The Kentucky Wildcats lost their first game of the season as the Cats fell at Clemson 70-66. The Cats could never find their rhythm offensively as the length and ball pressure clearly threw off the newly acquainted Kentucky team. Unfortunately, Kentucky was the only SEC team to lose in the first night of the SEC-ACC, but the league did clench a victory at 9-1 on the night. I know nobody cares about the challenge, so I will dive into why Kentucky struggled so much in the first road test and the things they need to work on before heading to Seattle.
Kentucky Offense is in a Slump
The last couple games were some of the least efficient the Kentucky offense had put up in the short Mark Pope era, but tonight hit a new low. Kentucky averaged a putrid 0.943 points per possession on 38.1% from the field, 25.9% from three, and 61.1% from the free throw line. It was clear the intensity and physicality of Clemson defenders threw off the flow of the new Kentucky team. They were frequently found in bad positions and late in the shot clock leading to an 11-24 mark on layups. The Cats only had 11 assists on 24 made shots (45.8%), significantly less than their season average of 61.2%. They were uncomfortable all night and the Clemson defense gave the blueprint on how to slow down this explosive Kentucky offense.
Defense Travelled
Mark Pope’s first squad was not expected to be a consistently good defensive team, but they found themselves at #17 in defensive efficiency heading into tonight’s matchup. In the first road test of the season, Kentucky held Clemson to a 43.08% effective field goal percentage (accounts for the increased value of three-point shots). The Cats were great on defense and allowed Clemson’s bad shooters to take their shots. Leading scorer Chase Hunter was held to 2-8 shooting and the Swiss-army knife Ian Schieffelin went 4-20 and 1-8 from three. Two points of criticism for the defense are rebounding and Kerr Kriisa getting picked on defensively. I hate to single out a player, but he allowed 8.1 points of production by his primary assignment and was unable to balance this out on the offensive end. Schieffelin was not effective from the field, but he put up an absurd 20 rebounds and 4 assists. Clemson’s effort on the glass was something Kentucky knew to expect coming into the game, but they did not emphasize this at all in the first half.
Worst Case Scenario Game
The Big Blue Nation was wondering what it would look like if Kentucky played poorly in a game against a good team, and we saw that tonight. Kentucky found themselves in early foul trouble, lost their offensive rhythm, and shot about as bad as you could imagine them shooting. Ball pressure and physicality are going to be things Kentucky struggles with all season and it bit them tonight. The Cats dug themselves in too big of a hole by not being aggressive on the defensive glass and struggling to make shots. I don’t foresee Kentucky playing many games with efficiency numbers as bad as tonight’s, so I am personally not pressing the panic button on anything yet. The Cats will get another tough test Saturday night at 10:30PM in Seattle against the #7 Gonzaga Bulldogs, hopefully they bounce back to split this week’s tough road trip.
