Watch the Tape: Tennessee Volunteers

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watch-the-tape-tennessee-volunteers-6 — Randy Sartin | USA TODAY Sports

Kentucky’s home loss to UNC Wilmington felt like a weird aberration at the time. It was a bad loss, but with the parity that prevailed around college basketball it wasn’t the black mark some felt it would be. Most importantly, the Wildcats won 10 of 11 games around that loss and were sitting at 12-2, 2-0 going into College Station. Concerns grew about the lackluster defense in the 97-92 overtime loss, but it took herculean efforts from not one, but two Aggies to narrowly knock off the ‘Cats. Now, the alarm bells are ringing loud and clear in Lexington after Saturday’s 103-92 loss to the rival Tennessee Volunteers. Two straight losses at Rupp Arena have a way of doing that. In the Wildcats last three home games they have allowed 96, 94, and 103 points. That is nowhere near the expectations within Big Blue Nation.

The Wildcats have lost two straight, three of their last four, and four of their last seven games. Overall, they are 15-6 and 5-4 in Southeastern Conference play. A roadtrip to Vanderbilt should offer a “get right” spot on Tuesday afternoon. However, Gonzaga will come to Rupp Arena on Saturday for what has become an increasingly important non-conference matchup. The Bulldogs aren’t as good as normal, but it is still setting up to be a Quad 1 opportunity for a team that desperately needs some resume help. There is still plenty of time, in theory, to stack wins, right the ship, and accomplish the goals this team has set. The issue though is that a defense currently sitting outside of the KenPom Top 100 leaves little hope for better days ahead.

As always, we’ve been hard at work inside of the KSR Film Room breaking down Kentucky’s latest contest. These rewatches are becoming increasingly frustrating and hard to get through. Despite being into the month of February, the Wildcats are still making day one mistakes. There is no defensive discipline whatsoever. The on-ball and off-ball breakdowns run rampant throughout every player that steps foot on the floor. Though the most glaring issues are rather elementary, it seems unlikely that the switch magically flips after 21 games. Kentucky has a truly elite offense, but the defense has erased all margin for error. These next six weeks are setting up to be quite the rollercoaster. Let’s dive in and take a closer look at what went wrong against the Tennessee Volunteers.

The Good – Kentucky’s Offense is Truly Elite

It doesn’t feel like anything good came out of Saturday night’s contest. Ultimately all that matters is winning the game and Kentucky did not accomplish that goal against the Tennessee Volunteers. However, they did hang 92 points on the second best defense in college basketball. That is why this team is still capable of winning a lot of games. Most teams aren’t as good as Tennessee. Against most teams, scoring 92 points will be enough to survive. That isn’t exactly comforting as we sit here today, but the offense deserves praise for what it continues to produce. We’ve spent the last few years clamoring for a “modern offense” and it has arrived in spades. Unfortunately, it has coincided with the worst defense that we’ve seen in the Coach Calipari era.

We’ve highlighted it through the season, but Antonio Reeves’ growth from “shooter” to “scorer” is a big part of Kentucky producing a Top 10 offense in the country. It would be nice if Rob Dillingham would have waited for Reed Sheppard to get to the corner before starting his drive, but it still works out well. Tennessee is unwilling to help off of Reeves or Sheppard which leaves Dillingham one-on-one. #5 Zeigler is such a high level defender that he was able to cut Dillingham off here. However, he finds Reeves who attacks the short closeout and lays it in. Look at how #30 James has his back completely turned to the ball on the drive. That is the Sheppard effect. Good execution and good structure from the ‘Cats.

This is the Reed Sheppard that Kentucky needs. There was a period of time a couple of weeks ago where he was far too passive offensively. He took just 27 shots in the first six SEC games. On Saturday night he took 14 which included 4-7 shooting from beyond the arc. Sheppard is still shooting 54.4% from three-point range. That means we need him to continue hunting more shots from beyond the arc. Seven attempts really should be his minimum going forward. Leading up to this clip, the Wildcats had started the half with two missed shots by Justin Edwards. It takes a lot of confidence to pull-up in transition like this in this situation. Big time shot from a big time offensive player.

More big shot hunting from Reed Sheppard. He needs to continue squeezing them off like he did against the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday night. Also, Rob Dillingham can be the point guard. 35 points, 4 assists, 1 turnover. 77 assists and just 37 turnovers on the season. Sheppard can be your spot up shooter and secondary creator, but Dillingham probably should be your primary playmaker going forward. There simply aren’t many guys more talented with the ball in their hands.

The Bad – Lack of Simple Scouting Report Execution

Yes, for this exercise we are going to assume there is a scouting report. Sometimes it admittedly doesn’t look or feel like the plan is clearly disseminated to the players, but the coaching staff is trying to prepare the team to win the game. There are so many times though when the Wildcats look like they give no thought to who they are guarding or what that specific player is good at offensively. They go under screens against great shooters and closeout wildly at non-shooters. There are seemingly no personnel-specific decisions made within the game. Here are some of the most glaring clips from Saturday’s loss to the Tennessee Volunteers.

Reed Sheppard does a lot of really good things for this Kentucky team. However, his defensive prowess early in the season was completely overrated. That is starting to become pretty clear for those who watch the games. He is as bad as any of the Wildcats when it comes to off-ball defense and getting lost. Look at the route he takes when guarding #2 Gainey in this clip. He had to go out of his way to run into the screen and then displayed no real urgency at fighting through to contest the attempt. If he had just chased him instead of trying to go up through, Gainey wouldn’t have even taken this shot. The decision to go so far out of his way in order to try and go up through the screen makes zero sense.

We would rather #3 Knecht come off of this ballscreen going left than allow him to reject it and drive it right in a straight line to the rim. Why is Justin Edwards jumping out to force Knecht to his right? Also, this is where Kentucky’s big men getting pulled away from the basket becomes a problem. Aaron Bradshaw isn’t really able to provide rim protection on the drive because of where he is situated to guard the ballscreen. If he isn’t going to be at the rim to deter shot attempts there isn’t much of a reason to play him. These are the simple defensive breakdowns that should be able to be fixed, but are still happening in February in game number 21.

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Similar to the first clip with Reed Sheppard, Rob Dillingham had to go out of his way to run into the screen and go up through guarding #25 Vescovi. If he had just ran straight at Vescovi the screen would have never made contact with him. However, he took the long way around which made him late on the contest and he ended up in Vescovi’s landing space. Kentucky had a chance to completely erase an ugly start going into the halftime break, but mistakes like this continued to give the Tennessee Volunteers easy points.

Kentucky had a very legitimate chance at this point in the game. Reed Sheppard had already hit a three-point shot in transition to cut it to one point earlier in the half. He was doing good things offensively. However, defensively it was not pretty once again for the star freshman. His concentration and urgency have to be much, much higher. That is especially true when guarding a player like #25 Vescovi. He is a crafty veteran that is very dangerous from three-point range. You have to be able to see and feel this flare screen coming. More importantly, you should be tight enough to him that even if the screen is set you are in position to fight over top of it and deter the pass. However, Sheppard gets caught going under and Vescovi splashes in the triple.

The Ugly – Embarrassing Breakdowns That Get You Beat

There are some mistakes that this Kentucky team makes defensively that are truly mind-boggling. Whether it be seemingly getting out of the way of a driver, allowing countless easy baskets from out of bounds under, or not coming up with loose balls it was an all systems failure against the Tennessee Volunteers defensively. A really good offense is being wasted by a very poor defense. Coach Calipari and company are running out of time to fix the problems.

Rob Dillingham scored 35 points on Saturday, but he also gave up a lot defensively. This clip shows 18 years of bad habits. He is standing up straight when trying to guard a quick, aggressive driver in #5 Zeigler. Then, instead of moving his feet to square off the drive, Dillingham simply reaches from behind as Zeigler drives to the rim. That is a lack of concentration at best and a lack of effort at worst. These are the sort of breakdowns that should be able to be fixed. However, they still happened frequently in the 21st game of the season. That doesn’t provide much hope that anytime will change in the next six weeks.

The Tennessee Volunteers came up with every loose ball in Saturday’s contest. This clip showcases one that isn’t even a 50-50 ball, but more of a 75-25 in Kentucky’s favor. Still, the Volunteers not only come up with the ball but get an easy two points. Reed Sheppard nearly made a spectacular defensive play. However, he never secured the basketball. You cannot dribble a loose ball. Instead, you chin it with two hands and secure possession. It isn’t that Sheppard doesn’t play hard or want to make the right plays. He just has to adjust to the concentration and urgency that is required to play at this high of a level. Sheppard has it figured out offensively, but he has a long way to go defensively.

Words like unacceptable and embarrassing get thrown around too freely by Kentucky fans and media. However, clips like this are admittedly where words like unacceptable and embarrassing quickly come to mind. First of all, the Wildcats are not ready to defend when the ball gets handed to #5 Zeigler. Then, why would you not switch the backscreen. Rob Dillingham spent all game point-switching action for no real reason, but here all of the sudden he won’t call out a switch. Finally, what on Earth is Reed Sheppard doing? That simply cannot be how you guard the guy inbounding the ball. Guarding opponent’s out of bounds plays is not a new problem for this Kentucky team.

No, this is not the same clip that we just shared above. The Tennessee Volunteers were allowed to score on the same action within the span of 90 seconds. Making the same mistake twice is even more embarrassing. Again, why would Rob Dillingham not switch this backscreen? He can clearly see it coming and is certainly willing to switch other action throughout the game. Also, what is Antonio Reeves doing? Why is he not situated in a way that protects the basket? This is an example of the sort of all systems failure that we are talking about with Kentucky’s defense. Everyone from the coaching staff to the five players on the floor are at blame for breakdowns of this magnitude.