I got to thinking the other day that I had mentioned "good starts" in a couple of my comments in game treads, and got to wondering if my perception that good starts are important was supported by reality. In other words, how did Kentucky do when it won the first five minutes of a basketball game?
So I pulled out my handy-dandy spreadsheet program and crunched some numbers.
What I have done here is take the first approximately five minutes -- I took the first number under the 15:00 mark in the first half unless it was under 14 minutes, and then I went back and took the last call between 16 and 15 minutes. Here are the results:
| Game | UK | Opp | UK Final | Opp Final | Early margin | Final Margin |
| VMI | 12 | 24 | 103 | 111 | -12 | -8 |
| UNC | 2 | 15 | 58 | 77 | -13 | -19 |
| Del State | 10 | 5 | 71 | 42 | 5 | 29 |
| Longwood | 18 | 5 | 91 | 57 | 13 | 34 |
| K-State | 7 | 14 | 74 | 72 | -7 | 2 |
| West Va. | 6 | 13 | 54 | 43 | -7 | 11 |
| Lamar | 17 | 7 | 103 | 61 | 10 | 42 |
| Miami | 7 | 16 | 67 | 73 | -9 | -6 |
| MVSU | 13 | 7 | 88 | 65 | 6 | 23 |
| Indiana | 12 | 0 | 74 | 54 | 12 | 20 |
| AppState | 12 | 2 | 93 | 69 | 10 | 24 |
| Tenn. St. | 31 | 0 | 102 | 58 | 31 | 44 |
| FAU | 12 | 11 | 76 | 69 | 1 | 7 |
| CMU | 2 | 7 | 84 | 52 | -5 | 32 |
| Louisville | 6 | 13 | 71 | 74 | -7 | -3 |
| Vanderbilt | 8 | 11 | 70 | 60 | -3 | 10 |
| Tennessee | 8 | 8 | 90 | 72 | 0 | 18 |
| Georgia | 9 | 2 | 68 | 45 | 7 | 23 |
Surprised? I didn't think so. Kentucky has won 100% of the games in which they were ahead after about the first five minutes. Conversely, the 'Cats have won only 50% of the games in which they were behind after the first five minutes of play. Kentucky was tied once, with Tennessee, and we won that one.
But where it gets really dicey is how far Kentucky gets behind. When UK is down by 7 or more after five minutes, as they have been six times, they lose 67% of the time. When they are down by more than seven, they lose 100% of the time.
Good starts are very important for this team. Compare them with the 1998 National Champions, who were notorious for very slow starts, but had a real knack for coming back and winning. By way of contrast, the Suffocats were famous for getting out to huge leads over opponents and crushing them utterly thereafter.
This UK team seems to needs to be near even at the 15:00 mark in order to have the best chance to win. So the perception by many of us that slow starts really hurt this team is borne out by the numbers.