UK offense lingering as only major flaw for undefeated Cats
November 24, 2014
By Nick Gray
In an otherwise easy blowout win, UK began offensively in one of the coldest spells imaginable for a team who had a height advantage of four inches per player at tipoff.
The Cats began 1-of-13 shooting, missing just about everything at just about every spot on the floor.
With Montana State as the opponent — a team that lost to Grand Canyon by 15 and is 328th in the county according to Jeff Sagarin’s ratings — not much was to be taken from Sunday’s drubbing. UK’s opponent was really bad and would be height challenged against many Division I teams. It should have whipped Montana State, and it did the deed.
But the one concern for the Cats moving forward — if you ask anyone around the program, including coach John Calipari — is the offense’s ability to make shots against a “junk zone” defense, as Montana State coach Brian Fish called it, like the Bobcats’ defense on Sunday. And early on, the ineffectiveness was evident on the stat sheet but not magnified by a sub-optimal opponent.
“Every team is going to play us basically how they did — they’re going to sag on the zone or sag on the man,” Calipari said. “We came out and everybody looks confused.”
The Cats shot 26 3-pointers Sunday; shooting over a zone, especially one which is smaller, is a way to break the opponent away from sitting in a tight defense. It is not the way to pick apart a zone when UK hits 28 percent of its 3-pointers.
“Now, we’re taking threes,” Calipari said about UK’s tentativeness against the zone. “We start missing them, and it is contagious. We score one point in the first four minutes. Are you kidding me? Now we were good enough to hold them to two (points), but that’s ridiculous. We have to work on that. We could have been down 10-1 against a good team.”
Montana State had a goal in its junk zone — hack UK if you can, tackle them if you must.
“I think we made them mad,” Montana State coach Brad Fish said about the Bobcats’ physical tactics. “They just wear you down over time.”
The Cats’ much bigger men certainly agreed with Fish’s observations.
“Teams are going to play us like that, play a zone and pack it in. It’s just a matter of making shots,” said sophomore center Dakari Johnson. “It’s kind of frustrating, but I try to get to offensive rebounding. That’s how we’re going to have to score, too.”
UK has just about every team in the country beat in defense and rebounding when it is properly motivated to do either. Sunday’s case-in-point — Montana State tried eight times to advance the ball past mid-court. Three turnovers and 90 seconds later, it finally did. Another case-in point — UK held Montana State without a point in the second half for 10:23.
But there will be a game in which UK will have to execute in the half-court without having its distinct advantages in size and pace. Someone will be able to score in one game against this team. No one is that perfect.
Among all of the undefeated discussion, the Cats’ problems will start when the offense can’t cover up a bad defensive night.