Rebounding is fueling Kentucky's rise
The Wildcats are at their best chasing down missed shots
If you feel like Kentucky’s season has been a series of wild up and down swings, you’re not imagining things. Per Haslametrics.com, the Wildcats are 351st out of 363 D-1 teams in “consistency”. BartTorvik.com assigns a Game Score to each game based on opponent, location, and per-possession scoring margin; here’s Kentucky’s chart of their performances in order:
On a positive note, Kentucky has followed up poor games with some of their best ones. On a less positive note, Kentucky hasn’t put together 3 straight games with a score of 80 or better since the opening 4 games of the season. Based on some rough math, they’ll need to play well enough to earn a game score of about 85 to win at Florida. However, the last 2 games are about as well as Kentucky’s played all season so it’s not too farfetched to think the Cats can keep it up.
If Kentucky is to string together a consistent end to the season, the likely key is going to be strong rebounding performances. There have been 3 factors that have made the difference between Kentucky’s wins and losses vs better teams:
- 3 point shooting
- Drawing free throws
- Rebounding
When Kentucky is absolutely at their best this season, rebounding has been the biggest single factor. I’ll explain a bit more in this latest article, available to premium subscribers.
