Rewatching the UK game
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39:31 - Harris makes a nice pass to Dave who gets fouled on the oop. KJ/Udeh/Zuby finish this next season guys, so that’s encouraging.
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41:02 - I’m not exactly sure who is in the wrong here. Wilson throws a pass to the corner where CB is cutting. Nobody home. Part of me think CB SHOULD have been in the corner. Part of me thinks Wilson should look where he’s throwing the ball. So I’ll just say 50-50. These types of TOs happen though, so I’m not that mad about this one? Jalen made the correct read (CB was going to be wide open). CB made a nice cut actually. Just so happened that those two thoughts didn’t mesh. Just hurts more when you’re down 17.
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Note here for myself - UK has only scored about 6 points from sheer athleticism so far that I can recall. Wheeler has made 2 shots he almost never makes. Oscar has made two shots he never makes.
Remy is responsible for giving up 5 points by himself - one the trail 3 and the other getting lost on a screen.
Harris has yet to make a “blunder” on D. Ultimately, feels more like we’ve been crushed in secondary offense off of transition or in transition more than anything. Rebounding has been an issue. We’ve easily left 10 points on the board from shots we usually make. And probably another 5 from poor decisions.
All of this to say that with 2:50 on the clock, it shouldn’t be at 17 point gap.
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41:30 - Grady hits the 3 to go up 20. Cal was smart here. Knowing that the Triangle guys aren’t really helping on the perimeter, he screens Harris to free Grady. It was a really good off balance shot, and nobody on our team is doing a better job guarding it than Harris. Just a good play call for a good player.
I do want to say that I don’t think we should have switched to T2 (maybe not even 2-3 but we aren’t there yet) based on what I’ve seen so far. I don’t think we were necessarily defending THAT poorly. I think I’d haver rather seen them deny the pass to Wheeler on makes and press than this.
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44:20 - Harris bricks a wide open 3. Remy probably makes that.
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45:00 - Ochai misses an open 3. Harris and Och make those and this game is 11 or 13 at half.
45:30 - Dave has an absolute brain melting moment. Wheeler has the ball at the top of the key (he’s open, but like that’s sort of the goal). SPRINTS from the block up to “help” and literally leaves Brooks wide open for the world’s easiest alley oop. I’ll give him the benefit that we don’t practice this much, but this was dumb.
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45:50 - Juan ends up shooting a contested floater instead of hitting JCL open at the top of the key. Half time.
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49:03 - Harris uses the screen, but doesn’t take the ball down hill. Allows Oscar to guard 2 guys at once. If he had gone down hill he either forces help from TyTy to get Wilson open, or forces Oscar to commit which gets Dave open on the roll. He stops at the FT line, and we end up not getting a shot off on a CB travel.
Remy does something with the ball here.
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So noticing this now - but really feels like Remy must be doing his own thing on D. You don’t know how badly I don’t want this to be true, but I have noticed Harris still going over screens when Wheeler has used them where Remy has been going under. It seems pretty clear that Remy going under had caused issues (it just didn’t look “right”) in the first half. I’m going to keep watching for it, but my guess is this was an issue.
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49:50 - Och doesn’t get downhill enough here. While 99% of the time this lob is probably a bucket, Oscar is the 1%. Tips the ball. Only able to because Och didn’t force him to truly help.
This has been a theme thus far. Our guys are not forcing help and looking to pass too early. Probably the 5th time this game.
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51:00 - FINALLY. Someone sees the help from the top of the key. CB passes it to a wide open Jalen for an easy 3.
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52:28 - Och does it AGAIN. Doesn’t actually force help and tries to throw a lob. Tipped. Turnover. Runout. And 1 on the other end.
This is really just aggression where we are lacking. We are coming off screens with our guy beat, running downhill, and NOT looking to score. Looking to throw a lob to the big instead of just going up strong. Almost funny to see UK go over screens with basically no hedge from the big and we don’t take advantage of it.
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53:45 - And JUST like I have been talking about CB actually turns the corner and realizes the big can’t get to him with this half hedge/help. Makes a nice layup. We could have been doing that all game long…
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54:00 - You can count this as a UK athlete point. 8 points so far for them from just being better athletes than us. Wheeler blows by on the layup, but misses. Ochai doesn’t really block out. KJ gets out jumped for the ball by Brooks.
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54:00 - Ochai, after just airballing a 3, inexplicably jumps at half court (seriously), doesn’t slow down the ball. Leads to a decent look from Brooks, who actually misses. But gets the ball back and gets fouled.
Och, brotha, what happened to you and Pat this weekend?
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56:10 - Harris misses an EASY floater. Remy makes that play.
Long miss, and no PG back leads to a runout and a foul.
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58:54 - Sigh. CB has the corner turned again. But instead of a layup we again try to throw it to the big where it is tipped an turned over.
Dumb.
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60:00 - Harris left wide open at the top of the key. Ends in a lob to KJ. Have to think any good PG makes this play or shoots. I think Remy shoots it, but Harris made a play. Love to see it.
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61:56 - Harris takes it to Wheeler. Would love to see more of this from him.
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63:00 - Harris makes a nice little dribble through traffic to get Jalen a nice angle to drive. Only instead of throwing a lob or bounce, he throws a chest high interior pass (these are dumb) that gets tipped. A jump stop also would have done wonder. But, we get the ball back. Harris notices a mismatch on D, and resets the offense quickly. Oscar is on CB, and Harris gets him the ball for a wide open 3. That he bricks.
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65:12 - Oscar tips a ball out. +2 athleticism points for UK.
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68:00 - Harris finds a cutting Wilson for what should have been 2 points. But he sort of fumbles it trying to go up too fast. Misses.
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I think my time markers are a little off - sorry if you’ve gone this far. You can still probably follow the game flow though.
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This T2 didn’t work at all the first half. The 2-3 got us down to 14. So glad to see Bill change from something that was working to something that wasn’t.
And again, I will say our M2M was not what killed us in the 1st half. At least, not imo.
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Also so far - Mitch has missed 3 layups. Dave has missed 2.
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6:32 Game clock - Remy acts like he got hit by a truck on screen. Ends up giving Grady a wide open 3 with absolutely no contest. Harris on the exact same play earlier did a MUCH better job contesting the shot.
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6:14 Harris turns it over inbounding the ball.
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T2 ends up having two triangle guys chase a shooter on a 3. Leaves CB to try and rebound against Oscar and Toppin. So you know how that went.
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Alright it’s over.
Here is my unprofessional analysis.
It wasn’t as bad as the score showed. Here are the few things I noticed that if we played again tomorrow I think you see. I’ll save the Harris/Remy stuff for the end.
Ochai specifically made a ton of terrible reads on drives, while simultaneously missing the layups he has made all season. He EASILY cost us 10 points tonight. Idk where his head was at, but it wasn’t here. He just wasn’t the guy we’ve seen all night. He’s allowed an off-night, but just not games like this.
Braun really played meh. He took a few AWFUL shots (3 I can think of). He really didn’t do a lot for us other than rebound like a man. He has really chickened out in the lane since conference play (not unexpected). We need to see the aggressive shot finishing CB we saw early in the year. He also bricked 2 wide open 3s that we need to have him make at least 1 of. Overall, I’d say this is what we will get from CB in the tourney. So he cost us 0 points. But didn’t earn us any.
Wilson played as well as I would expect. Cost us 0 points. Didn’t gain us points.
Dave easily cost us 8-10 points. He misshandled several passes. He was in bad positions several times. He couldn’t keep up with Oscar.
Mitch cost us 6 points. Missed layups.
KJ - +6 points. Better defensively than Mitch or Dave. Could run the floor with Oscar. Finished a layup that Mitch and Dave would have missed. EASILY the best big and our best chance to win.
JCL - 0 points.
Bobby - 0 points.
Harris/Remy - So, I think Harris cost us about 5 points tonight not scoring the ball where I think Remy would have. I think Remy cost us about 8 on D where Harris wouldn’t have. Overall, I think the sagging off of Harris was probably overblown, and part of our imagination. UK actually helped off of ANYONE at the top of the key to stop the drive. It wasn’t just Harris like was assumed. However, Harris still cost us points just from missing open shots that a D1 basketball player is expected to make. It’s an issue. But the thought or narrative that he was just left unguarded I can say is absolutely false. I was part of that narrative, so I can confidently say I am not trying to fit a narrative here. Remy, well he sucks defensively, and he does noticeably interrupt the offense by not being in the exact right spot (at least twice in this game). However, he did more with his opportunities to touch the ball than Harris does. The D does respect him more. Ultimately, today I did see why Self favors Harris over Remy when basically isolating those two on tape.
Overall, I think Self went zone too quick. Especially that T2 which gave up a shit ton of points. I think that Ochai being so off obviously changes that game. He had looks, just didn’t make them. Offensively, we actually just killed ourselves from not being aggressive enough. We just needed to go in strong on layups and I think UK would have had to adjust defensively. I can confidently say that Harris was not the reason the offense struggled. I still can’t figure out what I feel with Remy. Offensively it is clear he brings something to the table. Defensively he’s a liability and I don’t see that changing. I think maybe Self has the guard rotation right? I’d like to maybe see what Joe could do with extended minutes, but at this point that isn’t happening.
The real conclusion, which I think most people see, is that KJ needs to be playing as many minutes as he can. Dave sucks. Mitch sucks. KJ does not suck. KJ isn’t good, but he isn’t a negative when he is on the court. I really don’t think this game scares me as much as I thought. And I actually think this blowout would be the outlier if these teams played 10 times. I’m glad I rewatched this, because I would have been stewing for another two days.
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@Kcmatt7 said in Rewatching the UK game:
Alright it’s over.
Here is my unprofessional analysis.
It wasn’t as bad as the score showed. Here are the few things I noticed that if we played again tomorrow I think you see. I’ll save the Harris/Remy stuff for the end.
Ochai specifically made a ton of terrible reads on drives, while simultaneously missing the layups he has made all season. He EASILY cost us 10 points tonight. Idk where his head was at, but it wasn’t here. He just wasn’t the guy we’ve seen all night. He’s allowed an off-night, but just not games like this.
Braun really played meh. He took a few AWFUL shots (3 I can think of). He really didn’t do a lot for us other than rebound like a man. He has really chickened out in the lane since conference play (not unexpected). We need to see the aggressive shot finishing CB we saw early in the year. He also bricked 2 wide open 3s that we need to have him make at least 1 of. Overall, I’d say this is what we will get from CB in the tourney. So he cost us 0 points. But didn’t earn us any.
Wilson played as well as I would expect. Cost us 0 points. Didn’t gain us points.
Dave easily cost us 8-10 points. He misshandled several passes. He was in bad positions several times. He couldn’t keep up with Oscar.
Mitch cost us 6 points. Missed layups.
KJ - +6 points. Better defensively than Mitch or Dave. Could run the floor with Oscar. Finished a layup that Mitch and Dave would have missed. EASILY the best big and our best chance to win.
JCL - 0 points.
Bobby - 0 points.
Harris/Remy - So, I think Harris cost us about 5 points tonight not scoring the ball where I think Remy would have. I think Remy cost us about 8 on D where Harris wouldn’t have. Overall, I think the sagging off of Harris was probably overblown, and part of our imagination. UK actually helped off of ANYONE at the top of the key to stop the drive. It wasn’t just Harris like was assumed. However, Harris still cost us points just from missing open shots that a D1 basketball player is expected to make. It’s an issue. But the thought or narrative that he was just left unguarded I can say is absolutely false. I was part of that narrative, so I can confidently say I am not trying to fit a narrative here. Remy, well he sucks defensively, and he does noticeably interrupt the offense by not being in the exact right spot (at least twice in this game). However, he did more with his opportunities to touch the ball than Harris does. The D does respect him more. Ultimately, today I did see why Self favors Harris over Remy when basically isolating those two on tape.
Overall, I think Self went zone too quick. Especially that T2 which gave up a shit ton of points. I think that Ochai being so off obviously changes that game. He had looks, just didn’t make them. Offensively, we actually just killed ourselves from not being aggressive enough. We just needed to go in strong on layups and I think UK would have had to adjust defensively. I can confidently say that Harris was not the reason the offense struggled. I still can’t figure out what I feel with Remy. Offensively it is clear he brings something to the table. Defensively he’s a liability and I don’t see that changing. I think maybe Self has the guard rotation right? I’d like to maybe see what Joe could do with extended minutes, but at this point that isn’t happening.
The real conclusion, which I think most people see, is that KJ needs to be playing as many minutes as he can. Dave sucks. Mitch sucks. KJ does not suck. KJ isn’t good, but he isn’t a negative when he is on the court. I really don’t think this game scares me as much as I thought. And I actually think this blowout would be the outlier if these teams played 10 times. I’m glad I rewatched this, because I would have been stewing for another two days.
This was helpful. I didn’t get to watch all of the game because I had other stuff going on and couldn’t bring myself to go back and watch the replay knowing the result. Your Harris/Remy observations match pretty much what I’ve noticed all year. Harris makes the easy plays that get others opportunities. His hesitation to attack to score is an issue but not as big of an issue as Remy’s tendency to either be in the wrong place or completely take the flow out of the offense pounding the ball into the floor. He needs lots of dribbles before he makes a play.
I’d be interested in KJ getting more time as well but still feel this team is at its best when Dave plays his best. We’ve seen it and if we can get any kind of consistency, that’s how this team makes it to an elite 8/final 4 type situation.
That is unless Och can be the 27 plus point scorer from here on out. Again, I didn’t see all of this game but if it is as you say and Och missed out on opportunities and cost us points, well that’s what we will have to live with. He’s the leader now. No doubt. We go as far as he and/or Dave will take us.
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It’s easier to ignore a non-threat on offense than it is to attack the same guy on defense in the college game, so playing a poor defender is not as bad as playing a bad offensive player.
Here’s what I mean. Remy can only hurt you if you can attack him constantly, and even then, guys have to make shots. If Remy isn’t giving up straight line drives for dunks, and a team has average or worse shooters, you still survive that.
But with a guy like Harris, I can hide a guy like Remy on him all night and clog up passing lanes, driving lanes, etc., without ever getting hurt. A sagging defender messes up the structure of an offense.
Typically an offense will attack by spacing the floor properly. Once you have the floor spaced properly, the assumption is that defenders will have to follow offensive players out to that spacing. So if a guy spaces out to the corner, you assume their guy at least goes halfway to the corner even if their man is in the weakside corner. You don’t expect that defender to stay in the paint. If that man does stay in the paint, now spacing breaks down because that defender is an extra guy that you can’t scheme for. I can’t screen off that extra guy. I can’t catch them in a bad switch. There’s always an extra guy that’s just sort of in the way.
Now, we have seen Harris punish teams for sagging too far off him at times, so we know that can work. The issue is that with an athletic team like Kentucky, their speed and length can take away passing lanes anyway, and if they scheme to not guard certain players, you get what you saw on Saturday night. KU was out of sync offensively because they were unsure of where they could attack. They weren’t confident they could get downhill.
Now, that’s not all on Harris. McCormack and Lightfoot contribute to that problem, too. But that’s a part of the issue as well. If you’re going to give 25+ minutes to a non-shooting big that also doesn’t command doubles in the post, Harris has to either punish sagging defenses regularly or Big Dave has to command double teams to force rotations, or you have to stagger their minutes (essentially, Harris can only play when Wilson slides to the 5 to create spacing). Now, that would mean that KU would play a lot smaller a lot more often, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing with this team, but it also means that Harris is probably only playing 18-20 minutes per game, and that isn’t what Self wants.
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Perfectly said well done. No offensive threat with not just say a wing (like releford used to be) but our main ball handling guard. I mean Tharpe was a better threat to score and we saw how that turned out in the tournament Self decides to call on rarely played any big minutes frankamp to save him.
Pair that threat and main ball handler with a big who has unfortunately some bad hands and still plays like a freshman in terms of pace of the game and you have a bad combo when the hall of fame coaches offense is “Dave must get a touch each trip down”.
Our guys stand with the ball above their head trying to feed the post because self thinks that opens up the offense.
He’s right and wrong.
Right because if Dave could score teams collapse and kick out threes or guys cutting the lane are open.
Right because it Dave can pass out of the post then it will work.
He’s wrong because teams don’t respect Dave to score, Dave is constantly sped up and Dave can’t pass out of the post because no ones open because defenders don’t sag off our shooters. They say if Dave scores 30 and ku wins we will tip our cap.
Self not adjusting this strategy to match the skill level of his players is where he falls short lately (yes, while still winning).
Adapt your scheme to your team and their strengths not the other way around.
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@Kcmatt7 Great analysis. I rewatched it too. I saw Remy still not understanding the offense on several plays. Harris looking for a non-existent big guy to bail him out on drives.
Och having a weirdly horrible game was really the difference in scoring. Everyone else (Wilson, Braun, Dave) being passive or intimidated was the killer.
Brooks apparently wasn’t scouted as a threat.
Would have been a great game for JCL to bury 5 threes to justify him being here, but that didn’t happen either.
I’d be interested to see a rematch.
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Saw this quote on another board: “It’s also worth mentioning KU finished the game shooting 11 of 25 on layups. That percentage (44 percent) was worse than Kentucky’s overall field goal percentage of 51.”
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Surprised they even made 11 tbh
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My analysis is we have to get you a hobby of some sort!
You’re a better person than I to subject yourself to that game a second time. Nicely done.
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@Jethro said in Rewatching the UK game:
Saw this quote on another board: “It’s also worth mentioning KU finished the game shooting 11 of 25 on layups. That percentage (44 percent) was worse than Kentucky’s overall field goal percentage of 51.”
It’s been a season long issue. I don’t know if there is somewhere to find the data, but it sure feels like we have to have among the worst make %s from 3 ft in the history of college basketball. The issue is that, almost to a man, every time our guys are around the hoop, they lean or fade away from contact, rather than inviting it. Primary reason that we aren’t getting to the foul line nearly as much as we should, especially running so many downhill plays. If you get fouled, it’s not a FG attempt (unless made).
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80th in 2pt% in the country as a team. Torvik shows 66% as a team on close 2’s. Hoop explorer shows 63% on layup/dunks.
Mitch and CB are the only individuals shooting 60% or higher on their 2’s. Jalen (59%), Och (56%), Coleman-Lands (56%), KJ (55%).
Dave, Remy, Harris all under 50% on 2’s overall.
Och has the highest % of shots made at the rim (75%). No surprise there. Dave (56%) & Remy (53%) are the worst at the rim. Dave & Mitch combine to get 11.7% of their shots blocked at the rim. That’s just crazy bad.
