In need of more offense, Kentucky basketball faces Mississippi State’s tough defense
In John Calipari’s 14 seasons as the Kentucky basketball coach, only one of his teams struggled as much defensively as his current team. That was the 2012-13 team, the one that lost to Robert Morris in the first round of the NIT.
The numbers bear that out. Ken Pomeroy’s numbers. College basketball’s lead mathematician ranked those 2012-13 Wildcats 88th in adjusted defensive efficiency. What is kenpom’s adjusted defensive efficiency ranking for this year’s edition heading into Wednesday night’s game at Mississippi State? You guessed it — 88th.
So if you can’t win games with your defense, what’s the alternative? Better offense. With Kentucky’s NCAA Tournament hopes hanging by a thread, the Cats must find a way to outscore opponents.
Wednesday night will give that theory a stress test. Under new coach Chris Jans, the Bulldogs are No. 4 in kenpom’s adjusted defensive efficiency. They are No. 5 nationally in scoring defense at 58.7 points per game, No. 7 in field goal percentage defense at 38.8, No. 4 in steals and No. 15 in forcing turnovers.
Though just 5-7 in the SEC, the Bulldogs have won five straight games overall, including 70-64 at Arkansas on Saturday. Jans’ team led the Razorbacks 47-31 with 13:56 left in the second half at Bud Walton Arena. They forced Arkansas into 14 misses out of 18 attempts from three-point range.
“I thought they were really physical,” Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman said afterward.
The 53-year-old Jans has a successful track record dating back to his days as a junior-college coach. After one season at Bowling Green, in which the Falcons went 21-12, Jans took over at New Mexico State. He went 122-32 in five seasons at Las Cruces with three NCAA Tournament appearances. It would have been four had the 2020 tournament not been canceled by COVID. The Aggies were 25-6 overall and 16-0 in the WAC that season.
(Note: Jans was not involved in the current hazing scandal that has shut down the New Mexico State basketball program for the remainder of this season.)
Hired by now former Mississippi State athletic director John Cohen — Kentucky’s ex-baseball coach is now the AD at Auburn — Jans coached the Bulldogs to an 11-0 start, mainly against inferior competition. State was ranked as high as 15th in the AP Top 25.
SEC play brought a rude awakening, however. State lost seven of its first eight league games. Four of the seven were by single digits, however. A narrow 66-63 loss at now No. 1 Alabama on Jan. 25 was the turning point.
Three days later, Mississippi State beat No. 11 TCU 81-74 in overtime in Starkville. The Bulldogs haven’t lost since. They won 66-51 at South Carolina before registering back-to-back home wins over Missouri (63-52) and LSU (64-53). Saturday’s victory in Fayetteville put State back in the NCAA Tournament picture.
Meanwhile, Kentucky is sliding off the bubble. The Cats have lost back-to-back games to Arkansas (88-73 at home) and Georgia (75-68 on the road). Monday, CBS Sports bracketologist Jerry Palm listed UK among his “first four out.” Kentucky’s last five opponents have all averaged at least a point per possession. Not good. Arkansas shot 62.7 percent from the floor. Not good at all.
If Kentucky can’t fix its defensive deficiencies, better offense is the only answer. And UK’s offense hasn’t been bad. The Cats have averaged better than a point per possession in seven of their last eight games, including each of the last four.
Still, UK needs to shoot better from the perimeter to draw defenses away from Oscar Tshiebwe under the basket. Kentucky missed 13 of its first 14 shots at Georgia and ended up 7-of-20 for 35 percent from three-point range in Athens. UK shot 38 percent overall.
Getting Sahvir Wheeler (ankle) and CJ Fredrick (rib) back from injuries would help, especially considering among the six opponents remaining, five are ranked in kenpom’s top 21 defensively. Besides Mississippi State, Tennessee is at No. 1, Florida at No. 13, Arkansas at No. 14 and Auburn at No. 21.
No one said this was going to be easy.
This story was originally published February 14, 2023 at 1:40 PM.
