Kentucky vs VMI Game Thread

[KevinHall]

Not defensively. That team last year was arguably Cal's best three-point defensive team. They would've crushed that team last night.

Overall this team is sort of like an inversion of last year. Last year we were hamstrung inside because of Richards and because of Vanderbilt's injury, and this year we have the interior play to be a really good team but our guardplay has been erratic.

The irony is that in this sport, guardplay is so important that we could remain stout inside all year and still be a mediocre team. You have to have guards. These guards outside Quade and at times Keldon Johnson have been wildly up and down. Last year you could pretty much pencil Shai in as having a good game, and there were times he pretty much put that team on his back.

If you're looking for an upshot, it's that you really have to think Tyler Herro will become the player we all think he can be at some point, and you hope that his improvement will help steady the guard position so that it's solid. He's been well below the player he needs to be and that's a major deal with as many touches as he gets during a game.

Well what I mean by that is that its going to take the entire season for this team to come around if they do at all. They almost always do for Cal. But yea defensively this team is bad. I can't see them making enough progress to avoid another butt whoopin' by UNC in about a month. Maybe not 30+ points but substantial enough. Like you say many times if you knew these players were going to be around 2 or 3 more years then you wouldn't be nearly as pessimistic. You be euphoric for what lies ahead. But we all know how it goes, gone after one year and its best day of the year when watch them all get drafted.

[Joneslab]

Well what I mean by that is that its going to take the entire season for this team to come around if they do at all. They almost always do for Cal. But yea defensively this team is bad. I can't see them making enough progress to avoid another butt whoopin' by UNC in about a month. Maybe not 30+ points but substantial enough. Like you say many times if you knew these players were going to be around 2 or 3 more years then you wouldn't be nearly as pessimistic. You be euphoric for what lies ahead. But we all know how it goes, gone after one year and its best day of the year when watch them all get drafted.

After watching Wall and Co. get torched in every early-season game and then become a pretty good defensive team quickly I will say that it's possible for this team to turn it around in short order, and that team was having to play Daniel Orton quite a few minutes because Cousins was in perpetual foul trouble.

This team is a step above the Daniel Ortons of the world, but defense is rarely a talent issue. I'm not even sure if it's a playing hard issue with this team. I just don't think they understand what Cal wants from them. There seems to be quite a bit of confusion. By the time they cleared some things up last night Bubba Parham had gone completely crazy.

[Joneslab]

I also don't think this team is together.

Notice how they react when a player falls. They'll come over and help him up, but it's slow. They don't really talk a whole lot during dead balls. They don't jump around and high five and seem to be that content with each other.

Defensively that's going to come out. You have to be in constant communication to be good defensively. Everything has to mesh. A guy drives, the defender pushes him toward the paint, the help steps up--it has to be like clockwork.

This team is a notch off. Guys don't really seem to be knowledgeable about where the others are, and when they try to react a three pointer is going up.

This can't really all be chalked up to being a young team, because we've seen much younger teams guard much better. I go back to those articles over the summer about people being worried about playing time, and how Cal was having to crack down on guys getting in scuffles in practice. I don't think this team likes each other very much yet. They haven't bought in to the team concept, and it's showing up in how they defend. They're individual defenders and defense is all about teammates reacting in tandem.

[Joneslab]

And a final point:

Remember all those quotes about how Eric Bledsoe had to learn to accept his role. He said again and again that he wasn't sure about playing with Wall, and then he just accepted it and they got along great. It was in that time he wasn't sure that we sucked defensively. Bledsoe hadn't bought in. I don't think the older guys (Stevenson, Harris, Patterson) were sure about how they were going to fit with the freshmen.

The whole situation was tenuous. Yeah, we won, but we just sort of out-talented teams.

This is just as tenuous. You've got this weird mesh of sophomores, a grad transfer, and a bunch of freshmen trying to trust each other. I think this is one of those teams where if Cal can get through the team-building phase, you'll see them make a big leap. If they continue to distrust each other, this is a team who could easily be worse than last year's. It's that important. The good news is that Cal usually gets his teams to buy in. Only the one team, that 2013 bunch, broke apart as the season went along.

[TrueblueCATfan]

UGH.....I am 60 years old and I have never watched a game where the other team hit 19 3 pointers and still lost

Cal better start working on that perimeter defense

[Joneslab]

UGH.....I am 60 years old and I have never watched a game where the other team hit 19 3 pointers and still lost

Since 2011, teams were 98-10 when they made 19 threes or more before last night.

What happened last night is sort of a pattern that's emerged in college basketball this season. On two consecutive nights last week, a different player hit 15 threes. It hadn't happened for years even once before that and it happened twice in two days.

I think what's happened is that these offenses are starting to employee dribble hand-offs and flare-outs (particularly from the power forward spot), and teams are going very small. Smaller than they ever have.

The game has been moving toward being absurdly three-heavy for years and years, but we're seeing a shift toward teams playing in a way where they almost just disregard two-point field goals unless it's a lay-up now. You either take a three or you try to get to the rim.

[justford]

Time to move the three point line back ??

[Catsrock]

The Curry Effect

[KevinHall]

I watched this game last night. I am glad I was watching off the DVR and not live so I could enjoy Parham's shooting clinic. Boy was he on fire! At least five of those three's he made were highly contested. What can you do about that?!? At the end they put Quickly on him. He did a fairly good job of denying him the ball but Parham still mace a couple of three's with Quickly in his face. One from the corner was just insane. Parham made one from U part of the UK logo. That was Tayshaun Prince territory there.
Two things UK is doing well that will bode well for them on down the road. They are hitting an excellent percentage foul shots. As we all know that can win you a lot of games just by doing that. Also they are rebounding the ball very well. They have destroyed the last three teams on the boards. Also played Duke even on them. Rebounding is all about effort and desire. If they keep this up it will take them a long way and should be taken as good sign this team will come around to UK standards.
Defense is just bad. Too many straight line drives with no help at all. Also switching is still very bad. Its just going to take some time for this to get better. The schedule starts picking up on December 1 and it had better start improving or this team will take some L's in a hurry.

[Joneslab]

^ Parham almost banked one in to beat the shot clock from about 30 feet.

I chalk his shooting up to the lazy way Kentucky was guarding early. It gave him confidence and that's when he started to go crazy.

Two things you notice defensively aside from our horrendous ability to stay in front of virtually any driver:

1. Kentucky has "switched everything" under Cal ever since he's been here. We all know that. Usually this works well because we have big men who are versatile and who can at least contain dribblers from the top. This year it's different, particularly when Richards is in the game. Richards is so slow to react, and they run him through so many ball screens, that he's the one who usually switched out on the other team's best. That's a tough situation for UK to win. E.J. Montgomery also ends up getting out there a lot, and he loses way more one-on-ones than he wins.

2. Kentucky is so concerned about gambling that we don't get into any passing lanes. Only in the North Dakota game did I see us actively rushing into lanes to try and create chaos. I watched quite a few games last night: you saw teams just living in passing lanes, making the other team's life miserable, and then getting back like their life depended on it if the pass got through.

Kentucky gets very, very, VERY few deflections. We don't knock the other team off its line. We don't push the other team out toward the halfcourt line. We don't disrupt the flow of their offensive set. We do none of these things; we basically just sit back in that very basic man-to-man and let them run their stuff. It's easy to operate against because we have so few disruptors on that side of the ball. Essentially, we let teams go where they want to go. If you want to cut, you can cut and get to where you need to be. If you want to drive us, you can drive. If you want to run a pick and roll, we can't guard it. Dribble hand-off? No way. We just sort of sit back and wait until there's a shot, and that shot is being made at a pretty excruciating clip so far against us.