Kentucky had a shockingly low offensive rebounding percentage against Jackson State

There has been very little to complain about thus far in the Mark Pope era. Nothing, really. For someone who evoked such a meh reaction within the first 24 hours of his hire, Pope has quickly garnered unbridled and nearly unanimous support amongst all of Big Blue Nation. So, finding something in the world of Kentucky basketball less than awesome is legitimately tough. However, the folks over at Big Blue History may have found one.

Against Jackson State, Kentucky had only four offensive rebounds out of 41 total rebounds. That is an offensive rebounding rate of just 9.8 percent, the fifth lowest in school history (or at least since they started keeping track of offensive rebounds). The only four games where Kentucky had a lower offensive rebounding percentage were in 2001 against LSU (9.4 percent), 2008 against Kansas State (7.7 percent), 2008 against Ole Miss (7.7 percent), and 2018 against Alabama (3.7 percent).

Similar to Kentucky’s game against Jackson State, the Wildcats won each of these games, so offensive rebounding percentage is not exactly a good indicator of team success.

Still, Mark Pope called out offensive rounding as an area of emphasis earlier in the season. After the Wright State game, he said, “We like to be a 30-percent offensive rebounding percentage team. We’d like to be that consistently. If we could be a 14 offensive rebound per-game team, it would be extraordinary. We’re just not living in that space at all right now.”

Again, it is hard to complain coming off yet another blowout win. This Kentucky team has been hitting on all cylinders so nitpicking about offensive rebounding percentage seems petty at best. But you know…insert scientifically-backed inspirational quote about always looking for room for improvement here.