Tomorrow the University of Kentucky Batcats kick off the Road to Omaha in Gary, Indiana. Here is a look at the competition they'll need to overcome to move on to the Super Regionals next weekend. I'll have more on the match-up with Kent St tomorrow and another excellent preview can be found at Hammer and Rails, the SBN Purdue site.

First a quick overview of the 4 teams in the region (RPI and SOS from Warren Nolan).

The last column might be new to some people, it shows what an "average" team's W-L record would be given its Runs Scored and Runs Allowed. The idea is the same as the basis for Ken Pomeroy's basketball rankings. It's a way to check how a team's performance compares to their underlying ability to score and prevent runs. Its usefullness at the college level is debatable given the wide range in schedule strength, but I think it's worth looking at to get another perspective on the strengths of each school.

There are 3 very strong teams in this region. Purdue, UK, and Kent St have all won 40+ games and their underlying performance supports those records. Kentucky has faced the toughest schedule of the three so they might have a slight edge on that front, but all three teams can hit and all three teams can pitch and play defense. Kent St didn't face competition as tough as what Purdue and the Cats played against, but they have a ton of postseason experience - more than the other three teams combined.

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Here are the final standings for the 2010-2011 GOG season. A hearty "Thank you" to all who participated.

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It is never correct to say that a team has made a Final Four run due to any one factor - sports are just too complicated for such overly simplistic narratives. Still, the biggest reason that Louisville is still playing in the tournament is defense. The Cardinals are the #1 ranked defense in efficiency thanks to the 3rd best eFG% defense and their skill at forcing turnovers (34th) (ranks according to KenPom).

When the Cats and Cardinals got together 3 months ago it was an ugly game from an offensive perspective. Kentucky was held to its worst Offensive Efficiency of the season, their worst shooting game, and one of their worst games in terms of committing turnovers. In short, Louisville's defense was able to impose its strengths on Kentucky's offense and keep the game close despite the Cardinals having a pretty awful game themselves on the offensive end.

Obviously much has changed since then. In particular the Cats have become a much, much better ball handling team. Prior to the UL game Kentucky had turned the ball over on 20% or more its possessions in 5 out of 13 games. After the Louisville game that happened 4 times out of 24 games, and 2 of those were the very next two games against Arkansas Little Rock and South Carolina.

Also, Terrence Jones had an injured finger which was affecting his ability to finish around the rim. That is no longer a concern.

Kentucky has an elite offense - they rank in the top 35 (90th percentile) in Division 1 in Effective FG%, Turnover %, Offensive Rebound %, and thanks to the last two games they've moved up to 45th in the country in Free Throw Rate. All of which got me to wondering - how has Louisville performed defensively in these areas when facing up against elite teams this year?

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Kentucky is back in the Final Four! Unlike last year, this team was expected to be here by pretty much everyone before the season even began. The Final Four this year features two games that are rematches from the regular season. UK defeated UL 69-62 on December 31 and Kansas defeated Ohio St 78-67 on December 10.

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This graph shows how each of Kentucky's offensive possessions ended during their game against Indiana Friday night. The column heights are set to match the jersey number of the Wildcat who ended the possession and are colored blue if Kentucky scored any points and gray if they did not. In this way we can get a sense of how the ball was distributed on offense.

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There is a lot of interesting information to be gleaned from play-by-play transcripts of basketball games. One example is Plus/Minus and thanks to Statsheet those numbers are available for many players for most of their games (albeit sometimes with errors). Another is a loose categorization of shot types which can help lend some insight as to where a team likes to attempt its shots.

If you peruse a typical play-by-play account, such as this one from Kentucky's recent game against Iowa St, you will find that each shot is labeled based on what kind of a attempt it was: Dunk, Layup, Tip-In, Jumper, or 3 point attempt. 3 point attempts are obvious; dunks, layups, and tip-ins are all shots that come at the rim; and jumpers are any 2 point shots that don't fall under the previous categories. They can be anything from a baseline hook shot, to a floater in the lane, to a spot up 17 footer and anything in between.

A while back jc25 alerted me to website run by Reggieball, a blogger for SBN site Burnt Orange Nation, that collects this shot information for schools that have play-by-play transcripts available (not all schools do). There is some fascinating information there about Kentucky's offense and how each player does on various shot types.

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This chart shows whether each team in the NCAA field of 64 is defense-oriented or offense-oriented based on which was ranked highest in Ken Pomeroy's adjusted offense/defense rankings at the end of the regular season on Selection Sunday.

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Click here for an explanation of how the DSS is charted and what the ratings and box score represent. A big thanks to a2d2 for the heads up on replays on youtube.

I gave some thoughts on Kentucky's defense in their first two NCAA Tournament games yesterday, but I've had a chance now to go back and review them and there are a few additional items that are worth mentioning, particularly when it comes to Terrence Jones whose defense in the Iowa St game was even better than I originally thought.

First up, here is how Iowa State's offense during the season and in Big 12 play compares to how they did against Kentucky.

The Cyclones actually scored a bit more efficiently against the Cats than they did during the regular season, although the difference is really of no practical significance. Most of what happened in the game is not a surprise: Kentucky held them to a very low Effective Field Goal %, didn't force many turnovers, and did a pretty good job on the defensive glass. The only real surprise is how much Iowa St was able to get to the line - a 41.0 Free Throw rate is much higher than their average and it is WAY higher than what UK normally allows. Credit the Cyclones for going inside early and often and drawing a lot of fouls on shot attempts.

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I won't have a DSS for the Cats' first two games (or the rest of the tournament most likely: no replays available) but I do have a few numbers and some thoughts on the defense played by Kentucky in their first two wins.

Against Western KY, the Cats played their typical defense: allow the ball to go into the post, double team occasionally, and stay in contact with shooters on the perimeter enough to dissuade 3pt shots from being attempted. The Cats were clearly superior than the Hilltoppers and WKU scored a mere 42 points in the first 59 possessions for a microscopic 0.712 points per possession.

Kentucky held a 74-42 lead at that point and the game was effectively over. Western made a run over the remaining 7:45, scoring 24 points in the last 11 possessions (2.182 ppp) including scoring on 10 straight. Cal clearly wasn't pleased with how the game ended, but it doesn't really mean anything except to make the final score look pretty respectable for a 1-16 game that doesn't involve Syracuse. Western scored on 5 straight possessions early in the game when they took their only lead, but otherwise their scoring was very intermittent.

Here's a sparkline to show the flow of scoring in the game for Western KY. The up bars represent scoring possessions, the down bars are possessions when they did not score.

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UK enters the NCAA Tournament as one of the big favorites to win the whole thing. This will be the last GOG of the year unless UK makes the Final Four in which case there will be another. Thanks for playing this year!

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The Kentucky Wildcats enter postseason play as the undisputed favorite to win the SEC and one of the top contenders for the National Title. Throughout the season I've been keeping track of the development of the team and players on offense and defense. With the regular season completed it's a good time to take stock of what we've seen from the Cats this year and pontificate a bit on what it could mean in the postseason

I apologize for the tardiness, I meant to get this up on Thursday before UK started the SECT but one thing or another got in the way. In addition to having an elite offense, Kentucky boasts one of the best defenses in all the land, currently ranking 5th in adjusted defensive efficiency. Combine that mark with their offensive prowess and the Cats have proven they have all the tools needed to win a national title. The last 9 national champs ranked 14, 4, 16, 1, 12, 5, 5, 5, and 19 in defensive efficiency. There's a much bigger spread there than in the offensive rankings, but Kentucky's defense fares well when compared to recent history.

Only 6 teams have managed to score better than 1 point per possession against the Cats this season and only twice have opponents managed to top 1.10 points per possession (UNC and Vanderbilt at Rupp).

After the jump we'll look at the strengths and weaknesses for the team and I'll present the final regular season defensive numbers for the players from the DSS charting.

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The Kentucky Wildcats enter postseason play as the undisputed favorite to win the SEC and one of the top contenders for the National Title. Throughout the season I've been keeping track of the development of the team and players on offense and defense. With the regular season completed it's a good time to take stock of what we've seen from the Cats this year and pontificate a bit on what it could mean in the postseason.

Offensively the Cats are a juggernaut. They rank 2nd in Adjusted Efficiency this season and in conference play they are putting up silly numbers against the rest of the SEC. This is a good thing. To win the title you pretty much have to have a really good offense. Here are the Adjusted Offensive Efficiency ranks of the last 9 national title winners: 16, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 4, and 11.

The Wildcats have only been held under a 100 efficiency 3 times this season: against Old Dominion (92.4), Louisville (86.9), and at Tennessee (97.5). They've been over 110 efficiency 24 times and 10 straight. The last time they had a "bad" offensive game was at Georgia (101.7). This is a team that knows how to score.

After the jump we'll look at the strengths and weaknesses of the UK squad as well as some final numbers for the players.

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Another SEC Tournament, another chance for the Cats to impose their dominance on the rest of the conference. UK has a 1 seed all wrapped up, although there could still be some question as to whether they end up in the South or Midwest region in the NCAA Tournament.

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It's a set of Senior Day games for the Cats this week. First up they will honor Darius Miller and Eloy Vargas in Rupp Arena against Georgia - the last team to beat the Cats at home on a Senior Day 4 years ago. On Sunday they will play at Florida in the final day of the regular season with a chance to go 16-0 in conference play - a feat last achieved by the 2003 Suffocats who also finished perfect by winning at Florida on the last day of the season.

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Sometimes life just converges in a nicely satisfying way. On Saturday Kentucky beat Vanderbilt in a terrific game. In the game thread and later in the Vandy DSS I (and others) noted how well Doron Lamb did chasing John Jenkins around the floor and in particular doing a pretty good job of not giving him many open looks from the perimeter. Then on Monday Glenn posted some thoughts about a series of posts that Ken Pomeroy made last week regarding the impact that defenses have on opponents' ability to take and make 3 point field goals.

While doing the video review for the DSS I was even more impressed by how active Lamb was in chasing Jenkins, fighting through screens to stay with him, and generally making sure that the SEC's leading scorer could never get multiple open looks in the game. Lamb didn't do this alone - he occasionally got some help defense from teammates to help slow Jenkins down until he could catch up to him and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was charged with guarding Jenkins when Lamb was on the bench or at times when Kedren Johnson was in the game (Lamb then guarded Johnson while MKG was on Jenkins). Lamb got the primary assignment though: 95% of the time he was the guy defending one of the best shooters in the country.

It would be tempting to say that Lamb had a bad defensive game - Jenkins did score 18 points and shoot 44.4% (4 of 9) on his threes. But a lot of what Lamb did so well was in preventing shots - an aspect of defense that is more difficult to account for systematically, even for something like the DSS. That's what I want to highlight here.

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Click here for an explanation of how the DSS is charted and what the ratings and box score represent.

The Kentucky Wildcats faced a game effort from the Vanderbilt Commodores on Saturday and the game was a tight nit affair, in large part because the typically excellent Wildcat Defense allowed the Vandy offense to score at a 115.6 efficiency - the highest rate allowed by the Cats this season.

More after the jump, but don't miss Greg's post on the Lady Wildcats big win against Mississippi St today.

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Time to clinch the SEC Crown. The Commodores are in town 2 weeks after the Cats came from behind to win that prevented Vandy from getting a come from behind win themselves.

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Click here for an explanation of how the DSS is charted and what the ratings and box score represent.

This was an odd game from a defensive perspective. For the game, the Kentucky Wildcats held the Ole Miss Rebels to 62 points on 66 possessions for a Defensive Efficiency of 93.9. That's not too far off their overall performance against the SEC entering the game (91.9 defensive efficiency) but the defensive effort was a bit uneven.

Early in the game the Cats were engaged, but even before Anthony Davis picked up his 2nd foul Ole Miss was starting to put together an effective offense behind the play of Terrence Henry. The Rebels executed against the press the Cats used against them to get some easy baskets and hit a few three points shots that were moderately contested, but mostly they were able to drive to the basket and get layups and dunks.

With Davis back on the floor for the second half, the Wildcats were back to their typically tough field goal defense as they held the Rebels to only 7 made shots and 15 total points in the first 12 minutes of the game. Once the Cats built a 20 point lead the defensive pressure relaxed somewhat although they didn't give up the kind of easy shots that South Carolina hit in the final minutes of the game at Columbia. Ole Miss hit 5 of their last 7 field goal attempts to make the score (and their FG%) look somewhat respectable, but by then the game was basically over.

On the good side, UK did a terrific job grabbing defensive rebounds and limiting 2nd chance opportunities. That helped counteract the worse-than-usual field goal defense. Everything else was pretty much what we've come to expect from the Cats this year.

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Kentucky faces the Mississippi schools in back to back games, starting with a Saturday contest against the Ole Miss Akbars and followed by a trip to Starkville against the Bulldogs. One wonders if any Kentucky players will get calls on their cell phones this year from Mississippi St fans.

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One of the trends I've mentioned in recent DSS charting posts is the surprisingly low success that the Kentucky Wildcats have had when grabbing the numerous missed shots they create. In conference play, the Cats are grabbing 66.6% of opponents' missed shots (per KenPom). That mark ranks 6th in the SEC and would be tied for 216th in the nation. In all games, Kentucky is grabbing 69% of available defensive rebounds, good for 117th in the country.

The fact that UK has been better overall than they have been in conference play indicates that they were doing much better before conference play began. That's not surprising given the respective level of competition between the conference and non-conference schedules, but UK faced a number of excellent offensive rebounding teams in November and December including North Carolina (6th in the nation in OR%), Loyola MD (12th), Old Dominion (16th), and Lamar (21st), and Louisville (38th). It's not like they beat up on patsies in this particular area.

Indeed, when Kentucky entered conference play they were allowing teams to grab 31% of their own misses against a set of opponents who were otherwise grabbing 35.1% in their other games. The most common explanation is that as a shot blocking team, Kentucky often sees their best rebounders out of position as a result of attempts to block shots. I think that's likely part of it, but I'm not convinced it's the whole story.

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Click here for an explanation of how the DSS is charted and what the ratings and box score represent.

The Kentucky Wildcats faced their biggest road challenge since playing at Indiana back in December and emerged with a big win against a determined Vanderbilt team. Defensively the game featured all the elements that we've come to expect from the Cats - excellent field goal defense and very few free throw attempts for the opponent along with a few forced turnovers and some not-so-great defensive rebounding (particularly in the first half).

Calipari wanted the Cats to force Vanderbilt to the interior and in the first half that seemed to be what the Commodores wanted to do to as they repeatedly dumped the ball inside to Festus Ezeli. Anthony Davis played well (also, water is wet) and the other Cats applied considerable pressure on the perimeter to force tough shots from that area. The result was a terrific defensive stand in the first half that saw Vanderbilt struggle to a 76.7 Offensive Efficiency.

In the second half the Cats backed off the swarming defense that marked the first half and the Commodores were able to knock down some long 3's that included a 10 possession stretch early in the second half where they went 4 of 5 from distance. That got them back in the game, but the rest of the half was marked by spotty shooting and an inability to string together perimeter shots thanks to the Cats' defensive pressure. In the second half the Commodores offensive efficiency improved considerably to 129.0. They were held scoreless over their last 7 possessions though when UK put the game away.

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There was an intriguing question posed by UK1972 in the South Carolina DSS about how the presence of Coach Calipari affects the Wildcat defense from the first half to the second.

How does UK defensive % compare when they are playing defense in front of Cal...as opposed to the half when they are not? Offensively the same question?

I think this is a fascinating question because it seems obvious that a team should play better when they are on the same side of the court as their head coach - on defense in the 1st half and offense in the 2nd half. This question is particularly apropos as UK prepares to play in one of the unique venues in college sports Saturday night.

Fortunately, thanks to the DSS I was able to easily put together the relevant numbers and look at how the UK offensive and defensive efficiency changes from the 1st half to the second.

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This is a big extended weekend for UK basketball in the state of Tennessee. UK faces the first of 3 difficult road games when it travels to Nashville to play Vanderbilt with ESPN Game Day on location. A couple days later the UK Women Hoops squad goes to Tennessee for a game that will likely determine the SEC winner this year. A sweep by the Cats would be delicious.

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Click here for an explanation of how the DSS is charted and what the ratings and box score represent.

Another game, another dominating performance by the Kentucky Wildcats. Wins over Louisville, North Carolina, and Tennessee are always fun, but for my money no victory brings more visceral pleasure than blowing out Florida. The main objective in shutting down Florida's offense is pretty obvious - stop their 3 point shooting, and the Gators shot their worst 3pt accuracy of the season against the Cats. That is not to say that UK played excellent 3pt defense, though it was pretty good (more on this a bit later).

From a defensive standpoint, this game was kind of a mixed bag and emblematic of what the Cats have done in conference play this year. On the good side the Cats were tough on shots and refused to send Florida to the free throw line. On the bad, they didn't force many turnovers and did a poor job grabbing defensive rebounds. That's been the story in conference play this season although the lack of rebounds and forced turnovers hasn't stopped UK from putting up the best Defensive Efficiency in the SEC. If there is one place where the Cats can really improve to cement their place as the best team in America though, it's defensive rebounding.

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Kentucky enters the home stretch of the regular season with the first of 2 games against Florida in Rupp Arena. I think I say this every year, but there is no team I enjoy watching the Cats beat more than the Gators. Here's hoping we get a reprise of 2003.

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Click here for an explanation of how the DSS is charted and what the ratings and box score represent.

On Saturday we had the immense pleasure of watching the Kentucky Wildcats play their best game of the season. For those keeping score at home, this is the third straight game that UK has played their "best game of the season." If this trend continues, I fully expect to see them beat Georgia on Senior Day by a score of 103 to 15.

I listened to Tom Leach's post game interview with Coach Calipari and when Leach asked Cal what the team did defensively to shut South Carolina down, I heard something I never expected from a Calipari interview: silence. There was a long pause and I could almost see the wheels turning in Cal's head as to how to give an answer that would not embarrass Darin Horn or the Gamecock players. Cal eventually answered that when you block a lot of shots it starts to take a toll on the opponent and make them start to second guess whether they want to take a shot or not. Nowhere was this more evident than in the 2nd half when a Gamecock (I don't remember who it was) pump faked approximately 23 times to try and get Anthony Davis into the air before deciding to pass the ball back out to the perimeter.

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