Kentucky Wildcats @ Drexel Dragons: Pre-game

by Glenn Logan on Dec 21, 2009 6:09 PM EST in Kentucky Wildcats Basketball

I am a bit behind due to the holidays right now, so the pre-game for this will be brief.

Tonight, the Drexel Dragons out of the Colonial Athletic Association come into Rupp Arena to face the Kentucky Wildcats for what should be victory #2000, a tremendous milestone. The Wildcats easily outdistanced the North Carolina Tar Heels, starting out the season only four ahead, and now fully eight games in the lead. This race, in the end, turned out to be a bit anticlimactic.

But tonight will be long remembered by Kentucky fans as the second major milestone in victories that it accomplished, having already been the first team to 1000 victories. At the very least, the trivia question will be, "Who did Kentucky defeat to reach its 2000th victory?" Hopefully, the answer will be, "Drexel."

Rank and records	*Drexel*	UK
RPI	144	18
SOS	199	178
Overall	6-5	11-0
Conference	1-0	0-0
Home	4-1	6-0
Away	2-4	1-0
Neutral	0-0	4-0
Top 25	0-1	2-0
RPI Top 50	1-2	2-0

More after the jump.

The Drexel Roster

Drexel Dragons Basketball Roster

	#	Pos.	Comments	W	H	College
Ronald Colbert	15	G	-	185	6-2	junior
Gerald Colds	11	G	Starter	180	6-1	junior
Yannick Formbor	1	F	-	245	6-8	junior
Chris Fouch	3	G	Significant contributor	170	6-2	freshman
Samme Givens	45	F	May start - Significant contributor	220	6-5	sophomore
Shannon Givens	54	G	-	190	6-0	freshman
Jamie Harris	12	G	Starter - Major contributor	175	5-10	junior
Bill Lally	14	G	-	170	6-0	senior
Daryl McCoy	44	F	May start	270	6-9	freshman
Evan Neisler	33	F	May start - Role player	225	6-8	senior
Kevin Phillip	21	F	-	225	6-6	sophomore
Leon Spencer	5	F	Starter-Major Contributor	217	6-8	senior
Derrick Thomas	32	G	Starter	190	6-4	freshman
Kenny Tribbett	42	F	-	240	6-9	senior

Drexel team statistics

			FG			3PT			FT			Rebounds			Misc
	G	M	M	A	Pct	M	A	Pct	M	A	Pct	Off	Def	Tot	Ast	TO	Stl	Blk	PF	PPG
Jamie Harris	11	35.0	5.4	12.5	43.1	0.8	2.8	29.0	3.5	4.5	79.6	0.4	2.0	2.4	3.7	2.4	1.6	0.0	3.0	15.1
Gerald Colds	11	32.0	3.1	9.1	34.0	0.9	3.5	25.6	2.4	4.0	59.1	0.6	2.1	2.7	2.6	1.8	0.8	0.3	2.3	9.5
Derrick Thomas	11	27.5	3.1	9.0	34.3	1.1	4.0	27.3	1.3	2.3	56.0	1.0	1.9	2.9	1.9	1.5	1.2	0.2	2.1	8.5
Samme Givens	10	23.6	3.4	5.7	59.6	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.5	2.5	60.0	2.4	5.1	7.5	1.4	1.8	1.6	0.5	3.1	8.3
Leon Spencer	3	22.0	3.3	8.0	41.7	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.3	2.7	50.0	2.3	4.3	6.7	2.0	3.0	0.3	1.7	3.7	8.0
Chris Fouch	11	20.2	2.5	7.3	33.8	1.6	5.0	32.7	1.1	1.6	66.7	0.6	1.5	2.2	1.2	1.1	0.5	0.1	1.0	7.6
Evan Neisler	11	19.9	1.9	3.7	51.2	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.1	2.0	54.5	1.8	3.1	4.9	0.3	1.4	0.4	0.2	3.4	4.9
Ronald Colbert	1	1.0	1.0	1.0	100.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	100.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	3.0
Kevin Phillip	11	13.7	1.3	2.8	45.2	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.2	0.5	40.0	0.5	2.1	2.6	0.3	0.5	0.5	0.7	2.4	2.7
Shannon Givens	10	9.0	0.8	2.0	40.0	0.2	0.6	33.3	0.4	0.4	100.0	0.4	1.2	1.6	0.4	0.6	0.4	0.1	0.4	2.2
Daryl McCoy	11	13.3	0.5	2.0	22.7	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.4	0.8	44.4	1.7	2.7	4.5	0.5	0.6	0.0	0.8	2.9	1.3
Kenny Tribbett	6	7.5	0.5	1.0	50.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.5	1.0	1.5	0.2	0.7	0.0	0.2	1.5	1.0
Yannick Formbor	3	2.3	0.3	0.3	100.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.3	0.3	0.7	0.0	0.7	0.0	0.0	0.7	0.7
Bill Lally	2	1.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.5	0.5	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0

Four Factors (via Kenpom.com)

Scouting Report
	*Kentucky*		*Drexel*
Category	Offense	Defense	Offense	Defense	D-I Avg
Adj. Efficiency:	113.0 [31]	93.4 [80]	92.4 [282]	87.3 [21]	99.9
Adj. Tempo:	68.7 [169]	68.7	64.5 [307]	68.7
Four Factors
Effective FG%:	55.0 [20]	45.0 [70]	44.7 [281]	42.2 [18]	48.8
Turnover %:	23.5 [280]	20.3 [207]	19.7 [109]	22.4 [99]	21.0
Off. Reb. %:	45.7 [1]	31.3 [116]	33.4 [155]	32.1 [140]	33.0
FTA/FGA:	41.4 [98]	28.5 [38]	33.9 [237]	49.7 [320]	37.5
Miscellaneous Components
3P%:	40.0 [39]	35.8 [231]	29.1 [293]	30.8 [73]	34.1
2P%:	53.3 [38]	40.0 [15]	45.0 [244]	40.9 [21]	47.7
FT%:	68.5 [169]	67.2 [137]	63.3 [298]	68.1 [165]	68.4
Block%:	7.8 [99]	21.2 [2]	11.0 [275]	8.6 [169]	9.1
Steal%:	11.0 [253]	10.1 [150]	8.5 [68]	10.4 [130]	10.0
Style Components
3PA/FGA:	26.4 [292]	36.7 [277]	28.3 [258]	23.7 [12]	32.6
A/FGM:	54.2 [164]	52.9 [160]	56.6 [115]	48.6 [66]	53.7
Defensive Fingerprint:	Inconclusive		Mostly Man
Point Distribution (% of total points)
3-Pointers:	22.8 [260]	36.0 [17]	22.3 [270]	18.6 [333]	27.1
2-Pointers:	56.7 [71]	46.4 [311]	58.3 [43]	52.8 [149]	52.1
Free Throws:	20.5 [177]	17.5 [288]	19.4 [230]	28.7 [10]	20.8
Strength of Schedule
Components:	99.9 [203]	102.1 [268]	103.3 [81]	103.1 [305]	99.9
Overall:	0.4376 [242]	.5000	0.5065 [187]	.5000
Non-conference:	0.4376 [247]	.5000	0.4950 [210]	.5000
Personnel
Bench Minutes:	28.9% [232]	31.9%	30.0% [217]	31.9%
Experience:	0.96 yrs [332]	1.69	1.30 yrs [292]	1.69
Effective Height:	+4.0 [11]	0.0	-1.6 [273]	0.0
Average Height:	78.7" [7]	76.6"	75.3" [315]	76.6"

Analysis

As you can see, the Dragons are a very good defensive team, but a rather poor offensive team. Drexel plays at a somewhat more deliberate tempo than Kentucky, but they beat a decent Northwestern team and a fair Vermont team. They have had a couple of bad losses to Rutgers (by just two) and a home loss to Cornell. The only top team they have played is the Villanova Wildcats, who beat the Dragons 77-58.

Drexel comes in to Kentucky on a 3-game winning streak, having won their last one on the road at Cal St. Nothridge. Of course, Kentucky is going for #2000 tonight and is undefeated so far in the 2009-10 season.

Drexel's leader in scoring is Jamie Harris, a 5'10" guard who averages 15 points and 3.7 assists/outing. Harris is mostly a penetrator, though, as he doesn't shoot very many threes. In fact, Drexel as a team doesn't shoot that many threes, much like Kentucky. Chris Fouch is Drexel's leading 3-point percentage shooter at 33%, and he also shoots the most threes.

Samme Givens is the leading percentage shooter on the team averaging 8.3 points, but shooting almost 60% from the field and leading the team in rebounding with 7.5 per game -- pretty impressive for a 6'5" forward.

Drexel is a fairly small team, but they have a lot of juniors and seniors, and teams like this have given UK problems this year. I expect the Wildcats to be ready for this one, though.

Projected score: UK 75, Drexel 60.

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