Thursday Headlines: Elite Basketball Lineup Edition

Kentucky has found its lineup moving forward the rest of the season

By Zac Oakes@ZacOakes Jan 19, 2023, 6:40am EST

It looks like Kentucky Basketball has found its lineup moving forward.

It seems like all season the Kentucky coaching staff has struggled to put together lineups that were efficient on both sides of the ball.

But data suggests that Kentucky has found its best lineup, and it has paid dividends the last two games.

The lineup of Cason Wallace/Antonio Reeves/CJ Frederick/Jacob Toppin/Oscar Tshiebwe has shown to be the most efficient lineup in the nation, according to one data analyst.

Evan Miyakawa, who specializes in college basketball analytics, said that Kentucky lineup has the highest adjusted team efficiency of any lineup in college basketball that has played at least 60 possessions.

The lineup that has changed Kentucky's season now has the highest Adjusted Team Efficiency Margin in the entire country for all D1 lineups (60+ possessions at https://t.co/cegyfz96ax).

In fact, Wallace/Reeves/Fredrick/Toppin/Oscar has the highest mark of any lineup since 2019-20 pic.twitter.com/VVBrPMmz43
— Evan Miyakawa (@EvanMiya) January 18, 2023

It’s still a relatively small sample size and the numbers are likely to regress some, as we’ve really only seen Kentucky use that lineup for extended amounts of time in the last two games, but the results are promising. That lineup played a key role in Kentucky’s win at Tennessee as well as Kentucky’s win over Georgia.

Needless to say, we need to see those 5 together on the floor more often. Will Calipari do it? We’ll see.