Offensive Efficiency Tells the Story in the Kentucky-Florida Game

I've already noted how poorly the Cats' defense played against Georgia on Senior Night, and even argued that the defense that game might have been even worse than in the VMI game. To rehash that, in a game Kentucky absolutely had to win, in the charged atmosphere of Rupp on Senior Night, in a game in which one of their fatal flaws - the inability to get points out of anyone not named Jodie Meeks or Patrick Patterson - was temporarily solved, against far and away the worst offense in the SEC, Kentucky got beat by an awful Georgia team because they refused to guard anyone.

For the season Georgia had an offensive efficiency (points per possession times 100) of 92.13. Yet against Kentucky the Bulldogs managed to post an incredible mark of 115.38.

Florida, by contrast, entered their game against Kentucky yesterday leading the SEC in offensive efficiency at 112.66. Yet against a suddenly stout Kentucky defense, they managed to post an efficiency of just 91.60, worse than Georgia's dismal mark for the season, in route to a mere 60 points. You'd think, then, that a Kentucky team that holds a potent Florida offense more than 20 points off their SEC-leading season mark for offensive efficiency would get a much needed win, right? Alas Kentucky's offense managed an offensive efficiency of just 75.71.

That, simply put, is putrid.

Empty possessions hurt an offense, and so they, consequently, hurt a teams offensive efficiency rating. Empty possessions are created by two things: turnovers, and missed shots that the other team rebounds. All season long Kentucky has had a problem with turnovers, and the Florida game has been no exception. For the game I calculated that Kentucky had 70 possessions. Of those, 23, or about 33%, ended in turnovers. When you hand the ball to the other team 1 out of every 3 times you have it, you'd better hit most of your shots, or you're going to struggle to score points.

For the year Kentucky has hit a high percentage of their shots, principally a product of two very efficient scorers, Meeks and Patterson, taking most of those shots. Yesterday, however, neither Meeks nor Patterson shot well (as outlined here. Because they still took most of the shots (combining for 35 of the team's 53 field goal attempts) the team shot a relatively poor percentage, even though the rest of the team actually shot pretty well (10-18).

Consequently, the Cats scored only 53 points in 70 possessions, resulting in a dismal offensive efficiency of 75.71.

Once again, as soon as one problem is solved, another one surfaces.