Mark Pope noticed a new wrinkle in Tennessee's defense vs. UCLA

Kentucky has already played Tennessee twice, beating the Vols in both Lexington and Knoxville. Even though Mark Pope and his staff have a good idea of what they’ll be up against Friday night in round three, Pope expects Rick Barnes to have some tricks up his sleeve. In fact, he told Tom Leach on Monday night that he noticed some new wrinkles in the Vols’ vaunted defense while watching the film of Tennessee’s second-round win over UCLA on the way home from Milwaukee.

“We’re flying home from Milwaukee, watching the UCLA vs. Tennessee game, and all of a sudden, towards the end of the first half, they throw in a three-quarter court, 1-2-2 [press] that’s more aggressive than any 1-2-2 that we’ve seen this year. We’ve seen a bunch from Mississippi State and Texas A&M and Missouri, and it was brand new, and it really caught UCLA off guard. I know that UCLA, they were so frustrated and back-to-back plays, they dribbled it into the coffin corner and turned it over and it just hadn’t been something you’ve seen in scouting before.”

Tennessee limited UCLA to just 58 points on 35.8% shooting. The Vols held the Bruins scoreless over the final 3:21 of the first half (likely when they switched to the 1-2-2), going on an 8-0 run to take a 32-25 lead into halftime. Tennessee opened the second half on a 14-6 run to further take control. Kentucky found ways to score against Tennessee’s defense in the prior matchups, putting up 78 points in Lexington and 75 in Knoxville, but Pope knows the Vols will be especially eager to shut the Cats down for a spot in the Elite Eight.

“Tennessee is one of the most consistent teams that you’ll see. They’re the top-ranked, number one or two depending on what metric you want to look at, defensive team in the entire country. And they do it because they’re insanely consistent with what they do. They’re very aggressive. They put on a ton of pressure. They blitz ball screens and hard show ball screens. They give you nothing easy, and they’re a lockdown defensive team. They’ve been the same team all season long.”

What’s the key to Kentucky’s success against Tennessee’s defense? Ball movement.

“We’ll pay a ton of attention to trying to keep movement with this ball,” Pope said. “For us, the key has been how much movement we can get. And it’s a battle, right? That’s the fight. Their pressure wants to keep you stationary, and how aggressive can we be with our movement, on and off the ball.”

Kentucky’s defense has improved considerably in the last two months; in fact, since the Ole Miss game on Feb. 4, Kentucky’s defense is rated better than Tennessee’s. Pope was proud to share that Kentucky’s defense ranks second best on BartTorvik through the first two games in the NCAA Tournament behind Houston. That said, Tennessee presents a challenge. The Vols hit 11 threes vs. UCLA, with Chaz Lanier and Zakai Zeigler combining for 35 points.

“Chaz Lanier is such a problem,” Pope said. “[Zakai] Zeigler is such a problem. They have a bevy of talented scores that can go create their own basket. They run a bunch of actions. What we’re kind of seeing in film is they’re getting a little more freedom with how they do things and what they do. So, us just trying to dial in as best we can to the game plan of how they score, how they operate, what they’re looking for is something we’ll do.”

Pope has some tricks up his own sleeve

Did you notice something different about Kentucky’s offense in the second half? Pope said he rolled out some actions that the Cats experimented with midway through SEC play.

“In the second half of the Illinois game, we got to milk a couple of actions that we hadn’t used a ton over our last six or seven games, but we had toyed with in the middle of the conference season that had been pretty effective. And I think that’s a huge part of game planning. I think it’s really important. We actually guarded some actions different, with a different emphasis than we have through the course of the season. I think that could be really disruptive.”

Pope didn’t want to reveal too much, but said he’s having a blast continuing to fine-tune his system ahead of game three vs. the Vols. He compared preparing for a team he’s faced so many times to a best-of-seven series in the NBA Playoffs.

“It was, when I got to be a part of it, such a fascinating endeavor because you would see the whole dynamic of the series shift from one game to the next, as teams game plan for what went right or what went wrong the last game. So game four could have a completely different complexion than game two. It could be like both teams were totally transformed. I don’t think we quite see that in college.

“We haven’t played Tennessee for six weeks, which is an eternity in the game of college basketball, but we do have a bunch of film to go over. And then from that film, you don’t kind of take that film as the gospel truth; you spend your time evaluating the film, trying to put myself in in Coach Barnes’ head, for example, and see what he would see, and how he see and what he would want to do with it, what adjustments he would want to make, and and then it’s a guessing game and a preparation game from there.”

After seeing Pope’s game plan vs. Illinois, I can’t wait to see what he dials up.