Kentucky's 3-point shooting vs. Duke boosted by practicing with different basketball

In preparation for the Champions Classic last night in Atlanta, Kentucky head coach Mark Pope had his players practice with the actual basketball they would use against the No. 6 Duke Blue Devils.

Through the preseason and first two regular season games, Kentucky players had been using a Nike basketball — the standard ball used by UK. But, according to A Sea of Blue’s Drew Brown, Pope had his players practice with a Spalding basketball in the leadup to beating Duke. Spalding is the ball that was used in the Champions Classic.

“Oh yeah we’ve been practicing with Spalding all week!” Pope said to Brown.

Sounds like a very minor and obvious detail when going into such a high-profile matchup, right? Well, it might have played a major role in the Wildcats coming out on top, 77-72.

KSR’s Matt Jones pointed out some interesting shooting stats from Tuesday night’s two Champions Classic games. In the first game, a 77-69 win for Kansas over Michigan State, the two teams combined to shoot just 8-41 (19.5 percent) from long range. Kansas went 5-17 while Michigan State was even worse at 3-24.

Kansas had been using a Wilson basketball this season while Michigan State had been using Nike.

In game two, a five-point victory for the Wildcats, Duke was nearly as bad from distance as the Spartans, finishing 4-23 (17.4 percent) on the night. The Blue Devils had also been using a Nike basketball this season.

But Kentucky? Pope’s team shot 10-25 (40 percent) from deep, including five straight makes to open the game. UK was used to the Nike basketballs but switched to Spalding ahead of the Duke game. Did this factor into the Wildcats’ good shooting performance? Did other coaches not make it a priority to practice with the same Spalding ball? We can only guess (and we’ll guess yes for the sake of our non-existent argument).

Some might think a basketball is just a basketball, but KSR’s Steven Peake did his homework in April 2023 when the bright orange-colored Wilson Evo NXT basketball used in the NCAA Tournament saw a significant dip in three-point shooting. It’s not crazy to think that playing with a different ball could hurt a team that is used to playing with another, especially in a one-game setting.

Pope made sure that didn’t happen though.