Basketball is officially kicked off now everywhere in the nation, and it's time for us at A Sea of Blue to begin looking at the 2008-09 season in earnest.  In order to do that, we are going to start by taking a look at the good versus the bad from last year from a statistical perspective.  StatSheet.com, an awesome stats website, is my source for these numbers.

First, the good:

Kentucky was a pretty decent 3-point shooting team last year with Crawford and Bradley making the shots.  That figures to suffer a bit this year, but maybe not as much as some originally thought.  Word is that Liggins is more competent from the perimeter than first thought, and Meeks and Porter should both be able to shoot respectable percentages.  I have heard that Galloway isn't a reliable 3-point shooter, but that Ramon Harris has greatly improved his range.  Of course, you have to treat all this with a grain of salt -- kind of like the whole "summer basketball" reports we always get that so often turn out to be hyperbole.

Field goal percentage from 2 ought to be about the same, or maybe even better due to the addition of bigger people and a strong motivation to go inside to Patterson, Stevenson and Harrellson.

Another thing that may decline somewhat from last year is free throw shooting.  Bradley and Crawford were both very reliable from the line, and we lose them.  Patterson, Stevenson, Meeks and Porter are all reliable free-throwers, but the newcomer's skill is yet to be determined.  We may not drop badly, but I do expect us to go down playing a deeper rotation with younger guys.

Blocks, I expect, will go up, and that is a very good thing.  Stevenson and Patterson will of course lead the charge, but Galloway and Liggins are both tall for their positions, long and athletic.

Now, for the bad, and unfortunately, it is a much longer list:

The good news about the bad news (does that make sense?) -- I expect us to dramatically improve in two major areas right off the bat -- rebounding and turnovers.  We get much bigger everywhere, which means rebounds ought to come much easier.  We bring in much better ballhandlers than we lose, and I expect that will improve our turnovers and assist/turnover quite a bit.  I sure hope so -- I am tired of seeing UK stink in those statistical areas.

Almost all Kentucky fans would grind their teeth to dust this year if we play the kind of deliberate, slow-down run-out-the-clock basketball we played last year with this new team.  The good news on that front is, I don't expect we will.  We have many people capable of running the floor and getting into early offense this year, and I expect to see much more of that.

I think our 3-point attempts may actually go down from last year due to the longer line and relative lack of great shooting, but then again, a higher tempo might produce at least as many attempts and maybe more, overall.  I'm not really sure.  What I do know is that we don't have a ton of reliable 3-point shooters on this year's team, at least not that I know of right now.  But off-season improvements are hard to figure at the moment, so we may be much better off than I imagine.

I do expect our assists to go up, partly as a result of the higher tempo and partly due to better ballhandling and passing.  We have several really good passers on this team including Patterson, Liggins, Galloway and Porter, and that should really manifest itself in a better A/T ratio and more assists.

Finally, there are steals.  We need to improve this stat, and there isn't any reason why we shouldn't with the number of long, tall athletes we have this year.  Galloway looks like a guy who could lead the league in steals, and Lilggins was known to be a good steal guy in high school.  Let's hope it translates over to the college level.

OK, that's how I see it.  I know many of you have been waiting on some basketball stuff, so jump right in.