Kentucky need to win the shot selection battle

The Kentucky Wildcats are about to run the gauntlet that is the 2025 SEC men’s basketball schedule, and they are going to need some serious weaponry to defend themselves. While the quadrant system isn’t perfect, it’s a reasonable sorting tool and Quad 1 games have become a shorthand for “really tough games”. 14 of Kentucky’s 18 conference games are currently qualified as Quad 1, with the only exceptions being home games against Vanderbilt, LSU, South Carolina and hilariously Arkansas. KenPom projects Kentucky next 6 games to all be decided by 4 or fewer points. There is absolutely going to be an SEC team who is currently ranked in the top 25 who ends up something like 6-12 in conference and slips to the SEC Tournament bubble.

Kentucky’s trip to New York to face Ohio State did almost nothing to convince the casual fan that things are going to work out in the long term. At face value, the 20 point loss meant that only Andrew Carr and Colin Chandler (who each got engaged to fiancees on the trip) took away anything positive and lasting. However, if you look a little more carefully there are actually some very interesting and, dare I say, encouraging things for Kentucky fans to cling to as they watch their team test the collective blood pressure medication of the Commonwealth.

My law school classes start back in 2 weeks, and this will probably be the last article I write this season. I’m going to do my best to bring some heat and explain:

• Why the loss to Ohio State shouldn’t be too concerning
• Where Kentucky can find advantages to finish near the top of the SEC

Buckeyes? More like Luckeyes

One of the most awful things in sports is to watch a team just completely fail to even stay competitive in a game against an inferior team. As the minutes evaporate and the better team stubbornly fails to make the comeback that seemed so likely, it feels like every possession is its own unique loss. The loss to Ohio State may have felt even more puzzling and disappointing for Kentucky fans who watched the Wildcats overcome halftime deficits against teams who were worlds better than the Buckeyes.

Kentucky didn’t do much well against Ohio State. The Wildcats went 4-22 from three, committed more turnovers, got outrebounded, and were somehow outshot on twos 68% to 37%. However, two separate and incredibly bizarre factors stood out to me more than anything:

1. Kentucky hit only 40% of their shots at the rim (12 of 30), per hoop-explorer
2. Ohio State hit 65% on long twos (11 of 17), again per hoop-explorer

Kentucky is normally excellent at hitting shots at the rim, making 65% against top-100 level teams this season. Ohio State is good but not great at defending them, allowing 59% against non-UK top-100 teams.

Ohio State does not hit long twos at a high rate normally, going 22 of 74 (30%) against non-UK top-100 teams.

Both of these results are absolute outlier performances that are largely driven by luck. If Ohio State could actually hold teams to 40% at the rim (or anywhere close) they would be the best defense in the country. If they could hit 65% on long twos regularly, they would be taken captive and studied by basketball scientists.

Kentucky would normally hit about 19 shots out of 30 at the rim against a team like Ohio State, which would create 14 more points than they actually got. Ohio State would normally hit about 5 out of 17 long twos, which would create 12 fewer points than they actually got. The flukey combination of Kentucky’s inability to hit layups and Ohio State’s inability to miss long pull up jumpers were worth 26 points in a game Kentucky lost by 20. This means that Kentucky would have been expected to win by 6 points in the game even without changing any of the other things that Kentucky did poorly. This would have been a Kentucky win against a P5 opponent where the Wildcats 1) hit 4-22 from three, 2) committed more turnovers, 3) got outrebounded and 4) allowed the opponent to hit 70% at the rim.

Yes, you might be saying now, if Kentucky hit shots and Ohio State didn’t then Kentucky would have done better. Before you angrily stop reading due to the poor quality of this insight, let me make clear the takeaway of why Kentucky fans should actually feel pretty OK about the Ohio State game. Please, just read two more sentences…

Kentucky had a massive shot selection advantage vs Ohio State

Kentucky created 30 shots at the rim vs 17 for the Buckeyes and took only 3 long twos vs 17 for the Buckeyes. Put another way, Kentucky created significantly better shots than Ohio State did. If two P5 teams play and one of them takes 90% of twos at the rim and the other takes 50% of two at the rim, the former team is going to win a huge amount of the time because they are getting shots that are way more likely to go in.

Just look back at the expected percentages on those shots from the section above. Shots at the rim go in somewhere around 60% of the time. Long twos go in maybe 30-35% of the time. Every team wants to take shots at the rim, and if one team is able to actually do that a lot more that is a huge advantage!

Literally any basketball coach in America would love to be able to tell their team “take a bunch of layups and don’t let them take layups” and have that executed. Mark Pope got that, but evidently he made that wish on a cursed monkey’s paw somewhere in Chinatown. A great gameplan can go all to hell if your team hits 40% on layups and the other team hits two-thirds of their jumpers. Nevertheless, it’s a good plan! It’s really useful to have a good plan and execute it!

Shot selection needs to be UK’s superpower against SEC foes

There are basically two ways to have a really good offense:

1. Take a lot more shots than your opponent
2. Make a higher percentage of your shots than your opponent

How good an offense is depends on exactly how big the separation is on factor 1 or 2, or if a team happens to be good at both, but you need to be good at one of those. This season, Kentucky has not been very good at 1 against top teams. Per BartTorvik.com, Kentucky only forces turnovers on about 10% of possessions against top-100 teams, and the Wildcats turn it over themselves about 14% of the time. So, Kentucky opponents get a shot up about 4% more often than the Cats do, about 2.5 more per game. Kentucky has been good but not great at defensive rebounding against top-100 teams (they’ve been very good against weaker teams), allowing opponents to rebound about 29% of their missed shots. Kentucky rebounds 31% of their own missed shots, so the Cats do a little better but overall Kentucky ends up about 2 fewer scoring opportunities than their opponents do…that’s about 1 made basket the Cats are giving up.

That means that Kentucky needs to shoot better than their opponents, preferably by a lot. That is going to happen via shot selection. Against top-100 foes, Kentucky takes over 60% of their twos at the rim and allows opponents to take just under 50% of twos there. Assuming 40 2PA, Kentucky gets about 4 more shots at the rim than opponents do. Assuming D-1 averages of 61% at the rim and 35% on long twos, Kentucky is making 1 more basket just due to shot selection, erasing the shot volume deficit.

Notice that I’m ignoring any other possible advantages for Kentucky like creating more fast break opportunities, outshooting opponents from three, hitting shots at the rim at a high rate, defending shots at the rim at a high rate, or getting to the free throw line more than opponents. Against the top level of the SEC, it’s going to be difficult to establish big advantages there. However, if UK can use shot selection to their advantage they can be in position to take advantage of anything that breaks their way.

UK’s shot selection advantage isn’t just a random thing. It’s the product of a coherent offensive and defensive philosophy.

• On offense, Kentucky spreads the floor and clears the paint to pull defenders away. This creates room for cutters or drivers to make quick moves and get relatively lightly contested shots. Per hoop-explorer, Kentucky is in the 87th percentile in scoring off perimter cuts and 99th percentile in scoring off drives to the rim.
• On defense, Kentucky plays a drop coverage in pick and roll to allow pull-up jumpers but protect the rim from drives or rollers. For the full season, Kentucky allows the 7th lowest frequency of shots taken at the rim.

Kentucky is dictating a shot selection advantage by the choices they make on offense and defense. This is going to be especially important in SEC play, because many of the Wildcats’ foes typically win the shot selection battle themselves:

Most of the other SEC contenders take a high portion of shots at the rim and relatively few shots at the rim. Tennessee is really the only opponent who doesn’t depend much on quality shot selection. Kentucky holds their typical top-100 opponent to very few shots at the rim and a relatively high portion of long twos. If Kentucky can do this with any regularity in conference play, their opponents will be much less effective on offense than normal.

The same is true when looking at the other side of the ball.

Most of UK’s opponent limit shots taken at the rim and/or force a high rate of long twos. Florida is really the only SEC contender who doesn’t dictate shot selection much on defense. Kentucky will need to get the shots they want, and force opponents into lower quality shots, as much as possible in as many games as possible.

This is incredibly important because UK isn’t likely to establish big advantages in other areas like other SEC foes do. Against top-100 foes, UK forces turnovers at the lowest rate of any SEC team per BartTorvik.com. The only stat where UK ranks in the top 3 of SEC teams against top-100 foes is a low rate of giving up free throws. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to count on a favorable whistle in SEC road games as the source of UK’s advantage.

UK’s probably going to be fine, but the conference is brutal

There’s very little negative about the Ohio State loss that is likely to carry forward. The upside of that is that Kentucky is maybe a little undervalued nationally right now. A 20 point loss to a bubble team looks really bad on a team’s resume and is a massive anchor on a team’s analytics at this point of the season. Kentucky has a lot of opportunities to get statement wins over the next month, starting this Saturday.

Florida has 3 key areas where they establish edges:

1. Transition: Florida gets out on fast breaks a lot, and is lethal there
2. Rebounding: Florida is excellent on the glass, which creates shot volume advantages
3. 3 point luck: Florida opponents have shot very poorly from three

Kentucky can mitigate points 1 and 2 with consistent effort, which admittedly hasn’t been the Wildcats’ strength. 3 is literally luck, but if UK can hit 33-35% from deep and is able to dictate shot selection somewhat they can establish some edges. But if UK spends the first half watching Florida own the glass and create fast break layups, it might lead to another halftime hole. It feels to me likely UK is a little undervalued and Florida a little overvalued, so I think Kentucky wins by 2 to 4 points in this one to start off SEC play with a bang.