Kentucky Wildcats Basketball: Examining The Road Losses
by Glenn Logan on Feb 18, 2011 7:31 PM EST
in Kentucky Wildcats Basketball
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PrintI'm sure we have all been wondering what, in particular, the Kentucky Wildcats are doing so wrong on the road that leaves them with only three road victories all year in nine tries. So what we will do is visualize some of the critical factors, mainly the Four Factors to Winning, to see if anything stands out. For those who still don't know what the Four Factors to Winning are, go here.
Why did I go and do this? Well, I'm always keen to try to explain the what, rather than necessarily the why, seems different between the games we have on and the games we have lost. Statistics, of course, don't necessarily point out the real problems that you can fix. For the most part, I use them to try to isolate areas that could have contributed to the losses. The real causes may be much simpler, such as the team simply failing to hustle or try hard enough. You won't find that in the statistics anywhere, except as a possible implication from stats that are dependent on that particular characteristic.
Also, there are a ton of variables we can't account for, like a player having a good or bad day, or the wiles of the officials at critical times, or the concept of momentum, inspiration, etc. Fear of losing also doesn't show up in the stats, but as I have said, I believe it to be present in this year's team.
What all this will do, hopefully, is to give us things to look for. This isn't supposed to be exhaustive or detailed, but a fairly simple examination of some metrics to serve as a starting point for discussion. We'll begin after the jump.
The very first thing I tried was just to look at the conference games, and compare the average of the offensive Four Factors as well as efficiency for the wins versus the losses. Here's how it looks, keeping in mind this is for conference games only at this point, and higher is better for everything but turnovers:
There are really not that many surprises here. Kentucky has been more efficient in conference wins, shot better in wins, turned the ball over about the same. Interestingly, the Wildcats have actually rebounded better in losses (although not by very much).
The one stat where we have a marked difference, though, is FTR%, which is how often a team gets to the line per field goal attempt. But is that really unexpected? Who really expects a team to get more favorable (and hence rewarded with more free throws), on the road than at home? I don't. So it isn't really surprising, or anomalous, for Kentucky to get to the line less on the road, which is a 100% subset of their losses.
Looking at this, I don't think I can point to anything that looks suspicious. 50% eFG% on the road is pretty darn decent shooting. 17% turnovers isn't great, but it's good. 31.94 OR% isn't great either, but it's good for this team. You know FTR is going to suffer, so you have to say that's not horrible either, and FTR counts for only 15%.
If you could conclude anything from this, it's hardly earth-shattering. All the losses have been very close, and UK's offense isn't producing quite enough points to overcome the home court advantage in foul shooting that teams so often enjoy.
To me, the next logical question becomes, "What about the defense?" Indeed, what about that? Here it is, keeping in mind that lower is better for everything but turnovers:
Aha! Now, perhaps, we see the culprit. Defensive efficiency is markedly better at home than away, as are the rest of the statistics. Across the board, the defensive stats are worse but eFG% and FTR markedly so.
A lot of this is undoubtedly due to teams playing some of their very best games against Kentucky, but I would surmise it is equal parts due to poor defensive execution on the road. In particular, allowing 50+% eFG is not going to win many games, especially when the other team is going to get to the line more on average. Turnovers and offensive rebounds are not a huge disparity, so UK seems to be doing a fairly good job there. But teams are burning the nets against us on the road in the SEC, and UK is not responding with far superior offense.
As to the why, well, it's anyone's guess and speculation. Perhaps it's the youth. Perhaps the teams are just really playing Kentucky well this year. Perhaps it's fear of losing, or lack of confidence. Perhaps it's all of the above.
It seems to me, though, that UK will not win games on the road until they start defending better. That's what the stats appear to say, at least.
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Stats cant explain when a player just goes off and has a great game against us ...
Chris Warren and John Jenkins come to mind immedieately … in this league you have to be ready night in and night out …I think we are much more capable of a team than what we seem to show at times.
Absolutely right.
Those things just happen sometimes.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
I agree to a point
But not sure you can just keep saying that. I think you have to look at the defense and this team’s perimeter D has been spotty IMO. No question though players get jacked because they are playing against UK.
by maysvilleblue on Feb 19, 2011 9:33 AM EST up reply actions
I also agree, but only to a point
If your defensive effort is down, it is much more likely that one of those kids will turn a good game into a great game. If they are “feeling it” and there isn’t a hand in their face, then that bucket looks like a garbage pail and we get smoked.
3 Stats Are Most Important To Me
FG % – coaches will tell you, Ya Gotta Make Shots To W.
Def Rebs – you must grab MOST of their missed FGA or FTA.
Turnovers – you must force (many) more than you make.
by FortyYearCatFan on Feb 18, 2011 9:48 PM EST reply actions
Glenn ...
I, too, think you’re torturing your data unnecessarily.
My explanation is a little more straight forward or as my daughter says, “is there anyway we can make this less mathy.”
Cal normally has a defense that more or less packs it close attempting to deny the backdoor cuts and drives to the basket, relies on our length, quickness and athleticism to close out on shooters and then more or less invites teams to shoot it from outside. Our match-up arc is tighter this year as opposed to last due to a number of reasons: (1) we don’t have the fouls to give from getting up into the offensive player; (2) we don’t have a big backstop named Cousins this year; and (3) unfortunately, in my opinion, this year’s team is not nearly as long as last years – Knight is not nearly as long as Wall, Josh is not as long as DeMarcus, Patterson was longer than Jones, I don’t know about Bledsoe – but Harris and Stevenson were both very long coming off the bench, etcetera and so we have a more difficult time this season closing out on outside shooters and denying passing lanes. The difference is as simple as last year we more or less stood with our heels on the 3-point line and this year we stand with our toes on the line.
Add the obvious fatigue factor late in a game from a thin bench and you see opponents are taking what UK is giving them and shooting the deep ball. They are getting more open looks, catching the ball in rhythm with confidence. This can be seen particularly in the Alabama, Mississippi and Vandy games by looking at the fact each team actually shot better from 3 than 2: Alabama shot 50% from 3 but only 42.9 from 2; Mississippi shot 47.1% from 3 and only 41.3% from 2; and Vandy shot 55% from 3 while only shooting 41.2% from 2.
Where opponents have not been able to take advantage of this 3-point opportunity they have either lost or as in the Georgia and Florida games bludgeoned us with home cooking – FTM/A: Georgia 30/34 vs Kentucky 10/16 and Florida 18/22 vs Kentucky 11/13.
Anyway, this is how I see the 5 conference losses.
Torturing data?
Well, okay, I guess.
What you are describing is not Calipari’s defense, but Tubby Smith’s ball-line defense. Calipari’s defense does not sag in that far, and the recovery is not as great.
I don’t see any difference at all in where the defense plays this year compared to last, so I’d say I have to disagree with most of that, except the part about inviting teams to shoot from the outside. The goal of all defenses is to invite teams to shoot from the outside, because a defended outside shot is inherently a lower-percentage shot.
I would agree that last year’s team was longer, as evidenced by the fact that they had many more blocks. They were also bigger and stronger. But all that misses the point entirely. Smaller teams can guard just as well as bigger teams, often even better because of their quickness and athleticism.
The problem with this year’s team isn’t length, and it isn’t fatigue, and it isn’t where they play defense on the floor. The problem is that the young guys with the exception of Jones don’t defend very well. Knight is not a good defender and hasn’t been all year. Liggins is very good most of the time, but he still has trouble being physical enough on screens. Lamb is longer than any of them, but his lack of elite athleticism and quickness make him vulnerable to quicker players.
What these numbers point out is that teams are lighting Kentucky up on the road, but not at home. Not one team has managed to defeat Kentucky at home this year, and the difference, statistically, has been how well Kentucky has defended. Last year’s SEC teams were markedly inferior to this year’s teams, and that shows up first when those improved teams play at home.
Where you are correct is that the greater length and athleticism of last year allowed the team to cover up for more mistakes in rotation, not play a different style of defense. It is easier for a long player, particularly inside the arc, to recover from a mistake than it is for a shorter guy. But the real problem with defense this year has been due to poor communication. These guys still do not talk well and what you wind up with, all too often, are two players guarding one man and leaving one man open. Calipari doesn’t trap that often, so most of the time, this is just an error that this year’s team cannot recover from.
The reason teams are shooting better from three against us this year is primarily due to the fact that they have better, older players on the perimeter. Against Alabama, Calipari himself said that they were inviting them to shoot threes, because he expected them to miss. Against Vanderbilt, Jenkins went off, but the main problem was that as good a defender as Liggins is, he is still not physical enough on screens, and when Liggins got picked off hard, nobody helped. Against a shooter like that, you have to focus on him and let the other guys take a shot at beating you. That’s just hard to impress on teams, because it forces them to go against what they instinctively know.
In the end, though, our losses have mostly been about our inability to stop the opponent, whether it be because they are hot, or because our defense is poor, or a combination of both. That’s what the stats say, and that’s what my eyes tell me.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
Last Year Vs This Year
(2010) F Patterson and Miller C Cousins and Orton G Wall and Bledsoe plus Liggins.
Harris and Stevenson next off the bench.
(2011) F Jones and Miller C Harrellson and Vargas G Knight and Liggins plus Lamb.
Hood and Polson next off the bench.
Pretty obvious why (2010) 35-3 versus (2011) 18-7 so far.
by FortyYearCatFan on Feb 19, 2011 8:25 AM EST up reply actions
There has to be something else
other than inherent physical shortcomings on defense. Defense should suffer less when playing in new venues than offense. If they are consistently playing better defense at home “that don’t make no sense.”
I woke up feeling BLUE this morning. It's gonna be a great day.
I agree with Forty
Cal has fewer options off the bench this season. Makes a huge difference.
by maysvilleblue on Feb 19, 2011 9:37 AM EST up reply actions
That's a good point.
Physically, they are the same both at home and away, but their away defense is significantly worse. As I said, there is no way to account for the hot shooter, that just happens and sometimes there is just nothing you can do.
Remember Meeks and his 54 points? Tennessee knew they had to stop him, but nothing they tried worked. I’m not sure Rajon Rondo could have slowed him down. Likewise with Jenkins versus Kentucky in Nashville.
But at Georgia and at Ole Miss, Kentucky could have been much better defensively. Likewise at Alabama, although that turned out to be a good plan that did not survive contact with the opponent — Calipari intended to concede 3-point looks since Alabama was a sub-30% 3-point shooting team at the time, and Alabama threw them in. Since then, Alabama has largely returned to form from three.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
by Glenn Logan on Feb 19, 2011 10:38 AM EST up reply actions
Interesting, though not surprising (as you say)
There’s a chicken and egg element to the defensive efficiency, we would tend to expect it to be worse in losses than in wins. Likewise the shooting, though I wonder how much of that is due to opponents playing on their home floor.
One thing that might reveal the “getting up for UK” factor would be to look at how the teams UK has lost to play at home overall in SEC play and compare it to how they played against UK. That’s certainly more work than you intended to do here, but if teams are in fact playing with a little bit extra motivation against the Cats then we should expect them to have better offensive and/or defensive results in some categories.
3 > 2, except for very large values of 2.
I think you can look at that getting up factor
in how the team plays the next game after ours. Vandy couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn in the first half against Georgia but recovered and played much better in the second half.
I woke up feeling BLUE this morning. It's gonna be a great day.
Th thing I look for ...
… is not so much the fact that DE is worse in losses, but how much worse it is.
The DE in our losses has been an average of 110 points/100 possessions, and in wins, about 88.
The OE for UK in wins has only been 111 versus 104 in losses. So what I’m seeing is more or less consistent OE within a fairly narrow band, but a big difference in DE – over 20 points/100 possessions.
Of course you’re right about how DE necessarily is worse in losses, it’s the magnitude of the “worse-ness” that troubles me, especially compared to wins, in the same league versus the same teams everyone else is playing. The league average for all games is only 101. If UK averaged 101 DE in their losses combined, I daresay we would have fewer, probably only 1 or 2.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
It seems to me
that defense to some degree is not only a measurement of what you do to stop another team’s offense as it is also impacted by the efficiency of that offense as well. Since shooters often do better at home this also must be considered. Case in point, you are all over a player yet he hits more shots than he averages. To absolutely smother a shooter usually results in more free throws.
I woke up feeling BLUE this morning. It's gonna be a great day.
There is no doubt ...
… that most teams shoot better at home. Kentucky shoots well away and at home, but somewhat better at home.
So in order to win, Kentucky must defend better, instead of counting on the home court to do it for them.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
by Glenn Logan on Feb 19, 2011 10:32 AM EST up reply actions
good point, JL
I also wonder if our kids play better, and with more energy, at home because they don’t want to disappoint those Rupp crazies. But, as I have said all season…………in our losses, if memory serves, we didn’t shoot the 3 well, didn’t defend it well. We could survive with EITHER of those situations, but not both. Give us ONE MORE 3, two in the case of UGA, and we have probably very different outcomes. Conversely, take away one more 3, 2 in the case of UGA, and results are probably different. Let’s say that half of the time it turns out in our favor. We’re 21-4 & in the thick of things. For whatever reason, teams seem to shoot the 3 better against us. My guess, based on my observations watching the games, is that we don’t put forth the necessary effort on the road. That is, we get to the 3 shooter later.
Three major factors that turn to road losses for this team
1) As others have pointed out most teams we play on the road get stratospherically high when they play us, from the players, coaches and their fan base. This is a huge factor.
2) On the road I believe our guys are extremely worried about picking up that next foul and just psychologically don’t spend their best effort. I think this isn’t due to being worried they’ll be sat as much as it can really hurt the team their not being on the floor and takes away from their offensive intensity likewise. At home everyone knows its different and home cooking helps the foul calling.
3) Confidence by our older players is much higher at home were they are loved. They arn’t as scared to make a mistake at home – they just play much more relaxed and it shows in their results. Maybe JL can extract this data from his stats and see how true it is. Our freshmen don’t seem to let the road effect them as much except maybe attemptimg crucial FT’s at the end of the game.
A man is nothing more than a summation of his scars!
The margin for error seems very much smaller for this team..
From my perspective, there have been two or three critical (late) possessions in each conference road loss that made the difference between a W and a L. IMO experience, level of talent, and depth may have been the difference. Different but connected issues seem to have been the deciding factor during each loss this year..an ill advised pass or careless turnover(s), letting someone get an uncontested offensive rebound (extra possession), leaving a hot shooter open for a fraction of a second longer, fatigue fouls, all of these factors add up to disappointment on the road. If any of the top six don’t bring their “A-Game” we are likely to suffer a loss on the road to anybody. Last year, one or two of our starters could have an off night and the relatively stronger bench could make up for the loss of productivity on both ends of the court..that luxury is not available for this year’s version of the Cats. So I guess what I’m saying is that bench depth is a possible culprit leading to all the issues (factors) that Glenn so eloquently spoke to. Dodson and Kanter possibly would have made the difference between 7 losses and 2 or less. Who knows? Maybe a comparison between bench minutes and productivity between the last two teams might reveal where this year’s issues really lie. Don’t get me wrong, I love this team as much as I loved last year’s, I just have lower expectations.
And this team deserves
for us to lower our expectations a little due to the youth and short bench. Our chance for a good finish to the season relies on the “it” factor. They have to get “it”, want “it” and take “it” from here on out.
I woke up feeling BLUE this morning. It's gonna be a great day.
The "It Factor" - sounds like something from a Kim Kardashian ad:-)
A man is nothing more than a summation of his scars!
WOW
That’s one name I never thought I’d see on here. Now for the most part I enjoy watching any ballgame especially the Cats. If I worried about all the “stat stuff” I couldn’t enjoy the game. The only one that counts in the end is who has the most points. How they got there is the game.
Home Court Advantage
According to NCAA statistics for teams playing each other twice (home and home) the home court advantage is 7.9 points. Using that criteria UK has actually performed better than expected away from Rupp, and that supports my contention that all things considered Cats have over achieved in keeping road games closely competitive.
"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776
by Wild Weasel on Feb 19, 2011 1:51 PM EST via mobile reply actions
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