Kentucky vs Bellarmine Report Card

Doc

Published on 11-29-2022 11:50 PM

2 Comments

By: Ronald "Doc" Ball

General Impressions My overall impression was one of "Bad basketball", especially after the first half. In my mind I was convinced there would be no A or B grades, and despite an improved second half, I am holding to that. Hard to believe this team has literally regressed from what we saw in Nassau this summer. We managed to beat a tired, nonathletic, length limited team in a manner that was pretty piss poor.

Jacob Toppin C+ His 12 pts, 2 assists and 5 rebounds were needed. Had no turnovers or steals. However of those 12 pts, 2 assists and 5 rebounds, NO points or assists were tallied in the first half and only 3 rebounds. His 0-4 was typical of the cats first half effort and effectiveness. Fortunately he managed to go 4-5 in the second half.

Cason Wallace C- Probably a harsh grade, but then they all might be. Hit only one shot of his five attempted in 30 minutes. His saving grace was 3 assists to 1 turnover. Failed to connect on his 3 trey attempt. And managed to make half of his 2 FT attempts.

Chris Livingston C Call raved about him post game so I guess Chris really earned his 12 minutes (please note the sarcasm). In fact Cal implored the crowd to chant for Chris next game so Cal doesn't forget about him on the bench. I'm not sure there is a face palm GIF big enough for that. Livingston managed to get 5 rebounds in that time, and an assist...but no points on no shots. He did manage a steal as well. I hate seeing him being wasted so much. In HS he was an absolute beast brimming with confidence and attitude. I saw his potential being as high as anybody on the team, and yet Cal "forgets" about him.

CJ Fredrick C+ Finished with 11 points by hitting 3 of his 7 shots, all treys, and making a couple FT. Added 3 rebounds, but no assists, steals or turnovers. Played 18 minutes. I will say he did a good job of creating some looks for himself with a jab step move. Still waiting to see a screen or two for him.

Lance Ware C- Poor Lance. With Oscars subpar game, he had an opportunity but came up short. Really not much in his 7 plus minutes. He was the only player with a negative +/- (-2). Was 1 of 1 from the field with 1 rebound and an assist to go with 2 turnovers

Antonio Reeves C+ Game high 18 pts in almost 24 minutes. Shot 7-15 and hit half of his 6 trey attempts. Matched Toppins numbers in rebounds (5) and assists (2) but also had a blocked shot. IMO it was a good game for him, and I'm sure I'd have given a higher grade had the team looked better...but its a team game so how the team performs has an affect.

Adou Thiero DNP

Ugonna Onyenso DNP

Daimion Collins D+ Needs to get his head back in the game. Needs to play like he can. UK needs to try to get him involved, maybe try something like a alley oop. Just throwing that out there! In just over 9 minutes he took a shot which he missed, had 3 rebounds and 3 turnovers.

Oscar Tshiebwe C No double double for Oscar as he only managed 8 points to go with 12 rebounds. Several bunny shots that he could have or should have dunked. The other option is to kick the ball out when quadruple teamed, again, just throwing that out there.

Sahvir Wheeler C IMO is trying to do too much and thus makes unfortunate plays. 6 assists is great but at the cost of 4 turnovers. Also managed 6 points on 2-6 shooting, including a trey. Led the team in minutes with over 35. Like many I am not a fan of the extended minutes with both Wheeler and Wallace on the floor together.

Coaching C Cal literally admitted in the post game he forgot about Livingston. Its bad enough that he does it but to announce it!?! This team wasn't prepared at all. Our defense the first half was horrible. Granted, props for half time adjustments but at this point that should not be needed against a low major team.

Officials B Any time Pat Adams is calling a game I expect absolute crap. Well, it wasn't crap so give them the grade. The other guys were Byron Jarrett and Shaun Seales

Commentators B I like the team of Sunvold and Hart. Usually they stay on topic and don't have the goal of annoying the crap out of the listeners. However I think everybody in the BBN as well as the general population knows that Savhir parents met at Rucker park. Its falling into the same category as Willy Cauley Stein being a football WR and Kevin Knox's dad playing for FSU. Just because its in the media guide does not mean you need to mention it every single game.

Other A tale of two halves. Shot 18% from long range in the first half, and 45% in the second, for a total of 32%. Overall shooting went from 30% to 56.5% by half (41.5% overall). We predictably won the rebound battle 42-21. We had 2 more TO than Bellermine (12-14) and 1 less steal (6-7). 28 of our points came in the paint and 13 on the fast break. Our bench kicked in 13 points with CJ kicking in 11 and Lance 2. We need more bench production but then they won't score from the sidelines.

Categories:
Basketball

27 Comments

Bakert - 11-30-2022, 03:02 PM
- Reply
Originally Posted by ukpumacat

When people say they want us to improve offensively, they are talking very specifically.

Well, I would say they are talking very narratively.

StuBleedsBlue2 - 11-30-2022, 03:06 PM
- Reply
Originally Posted by ukpumacat

But anyone watching would never say this is a good defensive team yet.

Absolutely, but it took a significant step forward last night. Also, we've seen glimpses of it in both losses, but just too many periods where guys just broke down or just didn't put any effort into it to start a possession. With exception of a couple of instances, we didn't see that last night.

What you actually saw was a team taking pride in their defense for nearly 40 minutes. You saw multiple instances where they defended for 30-35 seconds (plenty of shot clock violations), a quick (bad) offense possession of 5 seconds or less, and a commitment to defend for another 30-35 seconds again. Of course, nobody is going to confuse this team defensively with some of Cal's best, but you look for improvements and things to build upon and we got that last night.

If we would have had that defensive effort and discipline in our 2 losses, we easily beat Mich. St. and the Gonzaga game is minimally a nail-biter, or an outright win.

The big question for Sunday is whether they can repeat those efforts defensively and erase the easy offensive mistakes, such as shooting below 50% at the rim, periods of shot hesitation, or failing to make an extra pass or making a bad extra pass. That's leaving a minimum of 10 points off the scoreboard.

That's definitely enough to beat Michigan.

ukpumacat - 11-30-2022, 03:46 PM
- Reply
Originally Posted by Bakert

But is that bad? I know you have mentioened this before, and I get it, but in the end isn't the goal to put up more points than the opponent? While you may not want to have to rely on offensive rebounding and/or transition baskets to do that, isn't part of being a good coach being able to leverage your strengths*?

I understand that there will be games where to win we will need to run a good set and get a clean shot and we certainly are not there yet, although it seemed to me in the second half last night we did something different from what were doing in the first half. Regardless, my point is that I agree we need a better offense, but if we are a top 10 team in terms of rebounding and getting transition baskets and that leads to wins, why does it matter how ugly our half-court offense looks?

*And I do get the irony. If a good coach can leverage good rebounding/transistion baskets, he should also be able to run sets that will get open looks for good three-point shooters.

It isn't "bad". It just isn't enough.

When it comes to the tourney, better teams with better coaches take away your strengths. That is why we lost to Michigan St and Gonzaga. There is not a defense for having such a poor half-court offense in Division 1 basketball. None.

ukpumacat - 11-30-2022, 03:47 PM
- Reply
Originally Posted by Bakert

Well, I would say they are talking very narratively.

You last night during the game...

Originally Posted by Bakert

So I should put you down for more of Cal's "modern basketball?"

At this point I'd rather have Shooter running the old picket fence than whatever it is we are doing.

ukpumacat - 11-30-2022, 03:56 PM
- Reply
I had 8 days before my first game this year. That was 6 practices total. And 6 of my players (including two starters) were at a grand total of ONE practice because our football team was still in the playoffs and the school did not allow them to practice both until they lost.

We still ran our offense. We still ran out of bounds plays. We still won that game. And I didn't have all summer, the Bahamas or a pre-season to do it.

That is why it infuriates me to hear Cal continue to blame not having Oscar for two weeks as the reason no one seems to know what we are running. It is gaslighting at its finest.

CitizenBBN - 11-30-2022, 05:15 PM
- Reply
Originally Posted by Bakert

But is that bad? I know you have mentioened this before, and I get it, but in the end isn't the goal to put up more points than the opponent? While you may not want to have to rely on offensive rebounding and/or transition baskets to do that, isn't part of being a good coach being able to leverage your strengths*?

No, it's bad.

Why is it bad? B/c you can't get to Final Fours if you can't score in the half court. Cal fwiw has said many many times you have to be able to play possession ball in the NCAA tourney to win, so take him as the source if you want.

If you are good at transition and rebounding, that means you should be working in practice on areas where you aren't as good, to get those better. But just b/c you are good at one thing doesn't let you off the hook for being awful at another.

that's fine if we just want to make the dance, if we're a middling team, but not at the level Kentucky operates.

Would bama fans be OK if they had a good defense and could run the ball but couldn't pass worth a lick, and hadn't won a bowl game in 3 (4 counting covid) years? (Maybe better analogy is getting to a NYD bowl there).

As for the 2nd versus first half we did NOTHING different on offense. What we did was pressure defensively and got into Bellarmine's legs, which got us more transition baskets and their defense got worse we got more penetration with guys who couldn't get past their man earlier in the game.

I know you're being somewhat tongue in cheek, but some here aren't, and I can't believe people are defending our utter lack of a half court offense b/c we actually showed a spark of life for 10 minutes on defense against a team we should beat by 40.

These are the telltale signs of problems that are going to bite us in games against good teams, both in the season and postseason. if we can't execute this offense against a team just stepping into D1 how will we do against teams who can match us physically?

Jeeepcat - 11-30-2022, 06:06 PM
- Reply
Originally Posted by ukpumacat

I missed the game as my team was playing at the same time (nice win for us!). I did go back to read the Game Thread. Kind of glad I missed it now.

None of it is a surprise. Cal has no idea what he is doing offensively. Like seriously none. I seriously don't understand going into a season knowing for MONTHS who your players are...having practices...Bahamas...etc etc. And you still don't know what kind of offense you want to run.

Playing our bigs together is asinine. Not having multiple shooters on the floor is asinine. And trying to run the DDMO with a team that lacks guys who can beat their man off the dribble is asinine.
We finally actually have some shooters this year and we rarely play them together. And not only that, we don't run anything to actually get them open. It is all asinine.

It is pretty clear that Cal really isn't sure what to do. And of course he doesn't have an assistant on the bench who excels in offensive strategy so he can't get help there either.
Reading that thread, even Bakert and Hoss were pissed. When those guys are complaining about Cal it isn't a game I want to watch. Haha

P.S. We are ranked 4th in defense according to Kenpom and 16th in offense. Anyone who has watched this team play knows how terribly silly both of those rankings are. Just please remember that when going back and telling me how good Cal's offenses have been at UK by using kenpom numbers. They are badly skewed.

And never, ever, ever running a legit screen. I could get around our "screens". I mean once.

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