Kentucky basketball's defense not improving. UK's NCAA hopes rest on offense

Kentucky basketball’s defense not improving. UK’s NCAA hopes rest on offense | C.L. Brown

Posted by author February 20, 2025 Basketball

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LEXINGTON — This late in the season and with all the injuries that have piled up, it’s almost unfair to expect Kentucky basketball to get any better defensively. So the Wildcats had better be flawless offensively to win games.

UK became that team in the second half of its 82-61 win over Vanderbilt on Wednesday at Rupp Arena. It overwhelmed the Commodores by connecting on eight of its first 11 shots and using an 18-6 spurt to break open a one-point lead at halftime.

That’s the winning formula for the Cats. Score with such precision to make it so opponents are so stressed to score to keep up that it takes them out of running their offense.

“You come in the game, you’re paranoid about the 3-pointers,” Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said. “We made some scouting report errors in the first half, and you make a scouting report error, and they’re going to make you pay.”

All UK needed to do was grab a double-digit lead to make the Commodores unravel. Byington said the offense that put up 40 points in the first half and shot nearly 50% from the field got “out of character” in the second half. It resulted in scoring a season-low 21 points in the second half and shot just 29.6% from the field.

To be clear, Kentucky never played shutdown defense even before starters Jaxson Robinson, who missed his third straight game, and Lamont Butler, sidelined for his fifth out of the last seven, got injured.

UK entered the game ranked 15th out of 16 teams in the SEC in adjusted defense, according to KenPom.com. (For comparison’s sake, UK ranked sixth last season in the conference, and no one would describe that team as defensive, either.)

Now that they aren’t available, coach Mark Pope is left coming up with game plans just to get over.

Exhibit A played out as UK freshman forward Trent Noah found himself with the task of trying to keep up with Vanderbilt guard and leading scorer Jason Edwards for a couple of five-minute stretches.

Edwards averages 17.6 points per game, and Pope described him as a “microwave scorer” and a “jet guard.” Noah is not that.

Yet Edwards scored just 10 points on 4-of-12 shooting against the Cats.

“If you had asked at the beginning of the season, if that was going to be the game plan, I would have said no,” Pope said. “Never.”

Pope said the biggest adjustment defensively comes at the point of attack. That was Butler’s job.

The 2024 Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year came to UK with a well-earned reputation. Forward Andrew Carr labeled Butler a “one-man press” for the Cats due to his ability to pick up the opposing guard all 94 feet of the floor.

Further complicating things was Robinson’s injury after he inherited the “point of attack” responsibility to fill in for Butler.

“Lamont is a really special point-of-attack defender, and so we can’t replace that,” Pope said. “That’s just a massive challenge for us to try and figure out.”

Pope believes the Cats are improving defensively, noting their communication has gotten better. And Carr pointed out how they’ve tried to be more aggressive on that end since giving up 98 points in a loss at Ole Miss.

What clearly hasn’t failed through injuries and makeshift rotations is Kentucky’s offense, which ranks fifth nationally in adjusted offense, according to KenPom.com.

The Cats shot a sizzling 65.4% from the field in the second half and 58% for the game. After making a season-low four 3-pointers in their loss at Texas, they were back shooting 41% from behind the arc.

It helps that Carr is rounding back into form after having recurring back problems. He was inserted into the starting lineup for the first time since Jan. 18 against Alabama.

Carr scored nine of his 11 points in the second half. As Byington said, paired with Amari Williams, they were a matchup problem. Williams finished with 17 points on 6-of-6 shooting from the field.

“He’s been working so hard to find his way back, and I thought he was brilliant,” Pope said of Carr. “He really did look like his old, physical, attacking self.”

There’s no bigger picture with the Cats right now; it’s just survive the remaining crucible of their SEC schedule and try to advance into March without losing ground on a good seed for the NCAA Tournament.

Kentucky staying sharp on offense is going to be the only way to accomplish that.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.