Kentucky's loss to Ohio State featured a bad mix of aggression and passivism

Kentucky laid a proverbial egg against Ohio State. The box score featured a host of oddities, mostly bad, and provided the type of stat hunting that not even Corey Price finds fun. At one point in the second half, Kentucky had shot 13 3-pointers, of which they made two and air-balled four. They finished with 10 more free throws than field goals made and shot a putrid 29.8 percent. In the first half, they had an astonishing 8-minute and 13-second field goal drought.

Insert the obligatory hat tip to Ohio State’s defense here. They played up in Kentucky’s face all game and it bothered the Wildcats. Unfortunately, some players shied away from that intensity while others seemed to overcompensate for it, often crossing the line between playing with aggression and recklessness.

Low energy and hesitation are a bad combination

Coaches love a good pump fake. It is a move underutilized during the Cal era and at times has been deadly this season, especially when opponents fall for it against Koby Brea. However, against Ohio State, Kentucky sometimes relied too much on the pump fake and it cost them. On one particular play, Andrew Carr pump-faked a wide-open 3 which gave his man time to recover. A few passes later, Carr had to shoot a contested 3 with the shot clock running low and missed it.

That example isn’t to call out Carr, but it exemplifies the type of hesitancy we saw throughout the game.

Jaxson Robinson is another guy Kentucky needs more from. He is a quiet guy by nature, which is totally fine. Even in the games where he scores 20 or more points, it sometimes feels like he’s not out there a la Antonio Reeves. However, if he is going to be the guy for Kentucky, he has to assert himself when his team needs him. He did it against Gonzaga, so we know it is in him. Big Blue Nation would just love to see it more often.

Also, with Kerr Kriisa out, Robinson needs to be the backup point guard because Travis Perry is not ready for the big stage quite yet. I know Robinson doesn’t like it, but you know…I sometimes don’t like eating my wife’s cooking and yet I do it anyway.

When Kentucky wasn’t being passive, they were being overly aggressive

Some players tried to overcome the offense’s staleness with blinded aggression. On multiple occasions, Lamont Bulter carried the rock like a running back with a football blasting through the line only to get swallowed up by large defensemen. On one play, he drove completely solo against four red jerseys leading to a jump ball and a turnover. This same overly aggressive mentality led to some silly fouls on defense, and Butler fouled out for the first time this season.

Butler is a bulldog and his approach to the game has won and will win Kentucky several games, but against Ohio State, he had a few too many instances of rabidness. He scored just four points on 1-7 shooting, tying the lowest scoring total of a Kentucky player in the game following a 30-point performance in the shot clock era.

If Kentucky didn’t have Otega Oweh, they would have lost by more than 20. His multiple hard drives to the lane drew a flurry of fouls, leading to him shooting (and making) 13 free throws on the night. At the same time, he shot just 4-13 from the field, missing several attempts from the paint as it looked like he sometimes tried to draw the foul more than make the bucket.

Kentucky only hit 17 shots, the fewest since 2019, but 11 of those makes came off an assist. This is Pope basketball and the type of flow his offense needs to score with regularity. When they are playing too passively or too recklessly, you get the mess we saw at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.

They’ll have 10 days to figure it out before Brown comes to Rupp on New Year’s Eve.