DSS: Kentucky Wildcats versus Kansas Jayhawks

A stronger team results in a less dominating performance by the Cats in game 2 of the season.  No surprise there.

I meant to include this last time, but for those who are interested in reading more about this kind of approach to defense, there is a terrific article in the Sports Illustrated College Basketball Preview written by Luke Winn.  You can read the text of the article here and another short piece by Winn here.  David Hess contributed to that work and he'll have his own defensive results for the game posted later.  They aren't up at the moment, but I'll include a link once they are.

Update: Here is the link to David's results.

A couple of things:

• Because the Forced misses, missed FT's, and turnovers, and made baskets are all easily found in the Defense Box Score, I've changed the DSS chart to include personal defense numbers for effective field goal percentage (eFG%), Turnover percentage (TO%), and Free Throw Rate (FTR).  These are just like the team level 4 Factor Ratings that Glenn described but limited to the individual.
• There was a 2 minute window where the ESPN3 feed cut out in the second half, around the 10:40 mark.  It caused me to miss a total of 7 possessions - 4 Kansas, 3 UK.  3 of those possessions included a block, steal, and FTs so I have defender information for them.  The remaining 4 I just assigned defenders based on what I observed during the rest of the game as to who was guarding whom.

• Just from the box score you can see that Davis had a monster game.  Lots of forced turnovers, forced misses and only a couple of trips to the line.
• Jones, Teague, and K-G were all pretty bad about sending players to the line.  Some of that is inevitable, but certainly would like to see those numbers decrease.  I'm not worried about TJ - he was terrific the end of last year at defending without fouling.  The other 2 are freshmen and will probably be much better as they gain experience.
• Jones and Davis were noticably active during the game with quick hands and knocking balls away.  I didn't chart deflections, but I bet TJ would have ended up with 5 or 6 if I had.  That activity is also reflected by the number of shots they defended and turnovers they forced.

• Davis comes away with another great Defensive Rating.  He posted another staggering Stop% as well as leading the team in Usage% meaning that UK's best defender got involved in the highest percentage of plays while he was on the floor - that is absolutely fantastic.
• UK's perimeter guys did not have a lot of defensive plays.  Part of that was the inside-oriented offense for Kansas, but part of it also was losing their guys at times.  There were a number of times in transition where Lamb and Teague in particular did not find their man or stop the ball.
• Jones had a poor rating.  Part of that was because he guarded Robinson most of the evening, but there is another reason that becomes evident when you look at the Matchup information below: he had to help out against a lot of other Kansas players who made it past the initial defense.

• Against Marist, MKG was the guy all over the floor making plays.  This time it's Jones, but the reasons are different.  Jones was certainly active, but he also had to help a lot which is where you see most of his plays against the guards and wings.