It’s too early to judge Kentucky, but ‘nothing suggests great’
About a third of the way through the 2018-19 season, ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi does not think much of Kentucky’s basketball team. That’s putting it mildly.
During a telephone conversation on Wednesday, Lunardi put it bluntly.
“If the jersey said something other than ‘Kentucky,’ they wouldn’t be ranked based on their resume,” he said. “If Tennessee State got blasted by Duke, and beaten in overtime by Seton Hall, and beat teams nobody could name a player on, they wouldn’t be ranked.”
Of Kentucky not deserving its No. 19 ranking in The Associated Press poll released Dec. 10, Lunardi said, “polls are as much a futures market as anything else.”
Message: The polls reflect a belief that Kentucky can improve significantly
Of course, Duke blasted Kentucky 118-84 in the opening game. That rare example of Kentucky getting out-classed doesn’t need to have a long-lasting effect on how UK is rated, Lunardi said. “I think most people would say it was Nov. 6,” he said of the date the game was played. Selection Sunday is March 17.
According to Lunardi, the problem is Kentucky hasn’t played and defeated any notable team since Nov. 6. So the view of UK is fixed for the moment. There is no mystery here, he said.
“The two good teams on their schedule, they lost to,” Lunardi said. “Everybody else was sort of a home gimme.” The average NCAA Evaluation Tool rating of UK’s first seven home opponents was 234.6 through games on Wednesday.
The loss to Seton Hall last weekend was not “tragic,” Lunardi said. “It’s mostly that it was their next opportunity after a month had gone by since the Champions Classic.”
In his 2019 NCAA Tournament bracket updated on Tuesday, Lunardi had Kentucky as a six-seed. But, he added, he had Kentucky ranked No. 31, which translated into an eight-seed. Through games on Wednesday, Kentucky had a NET rating of No. 39.
“Kentucky, I would say, is just not good,” Lunardi said. “There’s nothing about them that suggests great. Which doesn’t mean they couldn’t be.
“If this was a final exam, and I was the professor, there would be no grade. There would simply be an incomplete.”
Another analyst, Ken Pomeroy, projects Kentucky finishing the regular season with a record of 20-11. That includes an 11-7 record in the Southeastern Conference. He saw UK’s shooting as questionable, but offset by effective offensive rebounding and drawing fouls to get to the foul line.
Like Lunardi, Pomeroy pointed out that there’s plenty of time for Kentucky to dramatically improve its profile.
As for the SEC race, the media picked Kentucky to win the championship. Of course, the media picked last season’s co-champions Auburn and Tennessee ninth and 13th, respectively, before last season started.
Lunardi suggested the media vote this year could be another swing and a miss.
“It doesn’t look like they’re close to being the best team in the SEC,” Lunardi said. “That looks like it’s going to be an Auburn-Tennessee competition at this point.”
Upcoming games against North Carolina (Dec. 22), Louisville (Dec. 29) and Kansas (Jan. 26) give Kentucky the chance at upward mobility. And maybe those home-and-home series with the SEC’s better teams now look like good fortune as that many more chances to make a better impression.
“It certainly doesn’t look to me like they’re going to miss the (NCAA) tournament,” Lunardi said. “But they’re more likely to miss the tournament than they are to be a one- or two- (seed) because they haven’t done anything that suggests that they’re in that class.”
35 and 20?
By definition, coaches are supposed to always prod and push and cajole players to try to improve.
PJ Washington tested the coaching call for more-more-more in a three-game span last month when he achieved career-high points and rebounds, plus his first back-to-back double-double.
John Calipari met this test. He took the never-satisfied attitude to the outer limits when he said Washington should aspire to regularly score 35 points and grab 20 rebounds.
Only 23 players have averaged 35 points or more in a season. The only one in the last 30 years was Kevin Bradshaw of U.S. International. He averaged 37.6 points in 1990-91. Incidentally, Bradshaw grew up in Gainesville, Fla., where a high school teammate was future Florida Gator Vernon Maxwell.
In the last 46 years, only one player has averaged 20 rebounds in a season: Kermit Washington of American averaged 20.4 rebounds in 1972-73.
Tennessee trivia
After beating No. 1 Gonzaga, Tennessee moved up to No. 3 in The Associated Press’ top 25 poll this past week. That’s the highest the Vols have been ranked since the poll of Feb. 25, 2008.
On that date in 2008, No. 2 Tennessee moved to No. 1 after beating top-ranked (and John Calipari-coached) Memphis.
Tennessee has beaten a No. 1 team five times. The fifth time came last Sunday against Gonzaga. One of the others was a 69-62 victory over Rupp’s Runts on March 5, 1966.
Second guessing
John Calipari’s decision not to call a timeout in the final seconds of overtime against Seton Hall fueled second guessing.
ESPN analyst Jay Bilas has adopted a general philosophy about second guessing. He shared his thoughts when asked about UK’s earlier missteps: a wrong player in the starting lineup against North Dakota, then having the wrong defender on guard Francis Alonso at the start of the game against UNC Greensboro.
“I think sports is the only thing I’ve ever come across where people who don’t know anything about the sport will second guess the expert,” Bilas said. “You don’t do that with your dentist or your doctor. You’re not second guessing them, but you’re second guessing the coach all the time. The truth is (that) the overwhelming majority of people watching the game have no idea what’s going on. And you always kind of laugh.”
Bilas included himself in the category of under-qualified second guesser when watching a football game.
“If the announcer doesn’t tell me what’s going on, I can’t tell,” he said. “Like, I don’t know. But the next day, I’m saying I can’t believe they did that on third down. I don’t know that. The announcer told me that.”
‘Learning experience’
Before becoming a referee, Don Rutledge played and later coached basketball. He suggested Kentucky could benefit from the indecisive final seconds against Seton Hall.
“I like the players to decide the game,” he said. “It’s a learning experience. It’s early in the season. It’s not going to affect them a hell of a lot.”
Timeout
Retired referee John Clougherty was among those who confirmed that once Kentucky inbounded the ball on the final possession against Seton Hall, only a UK player could call a timeout. John Calipari could not.
Clougherty said rules on who could and could not call a timeout sparked a tug of war between coaches and referees.
Coaches calling timeouts with the ball in play “led to a lot of angst,” Clougherty said. “Coaches were notorious for calling timeouts to avoid violations. Let’s say, there can be a 10-second violation. To avoid that, coaches were calling timeouts.”
Referees did not like this, Clougherty said. Referees wanted to focus on the players, the various lines on the court, the shot clock, etc., and not be distracted by a coach.
118 points
ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi counseled caution in drawing conclusions about Kentucky from the 118-84 loss to Duke. The game was in early November. However . . .
“Even though it was Nov. 6, they gave up 118 points,” he said of the UK players. “That’s really hard to do. A lot of teams would have to play three halves to give up that many points.”
Happy birthday
To Ole Miss Coach Kermit Davis. He turned 59 on Friday. . . . To Thad Jaracz. He turned 72 on Saturday. . . . To Kelenna Azubuike. He turns 35 on Sunday (today). . . . To Deron Feldhaus. He turns 50 on Sunday (today). . . . To Allen Edwards. He turns 43 on Sunday (today). . . . To Adam Chiles. He turns 36 on Sunday (today). . . . To UK women’s basketball coach Matthew Mitchell. He turns 48 on Sunday (today). . . . To former Vanderbilt Coach Jan van Breda Kolff. He turns 67 on Sunday (today). . . . To Wendell Lyons. He turns 66 on Monday. . . . To former Arkansas coach Stan Heath. He turns 54 on Monday. . . . To Myron Anthony. He turns 41 on Tuesday. . . . To Roger Harden. He turns 55 on Wednesday.