07-1 Preseason Forecast

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2000-10 Season Analytical Writings

42
Cats Face West Virginia For Ticket To Final Four

Kentucky has made 13 trips to NCAA Final Fours over the many years of this tournament's history. However, Cat teams over the years have found that winning those Final Four trips is the most difficult hurdle of all in the NCAA ride. Once in a Final Four, UK teams have won 10 and lost only 3 times, and of their 10 appearances in the Championship game, UK teams have won 7 and lost only 3 times. However, in Regional Championship games, e.g. Elite 8 as it has come to be called, UK teams have lost more times than they have won, with a 13-17 record prior to Saturday's Elite 8 encounter with West Virginia.

I do not have an explanation for this apparent conflict in logic except until the seeding of a full 64 team field, UK played each year in the most difficult region, the Mid-East, and traversing those waters into the Final Four was always a tough row to hoe.

Saturday will be UK's first Elite 8 game since 2005 when Michigan State prevailed in 2 overtimes. The frustration of the Cats' inability to get a critical defensive rebound, time after time, that allowed Michigan State to prevail has simmered in the minds and souls of Big Blue fans for 5 long years, without an opportunity to rectify the injustice of it all. Well, Saturday evening this group of Wildcats will get that opportunity against a West Virginia team that has been more ferocious on the boards this season than the Cats have been.

In the Sweet 16 game last night, Cornell fell despite playing in front of a “home” crowd in the Carrier dome. Saturday, that same crowd will do everything within their power to make their fellow Big East colleague feel as much at home as they did for Cornell last night. This will be like another road game for the Cats.

West Virginia brings a 30-6; 16-5 record into this game. In the Big East regular season, WVU finished in a 3 way tie for second place, 2 games behind Syracuse, with a 13-5 record, but West Virginia won the Big East Tournament by beating Cincinnati by 3 points, Notre Dame by 2 points, and Georgetown by 2 points. West Virginia's NCAA path to this Elite meeting includes a 27 point win over #15 Morgan State, a 9 point win over Missouri, and a 13 point win over Washington. The Mountaineers are riding the crest of a 9 game winning streak since their last loss on February 22 by 11 points at UConn. Their 9 game win streak is the second best in the land, behind Butler's 23 game win streak.

WVU's losses occurred to Purdue by 15 points, and in the Big East at Notre Dame, to Syracuse, Villanova, at Pitt, and at UConn. During the regular season, their most impressive wins have been over Ohio State by 6 points, Texas A&M by 7 points, and a Big East road win over Villanova. WVU has played common UK opponents Long Beach State [Win by 23], Cleveland State [Win by 2 points], Mississippi [Win by 10 points], Louisville [Win by 3 points], and UConn [Lose by 11 points]. WVU's overall level of competition has been stronger than the Cats [RPI SOS 0.6050].

I am sure that Coach Calipari's goal for this game will be the same as he stated for the first three NCAA games, just land the plane. However, the skies will be turbulent and stormy for this landing, and unless there are strong communications between the flight crew and the control tower, navigating toward the runway may become very difficult.

Through 36 games, WEST VIRGINIA has averaged 72.9 ppg on 65.5 possessions per game, 1.114 points per possession, and they have allowed their opponents to score 63.3 ppg on 65.4 possessions, 0.967 ppp. WEST VIRGINIA's turnover rate through those 33 games is 17.7% while their opponents have committed turnovers on 20.3% of their collective possessions. On the Boards, WEST VIRGINIA has grabbed a very powerful 42.1% of their own misses and WEST VIRGINIA has allowed their opponents to get only 31.3% of their missed shots.

Kentucky has averaged 79.6 ppg on 71.3 possessions per game, 1.116 points per possession, and they have allowed their opponents to score 64.7 ppg on 71.1 possessions, 0.911 ppp. UK's turnover rate through 37 games is 20.1% while their opponents have committed turnovers on only 19.7% of their collective possessions. On the Boards, the Cats have grabbed a very powerful, but declining 40.7% of their own misses and limited their opponents to only 32.1% of their missed shots.

Based on this data for WEST VIRGINIA and the Cats for the 2009-10 season, the NGE analysis indicates a 1 point Kentucky win, 70-69, in a game to be played at a pace of about 68 possessions for Kentucky and 68 possessions for WEST VIRGINIA. The predicted offensive efficiency is 1.029 ppp and the predicted defensive efficiency is 1.015 ppp.

Game Summary

Coach Calipari's starting lineup: Wall, Bledsoe, Miller, Cousins, and Patterson.

Kentucky wins the opening tip and draws first blood on a base line hook by Patterson, but WVU responds with back to back 3 pointers to take a 6-2 lead. The Cats scored the next 6 points to regain the lead, 8-6, at the under 16 TV timeout and WVU in possession of the ball. The Cats' early shooting is 4-8 while WVU is 2-5. The Cats have the only offensive board of the game, and that second chance produced the margin in the game, with 2 second chance points. In the opening segment, the strategy was to penetrate with the guards and get the ball to Cousins and Patterson, and those two guys accounted for all 8 points. After the timeout, the guards reversed roles and Wall and Bledsoe scored 5 more unanswered points as the Cats move out to a 7 point lead, 13-6. Mazulla stopped the Kentucky 11 point run with a 3 pointer, his first of the year, and WVU's third of the game, to trim the lead to 4 points, 13-9, at the under 12 TV timeout with 10:47 to play in the first half.

In the first 9 plus minutes, the pace is about 70 possessions, and the Cats have scored their 13 points on 15 possessions. The Cats' 4 turnovers has detracted from their offensive efficiency thus far. WVU has scored its 9 points on 14 possessions, and has only committed 2 turnovers. UK has a 2-1 advantage on offensive rebounds. In the abbreviated 3 rd segment, the Cats outscored WVU 3-0 in the only 3 possessions, extending their lead back to 7 points, 16-9, prompting a WVU timeout with 8:03 to play in the first half. After a relatively fast start for the tempo, WVU has asserted its will to slow the game down now, and through 12 minutes, the pace has dropped to about 60 possessions for the game, which is more to WVU's liking, and not what the Cats would like to have in this game.

After the WVU timeout, the Cats commit back to back turnovers, and WVU missed their only 2 shots leading to the under 8 TV timeout with 7:16 to play, and the score holding at 16-9. Out of the timeout, WVU's Butler hits their 4 th 3 pointer of the game to trim the Cats lead to 4 points, 16-12. Following the Cats' 7 th turnover, WVU hit their fifth 3 pointer to cut the lead to a single point, 16-15. Patterson makes a put back basket, but WVU answered with another 3 pointer to tie the score at 18-18. On the next possession, the Cats turned the ball over for the 8 th time. Following the Cats' 9 th turnover, WVU drained their 7 th 3 pointer to take their first lead of the game, 21-18, prompting a Kentucky timeout with 4:11 to play in the first half. Out of the timeout, the Cats manage to get the ball to Harris on the inside without a turnover, drawing a foul. Harris will be shooting free throws after the under 4 TV timeout.

The story of this first have has been WVU's perimeter shooting and Kentucky's turnovers.

After Harris makes the free throws, Kentucky's 10 th turnover results in a 4 point play at the other end to give WVU its biggest lead, 5 points, 25-20. After Liggins made a put back basket, he picked up a technical foul at the end of WVU fast break. WVU made both of the technical free throws to move out 27-20. The Cats then scored 6 straight points to close the gap to just a single point with 40 seconds to play, 27-26, but a final free throw by WVU on a very questionable rebounding foul on Cousins provided the final 2 point margin, 28-26, at the half.

The pace is about 62 possessions for the Cats and 62 possessions for WEST VIRGINIA. Kentucky controlled the boards, 29-13 in total rebounds, and the Cats won the battle of the offensive rebounds 10-5. The Cats used their 10 second chances to score 8 second chance points while WEST VIRGINIA used their 5 second chance to 1 second chance points.

In first half, UK had 31 possessions and WEST VIRGINIA had 31. The Cats grabbed a powerful 55.6% of its misses as offensive rebounds while WEST VIRGINIA grabbed a low 20.8% of their misses. WEST VIRGINIA had an offensive efficiency of 0.871 ppp on its 31 first chance possessions and 0.200 ppp for its 5 second chance possession. UK had 0.581 ppp on its 31 chance possessions and 0.800 ppp on its 10 second chance possessions. Kentucky committed 10 turnovers in the first half, 32.3% of their possessions, and WEST VIRGINIA committed 3 turnovers, 9.7% of their possessions.

From the line in the first half, the Cats made 6-7 attempts [85.7%] and WEST VIRGINIA made 4-5 [80.0%] in the first half. The Cats shot the ball very poorly in the first half, hitting 10 of 28 attempts [35.7%] overall, but only 0-8 [0.0%] shooting from long range For WEST VIRGINIA, their field goal shooting from beyond the arc was powerful, 8-15 [53.3%], but WEST VIRGINIA failed to make a basket from inside the arc, 0-16 [0.0%].

Halftime Magic Number Check-Up:

MAGIC NUMBER Tonight: First team to score it 56 th point will win today. To reach that score, Kentucky needs 30 points, while WEST VIRGINIA needs 28 points. WVU scored its 56 th point on a layup with 5 miinutes to play in the game and the WVU leading 56-45. The teams played out the final 5 minutes as the Cats lost 73-66 and the Kentucky season again ends in the Elite 8 for the 18 th time 31 tries, and the Cats' record ends 35-3; 17-2.

Second Half Summary:

The Cats open the second half with Bledsoe driving to the lane and drawing a foul, but he missed both free throws and an chance to tie the game, But, that was not the worst of it. The Cats missed their first two shots, commited their 11 th turnover, and Cousins was whistled for his third foul, sending him to the bench, while WVU made both of their 3 point shots, and finally made a basket inside the arc to race out to a 10 point lead, 36-26, forcing Calipari to call a timeout to regroup with 17:38 to play in the game. The Cats responded with 5 points to trim the lead back to 5 points, but Wall missed the first of 2 free throws, allowing another opportunity to pass, but then WVU scored 4 straight to extend the lead back to 9 points, 40-31 at the under 16 TV timeout with 14:37 to play in the game. Wall will be shooting a pair of free throws when play resumes.

The Cats have committed 11 turnovers, and have only made 1 of 4 free throws in the second half. Wall missed his first for the third time tonight, and the Cats have only made 2-6 from the line in the second half. After trimming the lead back to 5 points a second time, 41-36, WVU ran off 6 straight points to take their biggest lead of the night, 47-36, prompting another timeout by Kentucky with 12:11 to play in the game. Out of the timeout, the Cats went inside to Cousins twice, drawing fouls each time at the under 12 TV timeout.

In the 3 rd segment of the second half, the Cats only managed to trim 1 point from the WVU lead, 53-43 at the under 8 TV timeout. The Cats have 15 turnovers to WVU's 8, 18 offensive rebounds to 8 for WVU, but the shooting from 3 point land is the story for both teams in this game. In the 4 th segment, WVU continued to display their complete control of the game, and went up by as many as 17 points before the Cats trimmed it back to “only” 12 points, 61-49 at the under 4 TV timeout. Over the final 4 minutes, the Cats had to foul to extend the game, and WVU took advantage of the free throw trips to seal their win, 73-66.

Kentucky scored its 66 points in a total of 72 possessions for the game for an offensive efficiency of 0.917 ppp. WEST VIRGINIA scored its 73 points on a total of 70 possessions for a defensive efficiency of 1.043 ppp.

Kentucky won the total rebounding battle, 51-36, and Kentucky won the offensive glass 24-10 Kentucky converted their 24 second chances into 17 points while WEST VIRGINIA converted its 10 second chances into 6 points.

WEST VIRGINIA had an offensive efficiency of 0.957 ppp on its 70 first chance possessions and 0.600 ppp for its 10 second chance possessions. UK had 0.681 ppp on its 72 first chance possessions and 0.708 ppp on its 24 second chance possessions. With respect to the offensive rebounding, UK grabbed a powerful 48.0% of its misses as offensive rebounds while WEST VIRGINIA was able to convert only 27.0% of its misses into bonus possessions with offensive rebounds.

UK shot poorly from the line, making 16-29 [55.2%]. WEST VIRGINIA made 23-34 [67.6%] for the game. Field goal shooting for UK was 23-67 overall [34.3%] including 4-32 from long range [12.5%]. For WEST VIRGINIA, their field goal shooting from outside the arc was 10-23 [43.5%] and WEST VIRGINIA shot the ball fair from inside the arc, hitting 10-29 [34.5%].

The Cats committed 16 turnovers for the game which is 22.2% of possessions. The Cats forced 12 WEST VIRGINIA turnovers, representing 17.1% of the WEST VIRGINIA possessions.

Prior to the game, the NGE analysis predicted a 1 point Kentucky win, 70-69 and the Cats lost by 7 points, 66-73. The NGE analysis predicted an offensive efficiency of 1.03 ppp and the actual offensive efficiency was 0.92 ppp. The NGE analysis also predicted a defensive efficiency of 1.02 ppp, and the actual defensive efficiency was 1.04 ppp. The NGE forecast a pace of 69 possessions for the Cats and 68 for WEST VIRGINIA, and the actual pace was 72 possessions for Kentucky and 70 possessions for WEST VIRGINIA.

This loss brings the Kentucky 2009-2010 season to an end with a record of 35-3, 17-2 in the SEC.

Submitted by Richard Cheeks

Submitted by Richard Cheeks

41
Cats Defeat Cornell by 17 To Advance; 35-2; 17-2