Hampton Pirates at Kentucky Wildcats: NCAA Tournament 2nd Round Postmortem

The Kentucky Wildcats defeated the Hampton Pirates convincingly early this morning in the KFC YUM! Center, as befits a 1-16 game in the NCAA Tournament. But some convincing wins raise as many questions as they provide answers, and this was one of those. While the Wildcats easily out-everythinged the Pirates, their play lacked intensity or inspiration, two things that are usually found in abundance in John Calipari teams at this time of year.

Hampton did all they could, but they only recently managed to get to .500 on the season, and there is a reason for that. The Pirates struggle to score from everywhere, are very small, and had their top scorer out with injury and another starter hobbled. Still, they played with the heart and passion that befits a mid-major on a six-game winning streak, and they gave a good account of themselves, especially early and late. Congratulations to them on ending their season the right way before running into the #1 overall seed.

Kentucky was never in danger of losing this game, and they seemed to know that. Unfortunately, it led them down the dark path of indifference, and that’s something fans never like to see because they have seen it result in upsets, especially this time of year. It seems pretty clear from post-game conversation, though, that the players know they did not play the right way, and definitely John Calipari knows it. 50% of fixing a problem is recognizing it exists (or more correctly, could exist). I expect the indifferent attitudes in this game to be nipped in the bud and properly recalibrated by the time the Wildcats lace them up against the Cincinnati Bearcats tomorrow.

Kentucky box

Courtesy of Kenpom.com

Hampton box

Courtesy of Kenpom.com

Four Factors

Team observations

• Consider this: Kentucky’s offensive efficiency against the Arkansas Razorbacks (NCAA Tournament 5 seed 27-8) - 1.28 points/possession. Versus the Hampton Pirates (NCAA Tournament #16 seed 17-18) - 1.05 points/possession. And Hampton’s tallest player was 6‘9" reserve Charlie Wilson-Fisher. Looks like a problem to me.

• You can’t complain about Kentucky’s defensive efficiency, although the Pirates got off way too many clean looks for my taste. Still, the numbers speak for themselves — 0.75 points/possession. It doesn’t get much better than that.

  Expanding on this slightly, the DE number is actually deceptively high. The Pirates got to the line a ton, and made a very high percentage. If UK had managed to send them to the line 15 or 16 times instead of 23, that DE number would have been well below .70. Hampton got a significant amount of their offensive efficiency from the free throw line.

• UK shot 49% on 2-point shots, but it didn’t feel like it. Way too may layups were missed.

• 30% from three-point range is okay, I guess, on only 10 shots. I get that Kentucky was trying to take most of their shots inside the paint against a much smaller team, so I won’t complain about the dearth of 3-point shooting.

• Very happy with the free throw percentage. 70%+ is hard to complain about, especially given there are other things that more pressingly deserve criticism.

• 34% offensive rebounding rate is fine. It’s a little worse than I would’ve hoped, but when you have a near 20% margin on the competition, it makes no sense to pick nits.

• 86% offensive rebounding is outstanding. Yes, Hampton was small, but that’s still a really good number. Very happy with that effort.

• 54% assists? What can you say other than, "Great job!"

• Turnovers were not as bad as I thought at 17.3%. That’s good enough. The problem I have is that so many, at least 3 or 4, were just unforced giveaways directly attributable to a lack of focus and intensity. Plus, Hampton is a good steals team, so we have to give them some credit, they had 9 steals (12%).

• You would think the Wildcats would manage more than 5 blocks against a team this small. Am I being unreasonable here?

• Kentucky threw up a lot of risible shots, particularly late. Why?

• Individually, some Wildcats played very well. As a team, they definitely didn’t bring their "A" game, even if they didn’t need it.

Individual observations

• Karl-Anthony Towns was excellent. He played hard, he played pretty smart, he made a high percentage and rebounded the basketball with two hands. He also blocked three shots. Game ball.

• Willie Cauley-Stein had a nightmare game. He simply couldn’t finish at the rim — he played hard, he made some good plays and great moves, but just could not get the ball into the basket from point-blank range. I feel for him. Interestingly, he is one of the ones that I thought played at his normal effort level.

• Aaron Harrison also struggled. He didn’t make shots, he missed more than one free throw, he just didn’t score when he was guarded at all. What he did do was rebound — 7 caroms is a lot for him.

• Andrew Harrison had an excellent game, although I thought he left some on the floor. He shot the ball great, rebounded great, and had 3 assists to zero turnovers.

• Tyler Ulis played very well, except he had an uncharacteristic four turnovers, and all but one of them were very ugly and just downright poor basketball plays. You don’t see him do that very often, so I don’t worry much about it. Nobody is steadier than Tyler, and nobody plays with more intensity game-to-game than he does.

• Trey Lyles played pretty well. His jumper was off, but he rebounded and did a good job out there. He probably should’ve had a huge game against this team, but he played well enough.

• Poor Dakari Johnson is just mired in a sophomore slump. He shot the ball okay technically, but for a 7’ guy to go only 3-6 against a team as small as the Pirates has got to be frustrating for him. In 12 minutes, he only managed 2 rebounds, and got lost on defense four or five times.

• Devin Booker has been very up and down lately, and last night he was mostly down. His only made basket was a layup, and he got beat off the dribble so many times I lost count.

• I thought Marcus Lee played pretty well. He got lost on defense a few times, but he shot the ball well and got some rebounds. He actually saw quite a few minutes for him, but he is desperately in need of a face-up game.

• Derek Willis, Dominique Hawkins, Sam Malone, Tod Lanter, Brian Long and EJ Floreal all played but did not meaningfully impact the box score.

Tying it all up

This wasn’t the performance we expected, but it was as close to a fait accompli as is ever possible in a single-elimination tournament. I am willing to cop to excuses like the lateness of the start and the perversity of playing in your most detested rival's sweetheart-deal arena as excuses for the performance, and from an individual standpoint, it wasn’t all that horrible for a number of the guys. I must say the lack of intensity was obvious from the outset, and I hate that, but it is a fact of college basketball. As Calipari is fond of saying, these young men are not machines, they are just like the rest of us. Sometimes, you just aren’t at your best when everyone thinks you should be. That’s human nature, and we must both acknowledge and accept that.

The next opponent for Kentucky, the Cincinnati Bearcats, is a whole different kettle of fish. They are going to challenge Kentucky’s manhood, and they play with a chip on their shoulder. It is fortunate for Kentucky that the Bearcats struggle to score, because if they bring last night’s offensive effort into the KFC YUM! Center on Saturday, it’s going to be a barn-burner.