A Long Winter in Lexington

So Gardner-Webb beat Kentucky last night. It was really a demonstration not of a team losing a game, but of a team getting soundly beaten. So much has been said both by esteemed members of the college basketball media and of Kentucky fans about the renaissance in Lexington that was to come as a consequence of Tubby's departure. You know, maybe that will still happen, but UK fans can't be too optimistic about this season. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict outright that Kentucky will finish the season outside of the Top 25 as a worse team than they were last year. I think too many people bought into the notion that Tubby Smith was actually doing a poor job developing players and creating a team, when in fact, people should have been criticizing these players.

Kentucky has probably the most storied program in the country, and it was only 3 years ago that Kentucky had a team finish 28-6 and lose in double overtime in the Elite Eight to a surprising and streaky Michigan State team (that deposed my beloved Devils). So it's not surprising that media pundits (who, I surmise, mostly don't watch the games) expect Kentucky to be a top 15 team each year. That being said, Kentucky last year was not a particularly good team. In fact, I would confidently say that Duke last year was better than Kentucky. The past two yers, this Kentucky team gave up almost 1 point per possession defensively, mostly because the 06 and 07 UK squads were totally unable to cause turnovers like the earlier successful UK teams did. For years, UK's defense was successful in large part because of very aggressive play that caused a lot of turnovers. This is even true for Pitino's mid-90s teams. In spite of Rajon Rondo's 4% steal rate in 06, Kentucky still managed to cause turnovers on only 20% of their opponents' possessions, a number that dipped from 25.5% the year before. With Rondo's departure, UK found itself causing turnovers on only 18.4% of their opponents' possessions in 07. What indication do we have that Kentucky's guards will suddenly explode defensively?

The prospects for the team's offense are equally bleak. Now, to be fair, Patterson and Legion look like very solid young players who will become the backbone for future Kentucky teams, but for now, their involvement in the offense is limited by their inexperience and their youth. Neither are freakish superstars like Derrick Rose or Brandan Wright who are immediately ready to take over college level games. That being said, Kentucky relied last year on Randolph Morris who, in spite of a fair amount of criticism from UK fans, used a beefy 27% of UK's possessions while he was playing, and did so with an impressive 112.5 efficiency. He shot nearly 60% from the field, while grabbing over 22% of the defensive boards he could. He was also a solid defender and shot blocker, blocking 8% of opposing teams' 2 point shots.

As far as the guard-play, it's not that I doubt that the players have improved - well, after seeing them play, maybe I do a little - but their track record has not given much reason for optimism. Crawford and Bradley have neither been very effective producing turnovers, and Crawford seems to have regressed offensively since his freshman season in 2006.

At any rate, the most troubling part of Kentucky's situation is not necessarily what was or could have been, but what is. Kentucky opened the season against Central Arkansas, a team who finished 10-20 in the Southland conference last year, rated 274th out of 336 on Pomeroy's 2007 ratings. Against this defensive powerhouse, Kentucky managed to put 67 points on the board... on 65 possessions. The game looked like a blowout because the Wildcats managed to hold Central Arkansas to 40 points, but an offensive effort barely exceeding 1 point per possession against a bottom dwelling Division 1 school was certainly not the way Kentucky fans wanted to start the season. I was not terribly shocked by the 68 point in 73 possessions performance against Gardner-Webb. Maybe more shocking was the fact that UK's players were entirely unable to adjust to the backdoor cuts run on nearly every play by GW players. Poor perimeter defense and an anemic offense spells disaster once UK hits the bulk of its schedule.

Now I boldly predicted that the Cats will finish outside of the top 25. That might be a stretch, but I'm just going to go with it. There are rumors that Gillispie had a full speed practice the day of the game, and that the UK players may not be in the kind of shape to deal with that and then a game. The players did look sluggish, but I wonder when players aren't diving for loose balls if its fatigue or bad habits that hinders them? Things might improve for Kentucky, but at this point the team has managed to score 135 points on 138 possessions against two low-major Division I schools. Even Duke last year, who was maligned publicly and constantly for their offensive effort, scored 158 points in 138 possessions against cupcakes in our first two games. It could be a long season for Kentucky fans - perhaps the worst since a 14-14 season in 1990.