Kentucky has opened its basketball season by going 1-3, with losses to Richmond, Kansas and Georgia Tech. Notre Dame pays a visit to Rupp Arena this weekend, and a 1-4 start for the Wildcats is a real possibility.
A team that the AP ranked No. 10 in the preseason has now vanished from the rankings entirely and, indeed, you won't even find the Wildcats in the small print under "others receiving votes." Then again, optimists in Lexington with long memories stretching into the distant past will say don't worry about it. Just look at last year.
In its third game of the 2019-20 campaign, UK lost at home to an Evansville team that would go on to finish winless in Missouri Valley Conference play. Yet Kentucky still won the SEC regular-season title with ease, finished 25-6 and, we think, probably would have ended up with something close to a No. 4 seed in an NCAA tournament that was never played.
Can this year be a repeat of 2019-20? Possibly. But first let's sift through the rubble of Kentucky's dismal start to 2020-21.
The case for panic
The 79-62 loss to Georgia Tech, in particular, is worrisome for UK fans. That's no slight against a veteran group of Yellow Jackets that went 11-9 in the ACC a year ago. Rather, it's an acknowledgment that said veteran group was itself coming off home losses to Georgia State and Mercer.
If you're John Calipari, the troubling aspect of the loss beyond its sheer magnitude is that Georgia Tech was the first Kentucky opponent this season to excel on offense. Moses Wright wore Kentucky out with 21 points on nine makes inside the arc, only one of which was a long 2-point jumper.
Make no mistake, if the Wildcats can't or won't defend and, especially, if they give up good looks at the rim, you really could be looking at a collapse on the level of what injury-riddled North Carolina suffered last season. There are plausible scenarios where this is still a very good team (see below), but "developing into a run-and-gun outfit that just outscores opponents" falls pretty far down that list.
This defense will have to do better. There's reason to expect it will.
The case for hope
One way Kentucky can improve its defense is by not allowing opponents to record 14 steals in 68 possessions, the way Georgia Tech did. If Calipari's guys can play an occasional half-court possession, there's a chance they can get some stops.
At 7 feet, Wake Forest transfer Olivier Sarr was the tallest player in a Demon Deacons rotation that counted "respectable interior defense in ACC play" as easily its best performance trait on that side of the ball last season. He is now playing alongside the 6-foot-10 Isaiah Jackson, a promising freshman who recorded eight blocks in 30 minutes against the Jayhawks.
On the subject of an opponent's steals, Calipari recently took to social media to pledge that at practice this week his team is going to work "on two things -- TOUGHNESS and TURNOVERS." Good choices, Coach! If UK had achieved turnover parity in its games against Richmond, Kansas and Georgia Tech, the Wildcats would be undefeated right now.
To be sure, those would have been three exceedingly close wins, even in a turnover-neutral world. Kentucky scored 1.17 points per effective (or turnover-less) possession in those games, while opponents managed 1.15. Chalk it up as yet another data point in favor of the "UK's defense may yet turn out to be pretty good" theory (as well as further support for "the offense needs work" school of thought).
A version of the Wildcats that commits a normal number of turnovers could look quite different than the team we've seen so far. Even while losing by 17 to the Yellow Jackets, for example, Kentucky shot well from the field. Brandon Boston and Terrence Clarke combined to shoot 6-of-11 from beyond the arc, offering a ray of hope for an offense that entered the game having converted just 19% of its 3-point attempts on the season.
Envisioning an interior-oriented offense
Boston is projected as a top-3 pick in the 2021 NBA draft, and, accordingly, the 6-foot-7 wing has been given the featured role in Calipari's offense. Yet, despite the good outing from the perimeter against Georgia Tech, the freshman is shooting just 17% (3-of-18) on his 3s.
This is the part where an analytically inclined observer with one eye on Boston's future prospects at the next level will note: The freshman's good free throw shooting prior to arriving in Lexington suggests his perimeter game could come around, eventually. True enough. But what if Boston plays but a single season in college and "eventually" comes around too late for Kentucky's needs?
Brandon Boston Jr. fearlessly goes head-to-head with Richmond's Andre Gustavson and knocks down the step-back jumper over him.
In that case, this offense could still achieve respectability with Boston operating as a high-usage creator who drives into the paint, finds open teammates on lobs to the rim and hits just enough 3s to keep defenses honest. Calipari's teams tend to fall somewhere between good and outstanding on the offensive glass, and it's entirely possible that Jackson, Sarr and Boston can carry on that tradition. The return of 6-foot-7 sophomore Keion Brooks from a calf injury also could provide a lift if, as expected, that occurs in the next few weeks.
Maybe Calipari has it about right. With TOUGHNESS and (a big drop in) TURNOVERS, the Wildcats could turn out to be a top-25 team after all. UK certainly hasn't looked the part over its first 160 minutes of basketball, but the talent is there, and slow starts have been overcome before in Lexington.