Florida @ Kentucky: Pre Game

by Truzenzuzex on Feb 10, 2009 5:31 PM EST in Basketball Comment 10 comments

Comes now an opportunity for Kentucky. Having wasted so many this year, they need to treat this one like the precious jewel it is.

Florida comes into Kentucky with a one-game lead in the East, just one game ahead of Tennessee, South Carolina and Kentucky. A victory by the 'Cats would leave a four-way tie for first in the East, but there are a lot of games yet to be played. Even a loss tonight would not doom UK's chances to win the East, but it would deal them a major setback and would substantially increase the success they would need in the rest of the season to make the NCAA tournament at all.

A victory would turn the Wildcats' fortunes back around for the time being, and place them back in good standing, but still with some work remaining between now and the SEC tournament in Atlanta.

Player Stats: Florida

			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
Nick Calathes	23	32.5	6.0	11.6	51.5	2.2	5.1	42.7	4.0	5.7	71.0	0.8	4.5	5.3	6.4	3.3	1.9	0.2	1.9	18.1
Alex Tyus	23	25.3	5.3	8.7	61.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.8	2.6	68.3	2.0	4.3	6.3	0.7	1.3	0.5	0.7	1.7	12.4
Chandler Parsons	23	26.9	4.0	8.3	48.2	1.2	4.0	30.8	1.2	2.0	57.4	2.2	3.7	5.9	1.9	1.5	1.2	0.4	2.4	10.4
Erving Walker	23	23.2	3.0	6.8	43.9	1.7	4.2	41.2	1.6	2.0	82.2	0.1	1.2	1.3	2.6	1.6	1.0	0.0	1.6	9.3
Dan Werner	23	26.6	3.4	7.4	45.6	1.2	3.5	33.8	1.2	1.6	77.8	1.2	3.3	4.4	2.3	1.6	1.0	0.4	2.7	9.2
Walter Hodge	23	27.6	2.6	5.9	43.4	1.5	3.8	38.6	1.1	1.4	78.1	0.4	1.1	1.6	2.4	1.1	1.3	0.1	2.1	7.7
Kenny Kadji	22	13.1	2.1	4.2	50.5	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.7	1.5	47.1	1.0	1.6	2.6	0.2	0.9	0.2	0.7	1.4	5.0
Ray Shipman	23	13.4	1.5	3.2	47.9	0.1	0.6	15.4	0.9	1.3	69.0	1.0	1.3	2.3	0.7	0.5	0.9	0.1	1.2	4.0
Allan Chaney	22	10.1	1.3	2.8	45.9	0.0	0.2	20.0	0.5	0.9	63.2	1.1	1.1	2.2	0.5	0.8	0.5	0.1	1.5	3.1
Eloy Vargas	6	3.5	0.0	1.3	0.0	0.0	0.3	0.0	0.8	1.3	62.5	0.3	0.5	0.8	0.0	0.3	0.2	0.3	1.0	0.8
Kyle McClanahan	10	3.1	0.2	0.5	40.0	0.1	0.3	33.3	0.1	0.2	50.0	0.0	0.3	0.3	0.2	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.2	0.6
Hudson Fricke	1	1.0	0.0	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	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
	23	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.5	1.6	3.1	0.0	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0

Player Stats: Kentucky

			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
Jodie Meeks	23	34.1	7.6	16.0	47.3	3.7	8.3	44.0	6.3	7.0	90.6	0.7	2.8	3.5	1.7	3.0	1.3	0.1	2.0	25.1
Patrick Patterson	23	33.0	7.2	11.0	65.4	0.0	0.0	0.0	3.9	4.8	80.9	2.4	6.8	9.2	2.0	2.1	0.7	2.0	2.6	18.3
Perry Stevenson	23	27.7	2.9	5.1	57.3	0.1	0.4	33.3	2.0	2.6	75.0	2.0	4.7	6.7	1.7	1.9	0.7	2.2	2.7	7.9
DeAndre Liggins	22	20.0	2.0	5.2	38.6	0.5	2.0	22.7	1.6	2.3	70.0	0.2	2.6	2.9	3.3	2.9	1.0	0.5	2.0	6.0
Ramon Harris	18	20.9	1.9	3.5	55.6	0.2	0.9	17.6	1.2	2.2	56.4	0.6	2.4	3.0	1.3	2.2	0.7	0.3	1.5	5.3
Josh Harrellson	22	11.0	1.7	3.7	46.9	0.2	0.5	36.4	1.1	1.5	72.7	1.2	2.0	3.2	0.4	0.9	0.3	0.6	1.1	4.7
Darius Miller	23	20.1	1.4	4.0	35.5	0.3	1.5	20.6	1.0	1.3	76.7	0.9	2.5	3.4	1.9	1.8	0.7	0.7	2.3	4.2
Michael Porter	23	21.8	1.1	3.4	31.6	0.6	2.1	27.1	0.7	0.8	89.5	0.3	1.7	2.0	2.9	2.2	0.8	0.0	1.7	3.5
Landon Slone	10	8.8	0.6	2.0	30.0	0.4	1.4	28.6	0.6	0.6	100.0	0.5	0.9	1.4	0.9	0.2	0.3	0.0	0.6	2.2
A.J. Stewart	20	6.1	0.7	1.6	41.9	0.0	0.1	0.0	0.5	0.5	90.0	0.5	0.7	1.1	0.3	0.7	0.3	0.6	1.3	1.8
Kevin Galloway	18	6.7	0.4	1.1	42.1	0.0	0.1	0.0	0.3	0.7	46.2	0.3	0.9	1.2	1.2	0.8	0.3	0.2	0.4	1.2
Jared Carter	7	3.7	0.1	0.7	20.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.6	0.9	66.7	0.3	0.6	0.9	0.4	0.4	0.1	0.6	0.6	0.9
Mark Halsell	6	1.7	0.2	0.2	100.0	0.2	0.2	100.0	0.2	0.3	50.0	0.0	0.2	0.2	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.7
Dwight Perry	6	1.8	0.2	0.3	50.0	0.2	0.3	50.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.3	0.3	0.0	0.2	0.0	0.0	0.7	0.5
Mark Krebs	8	2.6	0.1	0.5	25.0	0.1	0.5	25.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.5	0.5	0.3	0.3	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.4
	23	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.6	1.4	3.0	0.0	0.2	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.0

Team Stats Comparison (Courtesy of Kenpom.com)

	Kentucky		Florida
Category	Offense	Defense	Offense	Defense	D-I Avg
Adj. Efficiency:	107.1 [86]	88.4 [14]	114.8 [20]	95.6 [72]	100.7
Adj. Tempo:	69.7 [58]		67.5 [141]		66.9
Four Factors
Effective FG%:	54.2 [16]	43.1 [9]	55.8 [7]	49.3 [179]	48.9
Turnover %:	24.5 [326]	20.2 [196]	18.3 [44]	22.7 [71]	20.8
Off. Reb. %:	34.9 [115]	30.2 [67]	33.6 [159]	31.9 [125]	33.1
FTA/FGA:	43.0 [38]	31.7 [76]	32.5 [263]	30.9 [60]	36.4
Miscellaneous Components
3P%:	34.6 [143]	34.4 [188]	36.8 [69]	34.2 [175]	34.1
2P%:	55.3 [10]	38.8 [1]	56.2 [4]	48.2 [183]	47.8
FT%:	79.2 [4]	67.6 [114]	68.8 [161]	61.1 [3]	68.6
Block%:	8.1 [130]	17.9 [3]	8.2 [134]	7.6 [218]	8.9
Steal%:	10.9 [259]	9.0 [234]	9.2 [111]	12.2 [36]	10
Style Components
3PA/FGA:	30.3 [236]	33.4 [202]	36.5 [78]	34.5 [234]	33
A/FGM:	62.3 [24]	43.3 [8]	61.0 [41]	52.4 [130]	54.1
Point Distribution (% of total points)
3-Pointers:	22.0 [292]	32.0 [43]	30.1 [96]	30.1 [82]	27.5
2-Pointers:	54.1 [121]	48.1 [289]	53.2 [147]	53.8 [116]	52.1
Free Throws:	23.9 [32]	19.9 [194]	16.7 [318]	16.1 [322]	20.3
Strength of Schedule
Components:	102.4 [100]	100.8 [173]	100.4 [198]	100.8 [170]	100.7
Overall:	0.5446 [127]		0.4886 [188]		0.5
Non-conference:	0.4297 [240]		0.3372 [303]		0.5
Personnel
Bench Minutes:	29.2% [216]		29.8% [203]		31.10%
Experience:	1.34 yrs [270]		1.12 yrs [314]		1.66
Effective Height:	+1.6 [74]		+2.2 [46]		0
Average Height:	78.7" [3]		77.2" [66]		76.5"

Analysis

Personnel

Florida is a talented team with plenty of size, but very little overall strength and experience.

Florida's back court is among the most solid in the SEC, starting with sophomore point guard Nick Calathes. Calathes is a tall "lead" guard who initiates most of the offense. He can dribble, drive and shoot the three. He is not great at getting his own shot but is so clever with the ball he can get one if he needs it. His backcourt mate, Walter Hodge, is a senior and a solid player in his own right, able to make shots and get to the rim. Florida's back court is among the deadliest from three point range in the conference.

The front court will likely consist of sophomore power forward Alex Tyus, sophomore forward Chandler Parsons and junior forward Dan Werner. Werner and Parsons are both capable of scoring inside and out, and Tyus is mostly an inside player. Neither Parsons nor Werner are overly athletic, but Tyus is, and although he doesn't have the strength, skill or bulk of Patrick Patterson, he is a very capable and improving player. Of the other two forwards, Chandler Parsons is by far the most dynamic and dangerous offensively.

Kenny Kadji is a freshman big man who gives Florida a good big option inside. He is as big and even a little taller than Patterson, but slower and less athletic. But he is a space eater who can get the job done inside. Erving Walker is a tiny (5'8") spark plug of a guard off the bench who has amazing quickness and speed, and is a dangerous matchup problem for Kentucky. Think a stronger and more explosive Devan Downey with a bit less overall skill. Ray Shipman helps out on the wing and is more of a slasher. Allan Chaney, another big forward, is injured and likely out for tonight.

Teams

Florida's main strengths are three point shooting, offensive efficiency and forcing turnovers. They take good care of the basketball, but do not rebound particularly well either offensively or defensively. Kentucky is a vastly superior defensive team, particularly against the two point shot, but Florida shoots a high percentage of their shots from three, and we all know that UK has been burned a lot from three point range this year.

Four factors analysis:

eFG%: Advantage Florida on offense and Kentucky on defense.
Turnover%: Advantage Florida on both offense and defense
Offensive Rebound %: Advantage Kentucky on offense and defense.
FT Attempts/FG Attempt: Kentucky on offense, Florida on defense.

Overall

This is a matchup between two very even teams that basically have different strengths -- Kentucky's strengths are defensive and Florida's strengths are offensive. Kentucky appears to have a slightly larger edge, but paper edges mean nothing, as they also had edges over the last three teams they played, and we saw how that went.

Kentucky will face a variety of defenses tonight, but probably more zone than man to man, although you can never say for sure with Donovan, because like his mentor, Rick Pitino, Billy D. likes to mix it up on defense. UK will see some match-up zone and quite possibly some junk like a box and one.

Offensively, Kentucky must get the ball to Patterson, and force the defense to collapse. That will happen, and Patterson will hit open shooters. The question is, will any of them shoot, and if they do, will they make them? Jodie Meeks will likely be taken away as much as possible, and Florida has the size and quickness to do it. If Kentucky continues to do what they have been doing the last three games, the odds of them winning this one are long, indeed.

Defensively, Kentucky must guard the three much better than they have in the last three games. If they fail to do this, it will take a superhuman effort by both Meeks and Patterson to overcome the scoring Florida can do. Florida will run, and they will shoot in transition and make shots. Kentucky will need to play Suffocats-style defense to stop the Gators, and the 'Cats have not done that against a talented team all year.

Although I like the matchups better in this game than in the last three, Florida is a vastly superior offensive team if they are able to hamper Meeks and Patterson as the last three teams have done. If they can't, this could be a convincing victory for Kentucky, because nobody on Florida's team can handle those two guys one-on-one. But Billy D. knows this, and he knows that UK is vulnerable to denying Meeks the ball and collapsing on Patterson. He believes, and so do I, that UK's other players cannot beat him.

Bottom line -- UK is on a precipice. If all Gillispie did was try to convince them to play harder, our chances of victory are less than 50%. If the 'Cats have some new wrinkles to free up our scorers and play solid 3-point defense, our chances go way up. You can never tell about Gillispie, so I have no prediction. Just nerves.

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Comments

Can anyone say "must win"

Great pre-game summary… I think if UK plays great defense they will win this game… Go Cats!!!

ShagOnSports - "people should know when they are conquered"

by ShagOnSports on Feb 10, 2009 5:44 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

This is a game we have to win.

The Cats have to play with a sense of urgency tonight and they have to play with a lot of intensity and a lot of poise. It’s important that we get off to a good start. We can’t dig a ourselves a hole like we did the last game. I think we need good games from Stevenson, Liggins and Miller. I am hoping they will step up to the challegne because FL will focus their D on stopping Meeks and Patterson. We will need other players to step up and contribute if we want to get the W.

My gut feeling is that UK wins by about 5-7 points and I would be thrilled if that happens.

GBB!!!

by OGETARTS on Feb 10, 2009 6:25 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

They can do it.

As you say Tru, this game will be big on so many levels. I think that this game, moreso than any others, will be dependent on how UK plays offense. With a team like Florida, they will score. Can UK keep up with them on the offensive end. I hope the fans will support (I am sure they will), and not get too vocally discouraged when they may fall behind. I see it as a back and forth game.

'..when they bring a knife, you bring a gun...that's the Chicago way..'

by HozeKing on Feb 10, 2009 6:31 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Excellent summary.

I can disagree with none of it. The two teams can match up in different ways, some favoring Florida, the others Kentucky. Therefore In my view a Florida win will hinge on two factors:

1) Florida’s shots have to fall, particularly from beyond the arc.
2) Coaching.

And quite likely, that’s probably what tonight’s matchup will come down to. To be honest, Gillispie’s team should win — on paper. But I’m just not sold on the man or his ability to adapt his coaching to the situation at hand. This is a game that Billy D can win for us if his team does as he directs. Like you’ve surmised, if Gillispie tries more of the same I expect a Florida win. If he has something new, the chance for a Kentucky win improves significantly.

May the best team — and best coach — win.

Orange and Blue Hue: The World through GATOR-colored Glasses -- http://www.orangeandbluehue.com

by Gatorpilot on Feb 10, 2009 6:32 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Coaching

I understand many are questioning BCG’s coaching ability right now. I am not. This is a guy who turned around 2 programs in 2 years. He turned around a Kentucky team last year that was for all intents and purposes dead in the water after 15 games. He turned Bradley and Crawford into two players that I will always love and respect and believe me I did not before the middle of last year. He won Co-Coach of the Year in the SEC last year. The only coach in history to lead consecutive teams to be the most improved teams of the year. You don’t achieve that without being able to coach.

I just don’t get it. He’s stubborn, he has a plan and he’s going to follow it regardless. Pitino did the same thing early in his tenure at Kentucky and we all know how that ended up. Give the man a break. Give him some time and let him coach.

Xbox Live Gamertag: hoopchi

by hoopchi on Feb 10, 2009 7:06 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I have a bad feeling

about this game..much like the USC game..I hope I’m wrong, but if UK comes out flat again, it could be a long night.

That's what she said.

by adaircam4 on Feb 10, 2009 7:29 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I guess the big question will be.....

how many 3 pointers wil Florida make tonight?

Slower Traffic Keep Right!

by SevenRings on Feb 10, 2009 7:44 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

....or how many open shots will Porter, Miller and Harris pass up?

GBB!!!

by OGETARTS on Feb 10, 2009 7:49 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Tournament is in Tampa

I think the Acc tournament is in Atl.
All strategy aside, not only are we falling off the tournament radar, a loss tonight and our role as a factor in the SEC will fall lower than it has been in years. The reputation of the program is definately on the line. They will either play tight and without confidence or rise to the biggest challenge they have faced this year.

by Slim Wagers on Feb 10, 2009 8:32 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I'm speechless.

This was absolutely a weak half by both teams. I just can’t accept this is the best we can do.

At least we aren’t behind. But this was not a good half of basketball by any stretch of the imagination. What the heck is with all the switching on screens? Why are we trying to have Patterson and Stevenson bring the ball up? Why can’t we guard Calathes? Who is that man playing with #54, and what did he do with Patrick Patterson?