West Virginia At Kentucky Wildcats: Postmortem Of A Tour-de-Force

The game last night between the Kentucky Wildcats and the West Virginia Mountaineers was a beautifully gruesome thing to behold. Rarely do you see a Division I college basketball program throttled like that, and yet this Kentucky team has provided similarly grim spectacle with a number of teams this season, including Kansas and UCLA.

This was one of those things Kentucky promised all season, but usually didn’t deliver — a stellar defensive effort combined with an offensive tour-de-force. For Kentucky fans, it was wonderful to watch. For fans of other teams still in the tournament, it had to be a major downer. Well, Kentucky is #1 in the land for a reason. Last night, we got a better than usual look at that reason.

Kentucky box

Courtesy of Kenpom.com

West Virginia box

Courtesy of Kenpom.com

Four Factors

Team observations

• The most impressive statistic, really, is the defense — a defensive efficiency of 0.61 against a quality team like WVU is ridiculous. Yes, West Virginia had a bad night shooting the ball and they missed some shots, but almost none of them were unchallenged. You have to give the defense a lot of credit for forcing misses.

• It was Kentucky who forced West Virginia into turnovers, not the other way around. UK wound up with a 15.6% turnover rate, a totally acceptable number. WVU was over 20% turnovers.

• Kentucky’s offensive efficiency was excellent at 1.22 points/possession, their best of the tournament by far to this point.

• On a negative point, Kentucky shot just 27% from three. That’s not good enough, I don’t care what the final score was. But UK did a good job of limiting their 3-point looks to a very good number — 15 attempts.

• 82% from the line is splendid. Not much to say about that except… awesome.

• 54% assists. Very good, down a bit from recent efforts.

• Seven blocks is fine, but it seems small considering WVU was such an undersized team.

• 11% steals is right where it should be. Calipari’s decision to press was a brilliant move. It put WVU on their heels early, and made Kentucky the aggressor. That flipped the script on the Mountaineers, and they never recovered from it.

• Have you noticed that team communication is no longer a problem? That’s a sign of tournament mode, ladies and gentlemen. These guys are becoming one team, even more so than they were earlier.

• The officiating deserves mention because the game was called closer than any contest I have seen this year. The officials were very consistent, and a foul on one end was a foul on the other. But it made for a very choppy game. If they would call games this close for a whole year, college basketball would immediately get better. But doing it for one or two games in the tournament is confusing for everybody, fans included.

Individual observations

• I can’t pick a game ball winner here. Three players have a powerful case, and splitting it three ways just doesn’t make sense. So we’ll give them all an honorable mention and award the game ball to the whole team, including Coach Cal:

  • Trey Lyles was unguardable for the ‘Eers because of his size and mobility. He also made his free throws and even defended well, something he’s been so-so at this season.

  • Willie Cauley-Stein was his usual disruptive self. He missed a couple of free throws, but shot a fine percentage, collected 10 rebounds and 3 blocks, even a steal and 2 assists. What a line!

  • Dakari Johnson was almost perfect from the field and was perfect from the line, and got six big boards and a couple of blocks. His best game this year.

  • Coach Cal deserves an honorable mention for his clever decision to press, which was unexpectedly effective and completely caught the Moutaineers off guard. It allowed Kentucky to be the more aggressive team. Honestly, that decision may have been a huge factor in the way the game turned out.

• Aaron Harrison was really good. He shot the ball well, rebounded a little and had a couple of assists. He’s rounding into tournament form, and it will be interesting to see if the dislocated finger is enough to distract him. Let’s hope not.

• Andrew did some good things, like get to the rim and shoot free throws. He put a lot of pressure on WVU’s defense, and that’s exactly what he’s supposed to do. He didn’t shoot it as well last night, but he rebounded, assisted, and had four steals, which is awesome.

• Karl-Anthony Towns was in foul trouble almost from the tip, and he had a very ppor game. Toward the end, he played better, but this was a forgettable game for him.

• Devin Booker played fine. He made some threes, he made some twos, basically doing what a scoring guard should do. What he did not do well was defend. He got beat repeatedly off the dribble.

• Tyler Ulis played okay, but he really struggled shooting the ball. He also fouled a lot, which we have never seen before. He had 4 assists and zero turnovers, and handled the press like somebody who sees it every day.

• I thought Marcus Lee played fantastic. He shot well, got five rebounds, and only had one turnover. He did a very good job defensively, and perhaps he is rounding into tournament form as well.

• Dominique Hawkins, Sam Malone, Brian Long, E.J. Floreal, and Derek Willis all played at the end of the game. They made no notable contributions.

Tying it all up

This was one of Kentucky’s two or three best efforts this season, taken in toto. I don’t credit much of that to the infamous smack talk by Daxter Miles Jr., I credit it to excellent preparation, marvelous coaching and great players making plays. What we saw last night was winning basketball in every sense of the term.

As we prepare for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish tomorrow, let us keep in mind that one good game does not win the NCAA Tournament unless it is the last one, and last night’s definitely wasn’t that. The Wildcats are up against a team with many fewer flaws than West Virginia tomorrow, and they need to be ready if they want to continue their undefeated run.

One final thing before I go. You can never watch this too many times.