over 25 PTs/100.
K-State isn't likely to out JYC Kentucky, but they can't allow the 7-10% advantage that UK regularly gains on OR% and FT rate. If that happens, K-State likely loses this game by double digits. Another key for the purple Wildcats this year has been 2PT%; when K-State shoots better than opponents on 2s they win 81.3% of the time, when they get beat on 2PT% they only win 43.8% of their games. The Cats will likely need to out-shoot UK on 3s and they should have an advantage there. UK plays at about the same pace and doesn't force a bunch of TOs; hopefully K-State can win the TO% battle and not give up a bunch of transition points. Besides KU, Kentucky's length and athleticism reminds me a lot of Baylor. K-State doesn't have to play a perfect game to win, but they have to play much better than they have since the UT/KU wins.This means shooting better than they have on average this season and winning TO%. The other factor will be how bad Calipari's group of NBA players wants to play in a 8/9 game.
Heart: Purple 68 - Blue 65
Head: Blue 74 - Purple 65
