Shifting Gears: UK Working on Half-Court Offense

The 2016-17 Kentucky basketball team is known for its breakneck pace of play. Get the ball off a missed shot – or make – and race to the other end of the floor before the opposing team can set up its defense. That’s the Wildcats’ modus operandi.

But what happens if UK isn’t able to beat the defense down the floor? What does it do then?

That’s one of the many things head coach John Calipari and his Wildcats (10-2) have worked on over the past week of practice in Camp Cal.

“What happens in the half court at times is, OK, shot selection, where the ball needs to go, situational, why are we doing this? When to put them into pick-and-rolls, and that’s all stuff that I’ve got to teach and they’ve got to learn,” Calipari said. “We shoot it well enough. We penetrate well enough. We have enough of a post game. There’s no reason that we shouldn’t be good enough in the half court.”

Against Louisville, which has the No. 1 defense in the nation in terms of adjusted defensive efficiency, according to Ken Pomeroy, Kentucky’s offense posted its second lowest points per possession total of the year. UK scored 0.96 points per possession against the Cardinals, a stark contrast to its 1.30 points per possession against North Carolina one game earlier.

Against the Tar Heels, Kentucky was able to get up and down the court constantly, attempting 74 total field goals and shooting 54.1 percent from the field, thanks largely to a number of shots close to the rim. 

The Cardinals, however, were able to slow down the Cats and force them into a number of half-court situations. The result was a season-low 58 field goal attempts, including 22 3-point tries.

“With our team, we’re really good at getting up and down the court, flying, getting transition baskets,” senior guard Mychal Mulder said. “When a team wants to play like that in the half court you need to understand what a good shot is, what we’re going to run, how we’re going to play. Just in case you don’t get that transition bucket it’s like, what do we go to now? 

“I feel like we’ve worked on that and we’re prepared for that. It’s going to be a good opportunity (Thursday) to see what steps we’ve taken to go that way.”

Louisville’s defense is known for forcing opposing offenses to take a long time. In fact, there are only 41 teams nationally that force opposing offenses to use more clock than the Cardinals. Kentucky and Ole Miss (9-3), the Wildcats’ next opponent Thursday, both rank near the middle of the pack nationally in this statistic.

During Camp Cal, Kentucky has scrimmaged more often than it had in the past in order to work on certain situations, defenses and schemes it may face at various points in the season.

“There are situations that this group has never been in that you try to put in in practice so they can see them and then talk through it,” Calipari said. “You think they know. They don’t know. ‘Well, I had a shot.’ But, there’s 25 seconds left on the clock and we could’ve gotten a better shot or we could’ve used clock and made them try to foul.”

One thing they do know is that freshman forward Bam Adebayo needs more touches after attempting just six shots against UofL and making five of them. He’s fourth on the team in scoring (12.5 points per game), he’s hitting 56.4 percent of his shots, he’s fourth in the league in rebounds and second in the SEC in offensive rebounds.

“We’ve made it clear that when (Bam) gets it, it puts pressure on the defense and helps us all,” Coach Cal said.

At the end of the day, if the Rebels don’t take care of the basketball better on Thursday UK may be able to put any half-court offensive woes – real or perceived – on the backburner for another game.

Kentucky’s defense is forcing turnovers on 22.0 percent of its possessions, the 40th-best clip in the college basketball. Ole Miss, meanwhile, has a negative assist-to-turnover ratio as a team, committing a turnover on more than 20 percent of its offensive possessions. The more turnovers UK can force, the more its likely to be able to get out in transition, which Ole Miss head coach Andy Kennedy knows plays right into UK’s hands.

“Live-ball turnovers are critical at this juncture of the season,” Kennedy said, “and it’s an issue that we’ve had problems with, quite frankly. … That’s something that I’m very conscious of and I’m trying to remedy. But, until we have some guys offensively step up where we can feel comfortable with the ball in their hands and their decision-making process throughout the course of a game, we’ll continue to have to try to find a way. But we have turned it over too much, and that’s a recipe for disaster on Thursday night.”