Defense Score Sheet: Kentucky vs Maryland

Given how the game progressed you might think that Kentucky's defense let them down in the 2nd half. In fact, in overall terms the 2nd half defense was exactly as effective as the 1st half defense was - the Cats held the Terps to a point per possession in each half.

Really, the only bad number here is the work on the defensive glass which should not come as a shock to anyone who watched this game. Maryland gets a ton of credit for being so good on the boards - it was pretty much the only thing they had going for them offensively because Kentucky shut them down everywhere else. The turnover number is not good in a general sense, but Cal's teams do not force turnovers by design and this number is right in line with what his last several teams have done in this area.

Kentucky	Four Factors
Name	Opp eFG%	Opp TO%	FTRate	DRb%
Alex Poythress	30.8	0.0	92.3	9.8
Kyle Wiltjer	41.7	11.9	33.3	15.7
Nerlens Noel	39.1	19.7	34.8	20.3
Archie Goodwin	50.0	16.5	40.0	4.1
Ryan Harrow	0.0	0.0	250.0	0.0
Jarrod Polson	25.0	41.0	0.0	0.0
Willie Cauley-Stein	35.0	0.0	10.0	10.8
Julius Mays	33.3	71.6	0.0	2.5
Undefended	35.3	0.0	0.0	5.7

• As should be expected, most everyone has good shooting defense numbers. Goodwin and Wiltjer had the toughest time of things with Noel following up. Kyle and Nerlens at least have the excuse of playing inside where it's easier to make baskets. Goodwin was defending Dez Wells a lot and although Wells didn't have a great offensive game, he is amongst the best perimeter players in the country.
• Mays and Polson made most of their defensive contributions from the turnover area although in Polson's case that's a bit misleading since he only forced the 1 steal. But boy-howdy what a steal it was!
• No one has a good Defensive Rebound % number. If you are shocked by this then you need to go watch the game again.

• Julius Mays comes away with the best Defensive Rating of the game, thanks mostly to his work forcing turnovers. He did a pretty good job defending shots as well.
• I'm a little surprised at how high Noel's rating is as he and Willie Cauley-Stein both had a really hard time with Alex Len. But Noel did enough good work against the other Maryland players to balance that out.
• Jarrod Polson comes away with a solid defensive performance although Maryland really did not go after him at all. I'm not sure why that is, but Polson defending Nick Faust and Seth Allen a lot so it's not like he was guarding the 5th option the whole time.
• Willie Cauley-Stein got the worst of it defending Len. Thanks to Noel's foul trouble it was Willie who had to spend most of the time guarding what looks like will be on the of the best big men in the ACC this year.