Watch the Tape: Florida Gators

We’ve spent a lot of time this season trying to drive home the fact that it is really hard to win on the road. Losses in College Station and Columbia are going to happen more frequently than they did years ago. That is the new landscape of college basketball and the Southeastern Conference.

However, losing at Rupp Arena is a different story. The Kentucky Wildcats now have two home losses this season and both are against unranked teams. First, it was UNC Wilmington, who looks unlikely to even win the Colonial Athletic Conference. Then, on Wednesday night, it was the Florida Gators who will likely be a bubble team come Selection Sunday. Data points like that make it really hard to build a strong resume.

There are a lot of tough questions to answer in moments like this. For everything on the court, Kentucky’s inability to have everyone available for a game is a problem. Injuries happen, but the best ability is availability, and right now the Wildcats are not very good at being available. Then, you have the continued defensive problems. The lack of improvement is concerning and frustrating. It is the same players making the same mistakes game after game. Kentucky is wasting an elite offense by letting the margin for error evaporate because they give up as many as they score. It is now February and it is hard to imagine that things magically improve this far into the season. We might be stuck in a situation where the ‘Cats are who they are.

At the end of the day, Kentucky led by four points with less than 30 seconds to play in the game. They had a good shooter at the free-throw line to ice the game with 13 seconds left. However, Florida was able to force overtime and eventually win 94-91. We are going to primarily analyze the end of regulation and overtime, but that isn’t to absolve the rest of the game from blame. There obviously were a lot of really good things the Wildcats did, but there was also an 11-0 run from the end of the first half to the beginning of the second half that was equally as costly as anything that happened in the final minutes. For the sake of this breakdown though, focus will be placed on the end-of-game setting.

As always, we’ve been hard at work in the KSR Film Room breaking down Kentucky’s latest contest. This was, quite frankly, not a fun one to spend time rewatching. It is hard to describe how fully the ‘Cats let this one slip away. Poor decisions, lack of execution, and total breakdowns of defensive discipline led to a brutal home loss. It shouldn’t be all doom and gloom, but it is hard to see a path ahead that includes winning the Southeastern Conference at this point. There are too many tough games and now two full games to make up. However, there is a perfect opportunity to remove the sour taste from our collections mouths on Saturday with the rival Tennessee Volunteers coming to Lexington. Let’s dive on into the film and take a closer look at Kentucky’s 94-91 overtime loss to the Florida Gators.

End of Regulation – Lack of Execution

It is easy to point to the final possession and get off a take about what could or should have happened. We will do that here as well. However, there were a couple of key miscues before that moment that allowed the Florida Gators to be within striking distance. Kentucky had opportunities to put the game away and they never could convert. Having more talent has helped to mask some late-game problems, but this team is still not very good in pressure movements. The execution becomes pretty poor and it cost the ‘Cats the game on Wednesday night at Rupp Arena.

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Coach Calipari has dialed up this set play several times in late-game situations and it has generally worked well. In fact, it could have worked well here too with one small change in execution. The turnover obviously goes to Reed Sheppard in the box score. Throwing a drift pass with 20 seconds on the shot clock in this situation is probably not the safest thing to do, but this is only partially on Sheppard. Rob Dillingham has to get himself to the corner. If Dillingham is in the corner this pass gets completed, possibly for an open three. However, Sheppard has to throw it uphill towards the wing and it gets picked off. You have to get to his line of sight and make the pass deliverable. That is on Dillingham as much more as it is on Sheppard.

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This is something that needs to stop immediately. Kentucky is a very unselfish ball club, but that word gets thrown around too much. There comes a point where you need to make the right basketball play, and sometimes that includes being a little more selfish. A few games ago, Reed Sheppard passed up a wide-open layup in transition to kick the ball out to Rob Dillingham for a corner three that he air-balled. Here, Dillingham throws the ball several feet backward despite having a clear path to the rim which resulted in a badly missed layup by Tre Mitchell. Stop throwing the ball backward in advantage situations. Dillingham needs to get this ball up on the rim himself. He will either make it, get fouled, or Mitchell will tip it in.

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Whether you want to foul up three points or not is an argument that would need its own post. However, the real problem here is Reed Sheppard once again getting lost off of the ball. We have talked about it all season. Kentucky, and Sheppard more than anyone, is absolutely obsessed with the basketball. At this point in the game, you want the Florida Gators to drive the basketball. If the ball is inside of the arc you are going to win the game. Regardless of who you are guarding, you should be standing right up against them on the perimeter in this scenario. That becomes even more true when guarding #1 Clayton Jr. who had made five three-pointers already in the game. Sheppard has absolutely zero responsibilities here aside from taking away the three. Ultimately though, he gave up the game-tying three.

Overtime Defensive Breakdown

Kentucky turned in about 24 seconds of good defense on this possession. However, #1 Clayton Jr. kept playing at the end of the clock and Reed Sheppard stopped playing. The lack of concentration and urgency is really, really frustrating. How can you give up a three to the same guy who made one on you to force overtime? Those lapses in judgment are what get you beat.

More Late Game Lack of Execution

This is a perfect microcosm of Kentucky’s loss to the Florida Gators. The Wildcats have an advantageous transition situation but come up with nothing. Then, #1 Clayton Jr. comes down and nails a transition three. That five-point swing makes it very, very difficult to win. It is a great play by Clayton Jr. on both ends of the floor so it is hard to cast blame here. However, there comes a point where you just have to put the ball in the basket. In transition, Rob Dillingham is aimlessly jogging back to nowhere.

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Kentucky is third in the country with a 13.0% turnover percentage. They committed just nine turnovers on Wednesday night against the Gators. However, the Wildcats seem to have a unique ability to turn it over in the biggest spots and in the most unnecessary of ways. Reed Sheppard gets himself into a tough position here double teamed along the baseline. The answer can’t be to throw a bounce pass across the lane and back towards the opponent’s basket. He would have been much better off just falling out of bounds with the ball. You can’t turn a bad situation into a worse one by giving them a live ball turnover.

What Does All of This Mean?

You probably didn’t expect this edition of “Watch the Tape” to be one of our shortest, did you? The reasoning for that is pretty simple. We are passed the point of breaking down film and critiquing every clip. It is now February 1st. Kentucky had plenty of opportunities to beat the Florida Gators on Wednesday night, but they didn’t accomplish the task. There are only so many different ways you can show that in the film room.

Kentucky is not good defensively. The same breakdowns happened on Wednesday that we saw happen dating back to the first game of the season. That is troubling. With that being said, this group is still elite offensively. That’ll put them in a position to win a lot of games. What it likely means in the bigger picture though is that this team will be inconsistent. We will experience a couple of big-time wins. However, we will also likely experience another loss or two that feels like this one. Come March Madness, that generally isn’t a good recipe for success.