Bruiser Flint says Kentucky needs to be "more consistent" with the minor details

With John Calipari at the helm, Kentucky men’s basketball has always been able to rely on its defense when things weren’t running smoothly on the other end. But over the last couple of weeks, the Wildcats’ defense has uncharacteristically struggled against Southeastern Conference opponents.

Kentucky grades out as the worst defensive team during SEC games so far this season. Both KenPom and BartTorvik rank UK dead last in defensive efficiency among the 14 conference programs. It’s a small sample size — just four games, two of them coming on the road — but it’s quickly breeding a pressing issue. Considering the Wildcats haven’t been smashing teams on offense, the defense is simply giving up too many points to craft a winning formula.

Calipari has preached multiple times this season about how the overall issues with this group are fixable. The makeup of the roster, at least on the defensive end, is more than capable of turning it around in that regard. No matter what fans think of Kentucky on offense, there is more than enough talent there on defense. Sahvir Wheeler and Cason Wallace are two of the best guard defenders in the conference. There is plenty of length and athleticism on the backline.

Last season’s team, which is visually close to the same type of players featured on this year’s roster, was incredibly efficient on defense. Calipari even admitted earlier in the season that he thought his team would be better on defense.

Taking the entire 2022-23 schedule of games into account, Kentucky actually ranks rather high in defensive efficiency across the country — and that includes the losses to Michigan State, Gonzaga, and UCLA. There is proof in the pudding that the ‘Cats can (and should) be an above-average team on defense. Fans saw it consistently throughout the beginning of the season — against the good and bad teams.

So how does Kentucky get back to that level? Associate to the head coach Bruiser Flint, who acknowledged UK’s recent defensive struggles, believes it has to deal with staying more focused on the minor details as opposed to an overall team-wide decline.

“For me, our details have to be more consistent,” Flint said during the team’s pre-Tennessee press conference on Friday morning. “I think sometimes our details aren’t consistent and it shows in the game and we go through periods in the game where we struggle. We gotta be better at our details as a team.

“Knowing who we’re playing, knowing what defense we’re in, things like that. It only takes one person to break down, and we’ve struggled with that a little bit. We have to be a little more consistent within the game, our details, and what we’re actually trying to do.”

In particular, much has been made as of late surrounding Oscar Tshiebwe‘s defense. The reigning national player of the year has been called out in postgame press conferences by both the opposing head coaches of Kentucky’s most recent losses: Alabama’s Nate Oats and South Carolina’s Lamont Paris. They specifically pointed to Tshiebwe’s defense guarding ball screens, which even led to him getting pulled in the early moments during the blowout loss to Alabama because of how badly the Crimson Tide exploited him in that area.

But Flint says Kentucky’s recent defensive struggles go beyond Tshiebwe simply getting caught in too many ball screens.

“I’m gonna put this to rest — they are not the first team that attacked Oscar,” Flint said. “They’re not the first or the last. They’ve been attacking Oscar since last year. (The opposing head coaches) just expressed it to you guys… Everybody tries to put Oscar in ball screens. Everybody does. Like we said, our defense has slipped a little bit, so it’s not just Oscar. We’ve gotta get ourselves together as a unit. But don’t let anybody tell you that they come up with the plan to attack Oscar, because they all attack Oscar that way.”

While correct, there’s no denying that Tshiebwe was played off the floor early against Alabama because of his inability to defend the ball screens. He finished with just four points and six rebounds in 23 minutes — his second-fewest minutes against a Power 5 opponent as a Wildcat. But Kentucky found ways to mask his deficiencies on that end last season and even throughout most of this season.

For some reason, however, that mask has been ripped off over the last two-plus weeks. The details Flint referred to have something to do with that.

“I mean, I’m gonna go and say it again. I don’t want everybody to think they came up with some game plan to attack Oscar, because everybody tries to attack Oscar in ball screens,” Flint reiterated. “And they do it to try to get him out of the game. Because they know if they get him out of the game, that’s a huge loss for us. Last year, same thing — they put Oscar in ball screens. Honestly, basketball is played in ball screens. So like I said, our details have to be better.”

Even if teams have been attacking Tshiebwe in ball screens since he arrived at UK, it’s still evident that something needs to change. Kentucky’s best player cannot get pulled from a game because the opposing team is going at him possession after possession, especially if this is something that’s always been a problem.

With a road matchup against No. 5 Tennessee looming on Saturday afternoon, the minor details need to get ironed out sooner rather than later.