Scouting Report: Western Kentucky Hilltoppers

For the second time in as many games, Kentucky has been forced to scramble to find an opponent. Due to positive tests within the Louisville program the Cardinals were forced to back out of Wednesday night’s rivalry game. Coach Calipari then announced on his radio show Monday evening that the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers would come to Rupp Arena instead. Attempts were made to try and schedule Gonzaga, Ohio State, and Texas, but the logistics couldn’t be worked out. However, once the Hilltoppers original Wednesday night game was called off due to health concerns at Austin Peay, it created an opening for the in-state programs to come together.

WKU has won seven of their last eight games after a 1-3 start to their season. Most notably, they are coming off of a 10-point win against Louisville on Saturday. However, their most impressive performance was the previous weekend when they beat Ole Miss 71-48. Coach Rick Stansbury has the Hilltoppers playing their best basketball of the season right now.

Preparing for the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers with just 48 hours notice presents a unique difficulty due to their 2-3 Zone defense. The Wildcats haven’t faced much zone at all this season so this will be a new challenge. A good shooting night at home would go a long way to ensuring an upset doesn’t occur.

It was another quick turnaround, but we’ve got a full scouting report prepared as usual for the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. We will go over the personnel, dive into their offensive scheme, breakdown how to attack the 2-3 Zone, and deliver the keys to the game. Let’s dive on in and get to know the Hilltoppers.

Personnel

Starters

#20 Dayvion McKnight: 6’1″ 195 lbs, Sophomore Point Guard

14.1 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 6.4 apg

Lefty. Point Guard. He is going to bring it up the floor and initiate the offense. Will push it hard in transition some. Non-shooter. Really wants to drive it left. NO LEFT HAND DRIVES!!! You need to back up and keep your feet away to stay between him and the basket. When he brings it in transition he wants to go left. Get over and cut him off. Go under the ballscreens and handoffs. Closeout short on the perimeter. Do not guard him beyond the 3-point line. You are closing out short to take away the left hand drive. Do not over help as he drives. Excellent passer. Help off of him when he doesn’t have it and then closeout short. Must stay between him and the basket. No left hand drives. No layups for him.

#55 Camron Justice: 6’3″ 185 lbs, Graduate Student Guard

13.2 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 3.1 apg

SHOOTER!!! NO 3’s!!! 58 of 101 shots have been 3’s. Need to be tight to him at all times to take away his 3-point attempts. Get over the ballscreens and handoffs. Chase off of downscreens and flares. Tighten up as the ball comes towards you. Do not help off of him. Get all the way out and take him away from 3. Pick him up early in transition. If he isn’t dribbling you aren’t close enough. Make him drive it. Once you take him away from 3 he will drive it right. Just stay on his hip and make him finish over you as he drives it. Don’t over help when he drives it. Will make plays for others. Your only job when guarding him is taking away his 3-point attempts. No 3’s!

#14 Luke Frampton: 6’5″ 205 lbs, Redshirt Senior Guard

9.6 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 2.4 apg

SHOOTER!!! NO 3’s!!! 73 of 103 shots have been 3’s. Need to be tight to him at all times to take away his 3-point attempts. Get over the ballscreens and handoffs. Chase off of downscreens and flares. Tighten up as the ball comes towards you. Do not help off of him. If he isn’t dribbling you aren’t close enough. Make him drive it. Not as comfortable handling the ball as he is just catching and shooting. Really pressure him and stay on his hip as he drives it. Come make a play and take it off of him if you can. Your only job when guarding him is taking away his 3-point attempts. No 3’s!

#3 Jairus Hamilton: 6’8″ 230 lbs, Senior Forward

16.5 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 2.0 apg

Skilled 4-man. Capable shooter. Need to be there on the catch to give a hard contest to the catch-and-shoot 3’s. Once you take away the initial catch-and-shoot you need to bounce back and guard the right hand drive. Better as a driver than a shooter. NO RIGHT HAND DRIVES!!! Really wants to drive it right. Will face you up and drive it right inside. If he starts going left he is always going to spin back right to finish. Keep him going left and make him finish back into you with his right hand. Right hand, left shoulder in the post. Bring help when you can when he drives it or has it inside. 22 assists to 30 turnovers. You will be able to come take it off of him. Not thinking about passing as he drives. No right hand drives. Contest everything. More shots than points for him.

#33 Jamarion Sharp: 7’5″ 235 lbs, Junior Center

8.2 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 4.8 bpg

Huge 5-man. Elite rim protector defensively. You have to be ready to play off of two feet every time you drive it. Be more willing to drive and kick. Making the extra pass, and playing off of two feet, will neutralize his rim protection. Ballscreens and rolls offensively. Really looking for it on the roll. We need to continue to give ground in our shadow/drop coverage and stay between him and the basket. Will look to duck-in for deep post catches. Be physical with him and get him off of the block. No post catches with two feet in the paint. Can’t help up off of him at the rim or it’ll be a lob for a dunk. Have to work hard to box him out. Play off of two feet. Stay between him and the basket. Foul if you are beat. No And-1s. Box out!

Bench

#4 Josh Anderson: 6’6″ 190 lbs, Fifth Year Guard

11.0 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 2.4 apg

Backup wing. Capable shooter. Need to be there on the catch to take away the initial catch-and-shoot 3. No catch-and-shoot 3’s. Once you take that away you need to bounce back and get ready to guard the right hand drive. No right hand drives! Physical, athletic driver. Make him score with you between him and the basket. Going to get back to his right hand to finish. Will throw it ahead to him in transition. Get back and protect the basket. Box out. No right hand drives. No layups.

#1 Jaylen Butz: 6’9″ 230 lbs, Redshirt Senior Forward

5.8 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 0.3 apg

Backup forward. Physical on the block. Will duck-in looking for deep post catches. Be physical with him and get him off of the block. His percentages will go down the further off the block you make him catch it. Right hand, left shoulder in the post. Get your hands up and make him score over you. Physical on his left shoulder. Very good offensive rebounder. Box out!

#13 Sherman Brashear: 6’5″ 180 lbs, Sophomore Guard

5.6 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 0.4 apg

SHOOTER!!! NO 3’s! 38 of 52 shots have been 3’s. Need to be tight to him at all times to take away his 3-point attempts. Get over the ballscreens and handoffs. Chase off of downscreens and flares. Tighten up as the ball comes towards you. Do not help off of him. Really pressure him and make him drive it. If he isn’t dribbling you aren’t close enough. No 3’s.

Western Kentucky Hilltoppers Offense

Head Coach Rick Stansbury is a Motion guy, and that has remained true this season with the Hilltoppers. #20 McKnight can really go with the ball and creates opportunities for them to score in transition. This is the most uptempo team Coach Stansburg has had at WKU by a significant margin. However, in the half court, they will work the ball a little more and use high ballscreens to get him going downhill for playmaking opportunities. It is a 4-around-1 Motion with big #33 Sharp coming out to ballscreen.

#14 Frampton and #55 Justice each attempt right around six 3’s per game, but otherwise this isn’t a super aggressive group from beyond the arc. While those two have an ultimate green light, and #3 Hamilton will get them up as well, Western Kentucky doesn’t have many shooters beyond those guys. That keeps their overall attempts from 3 lower. Where they do excel is around the basket with #20 McKnight, #3 Hamilton, and of course #55 Sharp being very good finishers. The Hilltoppers are 61st nationally in 2-point percentage at 53.9%.

They will run a handful of set plays, but expect for them to play in transition as much as possible and then ballscreen within their 4-around-1 Motion. If we guard the ballscreens well and keep them from getting easy opportunities on the break it will be hard for them to score enough in the half court.

Middle Ballscreen Roll/Replace

This is one of the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers two favorite set plays in the half court. They will run some pre-movement which is pretty much just all false action to change sides of the floor and shift the defense. Then, they will get to a middle ballscreen and automatically twist around to get the ball handler coming back to his right. As #33 rolls to the basket, #3 replaces up to the perimeter behind the play. This is a hard action to guard because you can’t hedge or shadow that second immediate ballscreen. If you can see it coming we need to essentially X-out by having the defender guarding #3 stay and take the roll while #33’s man would stay out on the perimeter.

Diagonal Screen the Screener

This diagonal screen the screener set is the Hilltoppers other favorite called action. As a general rule, anytime the 5-man comes out to the perimeter and isn’t setting a ballscreen it should trigger in your brain that a backscreen is coming. When guarding #55 you have to give little to no help on the backscreen or communicate the switch in order to make sure he is taken away from 3. He is open curling the downscreen after setting it initial diagonal backscreen.

Here is another look at the same action. It is really hard to guard when #55 sets the backscreen because, as we talked about above, you can’t really give help towards the basket. Louisville gave a little help in the last clip and it led to a 3. Here, Ole Miss doesn’t help at all and gives up a layup off of the backscreen. This could have been avoided by jumping to the ball. We don’t need to be this tight to #4 when the ball is two passes away. Don’t allow yourself to be screened by jumping to the ball.

Drag Ballscreen

Western Kentucky loves to set ballscreens with #33 Sharp and let him roll to the basket. As they come down in transition they will set this little drag ballscreen for #20 McKnight some as well. It can be hard to do, but once the ball is stopped as it is here you need to get back off of #20 so you are ready to go under the ballscreens. Your feet shouldn’t be this close to him outside of the 3-point line. Getting screened as opposed to go under leads to the screener’s defender having to stay with #20 off the ballscreen and opens up #33 on the roll.

Western Kentucky Hilltoppers Defense

The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers are playing a lot of 2-3 Zone now. There will still be possessions of man-to-man, especially when #33 Sharp is out of the game, but we should expect to primarily go against 2-3 Zone. Playing more zone has coincided with the Hilltoppers playing better and going on a nice winning streak. Let’s breakdown what their zone looks like.

First of all, having a 7’5″ guy in the middle can cover up a lot of issues defensively. #33 Sharp is a true game-changer which we will touch more on shortly. With having him in there, Coach Stansbury obviously wants to keep him planted at the rim as much as possible. This means that their guards will try to cover the high post as much as possible instead of asking #33 Sharp to step up at all. When the guards cover the high post it leads to two things. First, you have driving lanes from the wings. Secondly, when you do get the ball to the high post it leaves you an open shot or opportunity to kick to a wing for a shot.

In this clip, once Louisville was able to enter the ball from the wing to the high post it forced #33 Sharp to guard the ball. Just occupying him for a second allowed the cut along the baseline for a layup. These quick, simple passes are the name of the game against the Hilltoppers zone.

There are two more clips we need to show of #33 Sharp impacting the game at the rim. This is to reiterate the importance of playing off of two feet tonight.

If you don’t play off of two feet at the end of your drives you will end up looking silly and getting your shot beat against the backboard. This will be a game where the extra dump off pass or driving to kick will be much more effective than actually scoring at the rim off of the first drive. There will be opportunities for lay-ups and dunks once you occupy #33 Sharp, but just driving it in and scoring won’t happen often. Be unselfish at the rim and make the extra pass.

Lastly, per KenPom, Western Kentucky opponents shoot the fewest free throws of anyone in the country. The zone lends itself to not fouling and it is something Coach Stansbury has always instilled in his teams. Additionally, opponents are scoring 43.7% of their points from beyond the arc which is the second most nationally. We cannot fall in love with the 3 tonight, but you have to be willing to let it fly when the ball is kicked out after penetration.

Keys to the Game

• No 3’s for #55 Justice or #14 Frampton. Need to take these two guys away from 3. Chase them. Be tight at all times. No help off of them. No 3’s!
• Contain #20 McKnight off of the dribble. No left hand drives! Get back and get the ball stopped in transition. Go under the ballscreens and handoffs.
• Play off of two feet at the end of your drives. Don’t let #33 Sharp dominate the game as a rim protector. No more than 2 blocks for him.
• Get stops to play in transition. Beat their zone down the floor and be aggressive in transition. This starts with getting stops defensively.