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Returning home after a long road trip and getting a few days rest between games, I was expecting to see a lot of improvement in this game vs. Radford. There was a lot to look at in the game tape from the road trip and I wanted to see that we picked out those negatives and spent the week correcting those issues. Here is what I saw.
Positives:
• Kentucky only attempted 15 three pointers. I have been concerned with the fact that we settle for too many outside jump shots this year, but against Radford we used our length and size and got to the rim more.
• Marquis Teague played more under control. He still made a few mistakes, but this was his best game yet. He was more in control, and ran the offense effectively. 5 assists and only two turnovers.
• 87.5% from the free throw line. 21-24 has to be one of the best free throw shooting displays from a Kentucky team in a long time.
• Kyle Wiltjer again played with more aggression. 8 rebounds in only 22 minutes. He will have to prove he can keep up the aggression against teams like North Carolina, Louisville, and Florida, but he has already come a long way.
• Terrence Jones has improved his perimeter game a lot. Not only is he shooting the three better (1-2 against Radford,) but he just seems more comfortable with the ball on the perimeter. Jones being able to play 15-20 feet from the basket is going to cause match-up nightmares for teams.
• Doron Lamb is improving every game. Lamb is passing on open threes and instead driving to the rim, getting easy buckets and distributing. He is a much improved all around player, and it is getting even better every game. I love the move at the 2:30 mark of the first half, when Lamb passed up the open 3, drove to the basket and pulled up for a 15 footer. That is a play that Doron Lamb did not make last season.
• Anthony Davis is slowly learning the game. After the Marist game, I wrote how Davis was going to have a Harrison Barnes type season. Where he would struggle early then by January it would all come together for him. You are starting to see him come around. He is learning the offense and he is not out of place as often as he was a few weeks ago. By late December-early January, Anthony Davis is going to become one of the top two or three players in the country.
• Rebounding was much improved. We out-rebounded Radford 48-26. That is the kind of rebounding margin we should be posting against teams like this.
• Intensity of the defensive end. When we started the game slow offensively, we continued to play tough defense. When you start slow on the offensive end, it can be easy to get frustrated and let your defense slack, too. I like that even though we struggled early offensively, we kept up the defensive intensity.
• Michael Kidd-Gilchrist’s rebounding ability. Getting rebounds from a wing player like Kidd-Gilchrist can help push the pace. If we can push the pace, it gives us an instant advantage over anyone we play.
• 10 blocked shots, 4 from Anthony Davis. Davis is going to demolish the UK single season record of 83. He already has 22 blocks in five games. Davis is on pace to block 136 shots in the regular season alone.
• We continue to have a balanced scoring attack. Terrence Jones led the way with 17, followed by Michael Kidd-Gilchrist with 15, Marquis Teague with 13, Anthony Davis with 12, Doron Lamb with 10, Kyle Wiltjer with 9 and Darius Miller with 6. We have 7 guys who are capable of leading the team in scoring every game.
• Kyle Wiltjer’s low post defense. It is well documented how polished and fundamental Wiltjer’s offensive game is, but I was impressed by how well he played defensively. He moved his feet, used his body, and did not leave his feet on defense in the low post.
• Marquis Teague’s jump shot. This was supposed to be one of his weaknesses coming out of high school. I do not see why, because he looks to be a very good jump shooter.
• John Calipari’s coaching. I like that Calipari used this game to work on playing a zone. If a zone is something we might use this year, it is always a good idea to get some real game experience playing it.
Negatives:
• Darius Miller is still not aggressive at all. Miller is just as talented as anyone else on the court but he does not have the killer instinct. As a senior who has started in a Final Four game, he needs to be more aggressive.
• Although Teague played much better, he is still driving too deep into the defense. Personally I think this is just a case of him adjusting to the speed of the game. With players bigger, stronger, and faster on the college level than in high school, it takes some time to adjust to the speed of the game. He seems to just a split second too late on his decisions with the basketball right now. He will come around though.
• Terrence Jones still plays soft at times. We see spurts of Jones dominating weaker opponents and being physical, but he still loses that intensity sometimes. If Jones always played with intensity, he would be a dominate force in college basketball.
• Only 11 assists on 31 field goals. Too much one on one basketball was played. On 31 field goals with as many different play makers we have, I would like to see the assist number be around 16-17.
• 16 turnovers. We are going to turn the ball over because of the pace we play at. But this number needs to be around 9 or 10.
Overall I was very pleased with this performance. This game showed that we worked a lot on things that we were struggling with. Marquis Teague showed more patience, Anthony Davis is learning, etc. This game showed that Calipari really focused on our weaknesses after returning from our road trip. This team is getting better every game. If they keep improving at this rate, they will be hard to beat in March.
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