Thursday, March 5, 2009

Kentucky's Senior Night Debacle

The Kentucky Wildcats suffered a very, very bad loss last night, falling to Georgia 90-85, on Senior Night, no less. Two aspects of this loss are, at first glance most galling. The first is that it was Senior Night, the last home game for the team's seniors. This year Kentucky's only senior is Jared Carter, a little used 7'2" center from Georgetown, KY. As is tradition, he started last night (though he played only four minutes for the game) - his only start for his career. Given the fans' love for both bench-warmers and native Kentuckians, it would have been nice to send Carter out in style.

The second is related to the first. Georgia was an opponent uniquely suited for sending Carter out in style. They are, to put it bluntly, a very bad team. As John Clay notes, coming into the game the Bulldogs were 11-18, and a dismal 2-12 in conference play. However, Clay writes:

But against Kentucky at Rupp, Georgia looked like Los Angeles, as in the Los Angeles Lakers. Terrence Woodbury played like Kobe Bryant, scoring 30 points. Trey Thompkins played like Andrew Bynum. There was a Pau Gasol and a Derek Fisher mixed in there somewhere, as well.


Georgia's problems this season are easy to see. They struggle to score. They just might be the worst offensive team in the SEC. Conventional statistics certainly indicate that. They rank dead last among SEC teams in points per game, at 65.5 (almost 5 points per game behind Vanderbilt, the next worse team). Another simple but slightly less conventional measure of offensive performance is points per shot. The Bulldogs also rank dead last in that, scoring a measly 1.15 points per shot this year. (By contrast, Kentucky leads the SEC in points per shot at 1.4. This means that if Kentucky and Georgia each shoot, say 50 shots in a game, Kentucky will have scored 70 points to Georgia's 57 or 58.)

Last night, however, a Georgia team that averages just over 65 points per game put up 90 on a lethargic Kentucky defense. A Georgia team that averages 1.15 points per shot scored a whopping 1.67 points per shot. To put that in some perspective, Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson are one of the most prolific and most efficient scoring combos in the history of the all-time winningest program in college basketball. Patterson gets 1.59 points per shot, one of the highest marks I've ever seen for someone who is a focal point in an offense. Meeks is not far behind, at 1.52. Last night, Georgia's entire team, by this measure, scored much more efficiently than two of the most efficient scorers in Kentucky basketball history. That's right, the gang that couldn't shoot straight shot better than Meeks and Patterson against Kentucky's defense!

You don't need advanced statistics to tell you that, for the season, Georgia is a very bad offensive team. You don't need advanced statistics to tell you, that last night, against a Kentucky team that even on Senior Night showed no interest whatsoever in guarding anyone, Georgia was a very good offensive team. However, some advanced statistics can give you some appreciation of just how bad Kentucky's defensive performance was last night. We'll get to those statistics - my calculations of offensive efficiency - in a moment. First, a frustrated rant.

All season long Kentucky has had a problem getting points from anyone other than Meeks and Patterson. It is a tribute to just how effective those two are that Kentucky's offense hasn't been historically bad. Last night, however, Kentucky had an excellent offensive game. And while some of that may be attributed to Meeks and Patterson, in that they drew most of the defensive attention, neither of them had a particularly good scoring game.

While Meeks' 23 points look good, they are more that 2 off his season average. Beyond that, he wasn't particular efficient getting them, shooting just 6-16 from the field, and a dismal 2-7 from behind the three point line. He was however, quite effective from the free throw line (as always), hitting 9-10 (right at his average). By no means a bad game - especially when you consider his free throw shooting. But on a game in which the Cats were much better than usual offensively, Meeks was a little below average for him.

Normally that fact - Cats' performance up, Meeks' performance a little down - would be explained by Patterson having a good scoring game. But it isn't this time. While he played an excellent game overall (9 rebounds, 8 blocked shots, 0 turnovers), and while he shot his free throws well (6-6), Patterson, like Meeks' had a below average (for him) offensive game, scoring just 14 points on 4-10 from the floor.

What happened, instead, was what Kentucky fans have been waiting all season for. Other players stepped up. Most notable was Michael Porter, who proved that, when point guard duties are taken from him, he actually can shoot a little. Averaging only 3.7 points per game, he finally raised his three point percentage above 30% by hitting 5-8, in route to a season high 15 points. It was only the second time this year he's been in double figures.

Ramon Harris returned to the form he saw before his frightening collision with Porter earlier this year, scoring 10 points on only 3 field goal attempts. Hitting 2 of them, including a three pointer, while also sinking 5 out of 6 free throws, will do that.

Darius Miller and Perry Stevenson were also active on the offensive end, providing the kind of scoring we should expect from two players with their skill-sets. And while Kevin Galloway didn't play particularly well, coach Gillispie's decision to play him 18 minutes at the point helped free up Michael Porter, contributing to his career game. Relieved of his ball handling duties, Porter was free to run around screens and catch and shoot.

No, the problem this time wasn't Kentucky's inability to get points. It was their inability to stop one of the worst offenses in college basketball.

The statistic I prefer to use to measure how an offense played is offensive efficiency. The formula I use is by no means perfect - there are better one's out there, which is why, when possible, I use data gathered by actual statisticians rather than crank out my own numbers in my basement. However, such advanced formulas are, for whatever reason, generally not applied to college basketball. So, to see how efficient, say, SEC offenses are, I have a pretty simple formula that does very well:

Offensive efficiency = [(Points scored)\[(FGA)+(1/2*FTA)+(TO)]-(Off Reb)]*100

This gets roughly how many points a team scores per every 100 possessions. That's a better measure of offensive performance than points per game because it adjusts for pace. A team that plays at a slower pace, and thus has fewer possessions, isn't penalized. A team that plays at a faster pace, and thus has more possessions, isn't rewarded. What matters isn't how many possessions you have, but what you do with those possessions.

Anyway, by this measure, as with the ones above, Georgia is a very, very bad offensive team. Historically bad. Their offensive efficiency is 92.13, dead last by a wide margin. To see just how bad they are, consider this:

Florida leads the SEC is offensive efficiency, at 112.66. Auburn is 11th, second to last, at 102.42. That means Georgia's offensive efficiency of 92.13 trails the next worse team by a whopping 10.29, more than the 10.24 between Florida and Auburn.

Against Kentucky last night, however, Georgia had an offensive efficiency of 115.38. That's an incredible 23.25 above their season average. For one night, against Kentucky's defense, Georgia was the best offense in the SEC.

That's some really bad defense.

Thus, even though Kentucky finally - at least for a night - solved the critical problem of how to get points from somebody not named Meeks or Patterson, they got beat by a very bad team. On Senior Night. With the defense that refused to show up.

Good thing their coach is "defensive-minded" coach, huh?

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