Sunday, December 18, 2022

Ken Pom v. the World

Kentucky was humiliated by UCLA yesterday, losing 63-53.  At this point, UK has basically been dismissed by everyone -- including myself and most Kentucky fans -- as a serious contender.  The only person who still has any faith in UK is Ken Pomeroy.  Here's his take:

1.  Kentucky's offense is not very impressive -- he gives them an offensive efficiency rating of 111.4, which is number 28 in the country.  According to Ken Pom, their biggest problem is poor shooting inside the arc:

49.1 percent on 2-point shooting -- 211th in the country
66.3 percent on free throws -- 306th in the country

They also are not getting to the line -- they are 237th in the country in free throw rate.

On the other hand, they are making 38.1 percent of their three-point attempts -- 37th in the country.  So that hasn't been the problem.

2.  On the other hand, he really likes UK's defense -- he gives them a defensive efficiency rating of 87.1 -- fifth in the country.  No Kentucky team since 2015 has finished with a defensive rating better than 90.1.

3.  Putting all of this together, Ken Pom gives UK an overall efficiency rating of 24.31 -- number 8 in the country.  Obviously, no other service has UK close to being a top 10 team.  But Ken Pom thinks the Cats have been unlucky -- he has them at number 273 in the country for luck.  And there's always a chance that luck evens out.

4.  He also thinks UK will be competitive in the SEC. He has them as the second-best team in the conference, trailing only Tennessee, and he thinks they're going to finish 13-5 in league play, one game behind the Vols.

My guess is that Calipari thought he would strengthen UK's defense by replacing Keion Brooks, and my guess is that Calipari was right on that point.  On the other hand, I'm sure that Calipari has been disappointed that Jacob Toppin and others have done so little on the offensive side.  On Saturday, UCLA just put all their defense around Oscar and dared everyone else to shoot, and that plan worked brilliantly.  My guess is UK will see that defense a lot the rest of the way.

It's very possible, of course, that both Ken Pom and the conventional wisdom will be correct.  I could see UK finishing 13-5 in the SEC, and 22-9 overall -- just as he projects, with a heartbreaking loss at Arkansas on the last day of the season to cost them the SEC title.  Then I can see them losing in the final of the SEC Tournament to Tennessee and going into the NCAA's as a five or six seed, where they lose in the second round.  If it all plays out like that, Ken Pom would probably still have them ranked in the top 10, and he would say they were a solid -- if unlucky -- team.  Meanwhile, most UK fans (and the press) would regard the season as an unmitigated disaster, which would create a major headache for the UK athletic department.

This sort of thing has happened before.  In 2007, Ken Pom thought UK was the 13th best team in the country.  But what we fans saw was a team that went 9-7 in the SEC, 22-12 overall, lost five of its last seven games in the regular season, lost in the quarterfinals of the SEC tournament in overtime to Mississippi State, and were crushed 88-76 by Kansas in the second round of the NCAA's.  That was all for Tubby, who was replaced by Billy Gillespie after the season.

In his first year at UK, Gillespie's team was 78th in the country -- the worst UK team in Ken Pom's database, going back to 1997.  (The 2013 team was 55th, the 2021 team was 49th.)  Gillespie's first team lost at home to Gardner Webb (84-68) and San Diego (81-72).  They lost at home to Louisville by 14.  They lost at Vandy by 41.  They lost in the quarter-finals of the SEC Tournament to Georgia, and lost in the first round of the NCAA's to Marquette.  Their final record was 18-13.  But because they had gone 12-4 in a very weak SEC, and because everyone had the impression that Gillespie had inherited a program that was falling apart, Gillespie got credit for getting them into the NCAA's.  He was co-coach of the SEC that year, along with Bruce Pearl of Tennessee.  That's probably the worst post-season award ever given in any sport.

Meanwhile, Tubby was exiled to Minnesota.  He took the Golden Gophers to the NCAA Tournament three times in six seasons.  The last time was in 2013, when Minnesota went 8-10 in the Big 10 and 21-13 overall.  Ken Pom thought that was the 20th best team in the country, but number 273 in luck.  Tubby was fired and replaced by Rick Pitino's son.  In eight seasons at Minnesota, Richard Pitino only made two NCAA Tournaments, and never had a team ranked higher than 27 on Ken Pom.  Minnesota is currently coached by Ben Johnson, and is currently ranked number 177 on Ken Pom.  Since Clem Haskins left, the list of Minnesota coaches by winning percentage looks like this:

Tubby Smith:  124-81 (.605) (3 NCAA appearances)
Richard Pitino:  141-123 (.534) (2 NCAA appearances)
Dan Monson:  118-106 (.527) (1 NCAA appearance)
Ben Johnson:  18-23 (.439)
Jim Molinari:  7-17 (.291) (interim coach after Monson in 2006-07)

So Tubby was significantly better than the coaches who replaced him at both UK and Minnesota.

As these facts show, life really isn't fair.  But this is the career that John Calipari chose, and he'll either work it out or not.  I'm probably too old and too busy to spend much more time on it this year.

61 comments:

  1. After a forgettable 88-68 win over Florida A & M, UK falls to 9th on Ken Pom. They moved up to 24th on Offense, but plunged to 14th on Defense. Next up, they have an almost-certain loss at Missouri on December 28.

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  2. Since 2015, UK has almost always taken an early road loss in SEC play. Here are some examples:

    1/5/16: LSU 85 - 67 Kentucky
    1/6/18: Tennessee 76 - 65 Kentucky
    1/5/19: Alabama 77 - 75 Kentucky
    1/15/20: S. Carolina 81 - 78 Kentucky
    1/4/22: LSU 65 - 60 Kentucky

    The only team to avoid this trend was the 2017 team, which won its first seven SEC games, and which might have gone undefeated in the SEC of De'Aaron Fox hadn't gotten injured against South Carolina on January 21. UK lost 3 of 4 after that injury, before winning 14 in a row. But this team is not the 2017 team.

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  3. K-Pom gives UK a 66 percent chance at Missouri, which is probably not good enough to overcome the history above.

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  4. Erik Haslam has UK ranked number 22. He projects UK to win at Mizzou by 78-76. I will be stunned if the Cats win an SEC road game by only two points.

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  5. Haslem has UK ranked 20 and Mizzou ranked 30. He now shows Mizzou winning 78-76. Ken Pom has UK ranked 10 and Mizzou ranked 43. He has UK winning 79-76. Personally, this feels like a double-digit loss to me.

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    1. Mizzou up 24-13 with 7:47 left in the first half. Cats are 3-8 from 2-point range, 2-11 from 3-point range, and 1-2 from the line. I don't understand, even in theory, what UK is trying to do on offense.

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    2. UK's defense is actually pretty good, but their offense is horrific. And now Fredrick leaves with an injury.

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    3. I'm pretty sure that Mizzou could literally turn the ball over on 50 percent of its possessions from now to the end of the game, and they would still win by at least 5 points.

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    4. As it is -- and it's now 27-14 with 6:33 left -- I think Mizzou is going to win by at least 20.

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    5. Ware goes in for a layup and just hammers the ball off the glass. It never had a chance.

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    6. To be fair, Mizzou wants to play this game. UK just wants to go home.

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    7. Hey, UK made a free throw! That makes it 27-19 with 5:27 left. Thank you, Cason Wallace.

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    8. Oscar gets a rebound and tries to start a fast break. Mizzou steals the ball from Oscar and dunks it. 29-19.

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    9. Livingston scores. Nobody gets back on defense. Easy run-out and 3-point play for Mizzou. 32-21.

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    10. Here's the bottom line: Ken Pom was wrong and UK has a long way to fall.

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    11. Wheeler misses that running scoop shot in the lane he always misses. Mizzou makes a three. 35-24

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    12. Mizzou makes another 3 to go up 38-26 with 2:47 left.

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    13. UK tries to bring the ball up, gets trapped on the end line, steps out of bounds.

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    14. These are the sort of seasons where I used to root for UK to grind out as many wins as possible so that we could keep the lead in all-time wins. But we've lost that and we aren't getting it back in my lifetime -- not after Self puts up another 300 wins over the next ten years.

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    15. Here's my bottom line: I don't think UK's players have significant basketball talent. They are tall and strong and fast. But they cannot shoot, pass, or dribble, and they don't seem to understand how basketball games actually work. I think that Wheeler is the sort of player who should be at Georgia, and Oscar is the sort of player who should be at West Virginia. I don't think any of the other guys were rated properly by the recruiting services -- I doubt very seriously that any of them will see significant minutes in the NBA.

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    16. They aren't talented enough to win with talent, and they aren't scrappy enough to win any other way.

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    17. I'm getting all these comments out now because I'm not planning to write anything else about this team until the season is over and we know whether Cal will be back next year.

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    18. UK goes 10-18 from 2-point range, 2-12 from 3-point range, and 4-6 from the line.

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    19. When the season started, I thought UK was going to use its athleticism to go after people on defense. I thought UK would use its interior players to get rebounds. I thought UK would use its guards to push the floor for quick shots and/or open three's. I thought they would send wave after wave of players into the game, hoping to wear down the other team, and that they would score a lot of points.

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    20. None of that has happened. Instead, we are trying to grind out possessions by working the ball inside to Oscar. On defense, we play a passive style that concedes a lot of open threes. When we get rebounds, we don't make much of an effort to push the pace. And we seem to have fewer players each game. (Toppin and Frederick, for example, have virtually disappeared.)

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    21. The team that remains has almost no offensive weapons in the half court. Wheeler isn't good in the half court. Neither is Livingston, Ware, Toppin, or Reeves. So they just pass the ball aimlessly trying to get a shot for Wallace or Oscar. When that doesn't work, the other team usually gets an easy runout, which undermines the half-court defense that is UK's only strength. And once UK falls behind -- like it did against Gonzaga, UCLA, and tonight -- it's pretty easy for the other team to sit back on defense, wait for the shot clock to run down, and then get another runout.

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    22. Anyway, here's the bottom line: I think we've reached the stage in Cal's career where he isn't going to win at a high level any more. This happened to John Thompson, to Bobby Knight, to Gary Williams, to Nolan Richardson, and to many others. It happens to almost everyone unless they coach at Duke, UNC, or Kansas. Winning 80 percent of your games -- which is basically what we expect at Kentucky -- is so hard that I think almost everyone gets burned out, unless you coach at a place where it's very easy to recruit. Kentucky is not that place.

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    23. Over the last three seasons, UK has been pretty bad except for a stretch of about 20 games in the middle of last season. At this point, I no longer believe Cal is able to fix it.

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    24. UK comes out of the locker room and immediately gives up an old-fashioned 3-point play. Even their half-court defense has collapsed. 45-30.

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    25. Mizzou puts on the press, and UK looks like a blind man trying to cross the road. Eventually Missouri gets a steal. Mizzou takes a three point shot. Miss. Mizzou gets the rebound. Mizzou takes another three point shot. Battle for the rebound. Out on Kentucky. Mizzou beats Ware for an easy layup. 47-30.

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    26. Full court press. UK doesn't know what to do, makes another turnover. That's 10 turnovers for UK, and 5 for Mizzou.

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    27. I cannot get across the extent to which Kentucky has simply stopped trying to compete. They look completely defeated.

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  6. Here's Ken Pom's projection for the SEC:

    Tennessee: 14-4
    Arkansas: 12-6
    Kentucky: 12-6
    Alabama: 12-6
    Auburn 11-7
    Mississippi St: 10-8
    Missouri: 9-9
    Florida: 9-9
    Texas A & M: 7-11
    Mississippi: 8-10
    LSU: 6-12
    Georgia: 6-12
    Vanderbilt: 5-13
    S. Carolina: 3-15

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  7. I will be very surprised if LSU only wins six games in the SEC. They are almost never that bad. On the other hand, I'll be surprised if Vandy gets to five wins. They've already lost at home to Southern Mississippi at Grambling.

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  8. Two years ago, in the COVID season, UK went 8-9 in the SEC. It's hard to see how this team does much better than that. They're now down 42-28 with 58.4 seconds left.

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    1. To be fair, Missouri really wants to humiliate Kentucky, and they are doing so. With 16:55 left, the Tigers lead 50-32.

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    2. Wait, you can make two free throws in a row? I had no idea. Mizzou leads 56-44 with 13:20 left.

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    3. Oscar is fouled, and immediately misses the first free throw. He makes the second, and it's 56-45.

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    4. Up 56-47, Mizzou draws a foul -- which is easy since no one for Kentucky can stay with anyone for Mizzou -- and makes two FT's. Up 58-47, Mizzou goes into a new-fangled defense known as a "zone." Kentucky is completely nonplussed by this, and simply passes the ball aimlessly until Mizzou mercifully steals it from them. The Tigers joyfully head to the other end, where they nail their seventh three-pointer of the game. Mizzou leads 61-47 with 11:50 left.

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    5. I swear that Kentucky used to have teams that made more three-pointers than their opponents, but I can barely remember them.

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    6. Down 61-47, UK passes the ball around aimlessly, until Toppin makes a bad pass to Oscar. Here come the Tigers, ready to make another 3. They miss the first one, but a Tiger leaps up and slaps the ball back out to a teammate -- who makes the three. 64-47. Wallace hits to make it 64-50, but Mizzou isn't phased -- they just make another 3-pointer. 67-50.

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    7. As usual, UK's three-point defense is premised on the belief that most college kids can't make three-point shots. It didn't work against St. Peter's, and it's not working tonight. That's 9-21 from 3-point range for Mizzou; the Cats are 5-18.

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    8. We've played just over 9 minutes in the second half, and Mizzou has scored 25 points. That looks like fun.

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    9. I thought UK played hard against UCLA, but just didn't have the talent to hang with the Bruins. Since then, the team seems to have given up. I've rarely seen any team in the SEC give so little effort in a conference game. Certainly no one comes to Rupp Arena and puts up so little resistance.

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    10. To be fair, they would lose even if they played hard. But they wouldn't lose this badly.

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    11. Really just a question of whether UK can keep it within 20. Mizzou leads 75-57 with 7:30 to go.

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    12. Obviously, UK doesn't have the talent to be a top 10 team. Gonzaga and UCLA proved that. But just as obviously, there is some sort of problem that caused them to roll over in this game. They just didn't seem to care from beginning to end.

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    13. In 2015, UK had one of its best teams ever. That team played nine SEC games at home, and won all nine. Here were the margins:

      They beat Ole Miss by 3
      They beat Mizzou by 49
      They beat Vandy by 8
      They beat Alabama by 15
      They beat Georgia by 11
      They beat South Carolina by 34
      They beat Auburn by 35
      They beat Arkansas by 17
      They beat Florida by 17

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    14. So that team, as great as it was, only won three conference games by more than 17 points. UK currently trails 81-61 with 5:25 left. To lose by 20 points to a team like Mizzou, it's not just enough to be the worse team -- you also have to let them have a lot of easy baskets. And that's exactly what the Cats have done.

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    15. The one good thing about this loss is that it is definitive: we don't have to spend any more time thinking about the team, or what's going to happen next. The season is over, and we can wait to see what happens with Cal and Mitch Barnhart in April.

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    16. Anyway, this completes my coverage of UK basketball for the year. I'll keep watching college basketball, which is the greatest sport in the world. And I'll spend too much time trying to figure out who the next coach should be.

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  9. So let's look at the rest of the schedule:

    at Mizzou: Big loss
    Louisville: They should win that one
    LSU: Win
    at Alabama: Loss
    S. Carolina: Win
    at Tennessee: Big loss
    Georgia: Win
    Texas A & M: Close win
    at Vandy: Could go either way. Vandy is terrible.
    Kansas: Loss
    at Ole Miss: loss
    Florida: Could go either way
    Arkansas: Big loss, probably followed by lots of controversy over Cal's future
    at Georgia: Could go either way
    at Mississippi St: Loss
    Tennessee: Big loss
    at Florida: Big loss
    Auburn: Loss
    Vandy: Win for senior day
    at Arkansas: Blowout

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  10. If they win the close ones they would be 17-14 overall, and 8-10 in the SEC. Then they lose their first game in the SEC Tournament, and that will be it.

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  11. I have no idea what happens after that. The fans will want Cal gone, and he will probably want to be gone. He supposedly has a great recruiting class for next year, but he was supposed to have a good class this year, and it's hard to believe that anyone with talent will want to come into this mess. Look at Shaedon Sharpe, who got out as soon as he could.

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  12. Final score: Missouri 89, Kentucky 75. It's all up to Cal and Barnhart now, but they won't tell us their plans until April. In the meantime, we'll just have to watch everyone else. Personally, I'd like to see Houston win it all.

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  13. UK beats U of L, but falls to 14th on Ken Pom. He now shows them going 11-7 in the SEC and 20-11 overall. That will mean a long two months in the Commonwealth.

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  14. UK beats LSU 74-71 at home, but falls to 17th on Ken Pom. Their offense has actually gotten better since the original post -- they are now 15th in the country in offensive efficiency, at 113.8. But their defensive efficiency is only 93.9, which drops them to 46th in the country.

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  15. When Calipari's teams had great defenses -- back in the the early 2000's -- he had really good shot blockers to stop teams from getting to the rim. This team doesn't have that -- they're 63d in the country in block percentages -- and that really hurts.

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