UK basketball’s defense made a season-opening statement. ‘We feel real pride and energy.’
READ MORE
Game day: No. 23 Kentucky 103, Wright State 62
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Monday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Wright State in Rupp Arena.
Expand All
Mark Pope’s much anticipated, official coaching debut with Kentucky basketball came with plenty of offensive expectations.
That, of course, is what Pope has built his coaching philosophy around, and what most UK fans have spent the offseason eagerly anticipating.
The Wildcats delivered on this front, but it was Kentucky’s performance on the defensive end during its 103-62 destruction of Wright State on Monday night at Rupp Arena that will turn heads.
Wright State’s first possession of the game — a pass that went out of bounds — was recorded as a steal by UK junior guard Otega Oweh.
Fifth-year guards Lamont Butler and Jaxson Robinson both had blocks during the initial 5:16 stretch of game action.
Other standout defensive moments from the first 20 minutes of Pope-led basketball in Lexington included:
▪ Freshman guard Collin Chandler getting a steal just 10 seconds into his college basketball career.
▪ Fifth-year guard Kerr Kriisa coming off the bench to harass Wright State’s perimeter players.
▪ Butler, Oweh and Garrison all using quick hands to steal the ball near midcourt, which allowed UK’s fast-break offense to profit.
At halftime — by which point UK had built an insurmountable 22-point lead — Kentucky had limited Wright State to 24 points.
The Raiders went 3-for-17 (18%) from behind the arc during the first half. After averaging 16.5 assists per game last season, Wright State went to the locker room with only two helpers to speak of.
Last season, Wright State averaged 86.5 points per game (fourth in the nation) and shot 38.4% from 3-point range (10th in the country). The Raiders were also second among all Division I programs in effective field goal percentage at 58.5%.
While Wright State did lose three players during the offseason who averaged at least 12 points per contest last season, UK’s defensive showing Monday night was plenty good enough to inspire real confidence in what that unit can be during Pope’s first season.
Wright State head coach Clint Sargent — who made his head coaching debut Monday night — said as much afterward.
“Quite honestly, I thought a lot of the talk and a lot of the excitement about (Kentucky) was the offense, and I certainly get that,” Sargent said. “But I was very impressed with their physicality defensively. I thought it sped us up. I thought it put us on our heels early.”
Redshirt junior forward Brandon Noel — Wright State’s best player and the Horizon League’s preseason player of the year — scored 20 points on 8-for-21 shooting against UK, while missing seven of his eight 3-point attempts. The Raiders’ other preseason honoree, redshirt senior guard Alex Huibregtse, finished with 16 points and missed five of his seven 3-point tries.
As a team Monday night, Wright State had more turnovers (12) than assists (eight). The Raiders finished the contest shooting just 35.3% from the floor and a paltry 18.5% from 3-point range (just 5 makes from 27 attempts).
So, the Herald-Leader asked Sargent to dive deeper into what he saw from UK defensively that disrupted his team so much.
“Every pass, screen, I thought they really did a good job of being physical,” Sargent added. “… I thought we saw a different team than what I saw on film, defensively. Overall physicality. Alertness. They were prepared. And they played hard.”
Sargent also alluded to the most eye-popping statistic to emerge from the first official game of UK’s Pope era. The Wildcats enjoyed a monstrous 36-5 advantage in fast-break points over the Raiders, which stemmed directly from a marriage of UK’s defensive intensity and offensive pace.
“Defense creating offense is really important for us,” Pope said of the Cats, who had 11 steals as a team.
Against the upper-echelon competition Kentucky will face for most of the season, it’s unrealistic to expect the Cats to routinely be plus-30 in the fast-break scoring category.
Nonetheless, the season opener was an example of how a high-powered UK offense will benefit from the Wildcats holding up on the other end.
“If the ball’s not going in on offense, we can create our offense from defense too,” said Oweh, who led UK in scoring with 21 points against Wright State. “Just being good on both sides of the ball is huge for us because we’ve got a lot of weapons.”
Kentucky has high defensive potential in Pope’s first season
An intriguing storyline that developed during the offseason was the defensively-minded transfer portal additions that Pope brought to Lexington. Specifically, the likes of Butler, Garrison, Oweh and fifth-year center Amari Williams were all considered defense-first additions for Kentucky.
According to college basketball statistician Evan Miyakwa, all four of these players ranked in the top 25 among portal players this offseason when it came to projected Defensive Bayesian Performance Rating (DBPR) for the 2024-25 season. DBPR is a measurement of the defensive value a player provides to his team while on the court.
In Kentucky’s first game of the regular season, these four were also the headline makers for UK on the defensive end.
Butler and Oweh each had three steals and a block.
“Those two guys could be devastating,” Pope said.
UK’s big men were as advertised. Williams had a double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds, along with a block and steal of his own, while Garrison contributed two steals and four rebounds to go with his six points.
After the game, Pope teased another aspect of what the 7-foot Williams and 6-10 Garrison will bring.
“I think we haven’t even begun to touch where we can be as a rim-protecting team,” Pope said. “I think we have so much more in the tank there that’ll add to our defense.”
It was clear to those who watched Monday that Kentucky’s strengths, at both ends of the court, are accentuated by the team’s depth. That being said, UK’s defense is significantly buoyed by having Butler — a bulldog of a point-of-attack defender — lead the way.
Pope rattled off a series of offensive motions and movements — such as butt screens, high-ball screens, pick and pop situations and zoom actions — that he feels comfortable letting Butler handle himself.
“When you can just be like ‘Hey, Lamont. You just handle all these ball screens and let me figure out the rest of the game.’ It’s pretty great. It’s a real gift,” Pope said.
Kentucky fans are already enamored with Pope’s swashbuckling, 3-point happy offense.
But it’s worth remembering that Kentucky’s defense is what ultimately sank the Cats in the postseason just a few months ago.
Pope had nothing to do with that Achilles’ heel on John Calipari’s final UK squad. But, UK’s new coach is preaching the importance of that side of the ball right from the start of his tenure.
“Certainly our defense is a mainstay,” Pope said. “… That’s really important for a team that’s as offensive-minded (as us). For us to have a defensive identity where we feel real pride and energy. That’s going to be important for us all season long.”
This story was originally published November 5, 2024 at 6:30 AM.
