Don't look now, but Kentucky's defensive numbers are on the rise

Kentucky‘s trip to Oxford to take on the Ole Miss Rebels was a low point for the Wildcats on the defensive end of the floor. They gave up 98 points with Chris Beard‘s squad shooting 54.7 percent from the field and 43.3 percent from three with an incredible — or horrendous, if you’re looking at it from UK’s side — 1.42 points per possession.

Mark Pope took that one on the chin following the 14-point loss that felt even worse considering the Rebels led by as many as 27 in the second half. It was the worst all-around performance of the season, no excuses, even with Lamont Butler out.

“I’m doing a poor job with our team defensively right now. It’s a credit to Ole Miss and it’s a real issue for me and I’ve got to figure out how to help our team have more of a presence,” Pope said.

The Wildcats fell to No. 112 in the country in KenPom‘s adjusted defensive efficiency after that one. That was just a few short weeks after Nate Oats, who led an Alabama team also ranked No. 112 nationally in defensive efficiency to the program’s first-ever Final Four a year ago, said Kentucky could follow in his team’s footsteps and make a similar run despite the shortcomings on that end of the floor.

“I said, ‘Listen, we’re throwing out the regular season. I don’t care about the last two weeks. Let’s try to be the best defensive team in the country for the next three weeks, and let’s see what we can do with it,'” Oats said after beating Kentucky 102-97 at Rupp Arena, a game that also saw very little defense. “If you go look at our defensive efficiency for those five NCAA Tournament games we played, it was a lot better than it was during the regular season.”

Fast forward to Wednesday when Kentucky held Vanderbilt to just 61 points — a season-low for the Commodores. That was after holding South Carolina to its second-worst scoring output of the season with just 47 points, only to hold Tennessee to 64 points a few days later, tied for its third-worst scoring output. They regressed in Austin against Texas by allowing 82 points, but bounced back in a major way with this win.

Where do things stand as of February 20 with five games to go in the regular season? Kentucky sits at No. 68 overall in the KenPom defensive efficiency ratings, good for a 44-spot jump in a matter of two weeks. As KSR’s Brandon Ramsey pointed out Thursday morning, the Wildcats had the 14th-best defense in the country in that four-game span, according to Bart Torvik.

Only Dartmouth (1), Arizona (2), Clemson (3), Texas A&M (4), UNLV (5), Abilene Christian (6), Saint Mary’s (7), Iowa State (8), San Diego State (9), Arkansas (10), Florida (11), St. John’s (12) and Mississippi State (13) have been better. Quite the change from how we felt in Oxford — especially considering this is the most shorthanded Kentucky has been all season.

“Hopefully for us, when we play Kentucky, they wait until March to get the defense figured, at least for the one game at our place. But it is possible to get the defense — because we got ours going late,” Oats said that day at Rupp Arena. “It’s better late than never, but it’d be nice to have a solid defense for the rest of January, February, March, maybe into April and see what happens.”

Hate to break it to you, Coach, but they’re figuring things out right before that follow-up trip to Tuscaloosa.

What’s working for the Cats in Mark Pope’s eyes?

“Well, there’s a lot of room for improvement because we’re not great. We are getting better. With this new group, we’re getting better,” he said, singling out the likes of Travis Perry, Collin Chandler, Trent Noah, Koby Brea and Otega Oweh as guys stepping up in this stretch. “… We’re understanding ourselves better.  We are communicating better, we are locked in together a little better. I thought the guys had a terrific defensive performance in the second half.”

They’ll need to keep that momentum rolling into Saturday as the Wildcats take on one of the top offenses in college basketball.