Make shots or lose games
Pared down to its barest essentials, there are really just two things that matter in basketball: making shots and preventing them. All the rest of that stuff is window dressing, including such seemingly game-defining factors as turnovers, free throws, assists and steals.
It's abundantly clear that Tubby Smith knows this, and that in the limited time his Cats get in a week to practice (the NCAA mandates 20 hours maximum coached practice a week), he must choose wisely what to focus on given his team and its disparate pieces. Some of Smith's best teams had an identity of one of the other of those two ingredients, either effective offensively and acceptably defensive or offensively capable but defensively tough. This year's edition of the Wildcats, thus far, is neither.
Monday's 67-63 loss to Iowa in the Guardians Classic, while causing shock waves to UK fans, is a blip on the year's overall record, especially since Iowa will probably be an NCAA team and a top-50 RPI club to boot. However, this is true only if the Cats learn from it and begin to find their calling. They can be a gifted offensive team, but they have to go back and pare down the offense to the basics: make shots.
Tubby saw the same game I did, noting afterwards: "We had so many opportunities there. I don't know if we could get any more opportunities." In addition to shooting 33% for the game, it was the way those shots were missed that boggles the mind. If it wasn't Bobby Perry clanking a wide-open layup in the clutch ("It's just a shot I have to make."), it was Ramel Bradley launching a win-it-all three that had no prayer of going in outside the boundaries of the offensive set. Tubby was even frustrated with the seemingly one positive, Rekalin Sims' three-point shooting. The reason? It meant everyone was standing around and the shot was forced, not fluid.
Rajon Rondo can't do everything. Any avid observer knows that -- new shot or no -- Rondo will have 1-for-9 games, but he'll also contribute in other ways, like his career-high 19 rebounds (17 defensive) and 5 assists (should have been 10, see all those missed shots?).
Most UK fans are, to my mind, foolishly waiting for Randolph Morris' return to be a season-saving event, but I strongly advise against this. Not because Morris wouldn't be immediately helpful, because he would. But even an effective Morris can't make up for these numbers: Joe Crawford 1-of-6, Patrick Sparks 2-of-5, Perry 3-of-8.
Perry had a career-high 12 points, and his three towards the end was the kind of clutch ability he posesses, but he has got to make gimmes, because he'll get them. One of Rondo's best traits (and the thing that'll get him drafted) is his breakdown ability in the paint. They can't stop him from getting in the lane. But he doesn't always score, and when he dishes to you a foot from the rim, Mr. Perry, you have got to finish it.
Same goes for Shagari and Woo. And anyone. You have got to make shots, or all the peripheral stuff is moot.
One last thing, Rondo is now averaging a ridiculous 13.7 points, 12.7 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 3 steals per game. Take another look at that. Sick, man, just sick.
It's abundantly clear that Tubby Smith knows this, and that in the limited time his Cats get in a week to practice (the NCAA mandates 20 hours maximum coached practice a week), he must choose wisely what to focus on given his team and its disparate pieces. Some of Smith's best teams had an identity of one of the other of those two ingredients, either effective offensively and acceptably defensive or offensively capable but defensively tough. This year's edition of the Wildcats, thus far, is neither.
Monday's 67-63 loss to Iowa in the Guardians Classic, while causing shock waves to UK fans, is a blip on the year's overall record, especially since Iowa will probably be an NCAA team and a top-50 RPI club to boot. However, this is true only if the Cats learn from it and begin to find their calling. They can be a gifted offensive team, but they have to go back and pare down the offense to the basics: make shots.
Tubby saw the same game I did, noting afterwards: "We had so many opportunities there. I don't know if we could get any more opportunities." In addition to shooting 33% for the game, it was the way those shots were missed that boggles the mind. If it wasn't Bobby Perry clanking a wide-open layup in the clutch ("It's just a shot I have to make."), it was Ramel Bradley launching a win-it-all three that had no prayer of going in outside the boundaries of the offensive set. Tubby was even frustrated with the seemingly one positive, Rekalin Sims' three-point shooting. The reason? It meant everyone was standing around and the shot was forced, not fluid.
Rajon Rondo can't do everything. Any avid observer knows that -- new shot or no -- Rondo will have 1-for-9 games, but he'll also contribute in other ways, like his career-high 19 rebounds (17 defensive) and 5 assists (should have been 10, see all those missed shots?).
Most UK fans are, to my mind, foolishly waiting for Randolph Morris' return to be a season-saving event, but I strongly advise against this. Not because Morris wouldn't be immediately helpful, because he would. But even an effective Morris can't make up for these numbers: Joe Crawford 1-of-6, Patrick Sparks 2-of-5, Perry 3-of-8.
Perry had a career-high 12 points, and his three towards the end was the kind of clutch ability he posesses, but he has got to make gimmes, because he'll get them. One of Rondo's best traits (and the thing that'll get him drafted) is his breakdown ability in the paint. They can't stop him from getting in the lane. But he doesn't always score, and when he dishes to you a foot from the rim, Mr. Perry, you have got to finish it.
Same goes for Shagari and Woo. And anyone. You have got to make shots, or all the peripheral stuff is moot.
One last thing, Rondo is now averaging a ridiculous 13.7 points, 12.7 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 3 steals per game. Take another look at that. Sick, man, just sick.
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