Kentucky’s pick-and-roll and three-point defense both looked improved Wednesday.
LEXINGTON – Last Saturday’s loss to Texas A&M was a wake-up call for the Wildcats. Improve defensively or risk wasting one of America’s best offenses. Wednesday, a mix of urgency and a John Calipari tweak helped lead to an improved defensive effort as UK beat Mississippi State 90-77 at Rupp Arena to improve to 13-3 on the season.
The biggest three areas of struggle for Kentucky’s defense so far this season have been in the pick-and-roll, on the perimeter and rebounding.
Kentucky’s pick-and-roll defense looked much improved in large part due to a tweak from Calipari.
“We made a little bit of adjustment in our pick-and-roll defense. Executive decision. They liked it. I liked it,” Calipari, who picked up his 400th win as Wildcat head coach Wednesday, said. “Now we’re going to really zero in on getting really good at it.”
Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans could not pinpoint Calipari’s exact adjustment but did admit that UK’s pick-and-roll defense gave his team fits.
“I’d have to watch the tape to talk about any adjustments that they made in that particular part of the game,” Jans said. “the pick and roll is such a big part of basketball now everybody’s doing it and we certainly tried to get into that as well and made some good plays and some bad plays.”
While there was an adjustment made by the Wildcats, there was also extra motivation to improve its pick-and-roll defense.
“Working on it in practice. Just emphasizing it looking at film,” UK guard Antonio Reeves said of UK’s defensive adjustment. We were not pushing up on a guy and getting physical. We definitely made that one of the main keys and main goals of this game to try to get up on our guy and try to push them off the screen.”
As for its perimeter defense, the Bulldogs had far fewer open looks than other teams have had against the Wildcats this season and, as a result, shot just 9-for-27 (33.3 percent) from range.
Kentucky was also able to have success against a star guard, something it has struggled to do all season thus far.
Texas A&M’s Wade Taylor scored 31 points on the Cats, while teammate Tyrece Radford went for 28. RJ Davis of North Carolina went for 27 against the Cats earlier this season, while Florida’s guard duo of Walter Clayton Jr. and Zyon Pullin each scored 23 against UK.
Wednesday, UK held Mississippi State freshman guard Josh Hubbard, who entered play averaging 15.1 points per game while shooting 38.8 percent from three to just three points and a 1-for-11 shooting night.
“I’m not in their team room, so I don’t know what the plan was, but from where I stood, I thought they were very attentive to Josh, and rightfully so,” Jans said. “I’m sure he was pretty high up on the scouting report and it seemed like when he got the ball, they were trying to take away his space, and when there was any sort of ball screen they were staying as long as they needed to make sure he wasn’t getting a shot off. They just did a good job on him, they did a good job, and for whatever reason we could never get him going.”
In the first half, it was an all-around clinic for Kentucky’s defense. After the Bulldogs made each of its first two attempts, UK held the Bulldogs scoreless for over four and a half minutes during a 13-0 run. UK allowed just 29 points in the first half, matching performances against New Mexico State and Penn for its lowest first-half total allowed this season.
Mississippi State improved to shoot over 50 percent from the field in the second half, but much of that was carried by 2022-23 first-team All-SEC center Tolu Smith, who went 9-for-11 from the field. The rest of the Bulldogs shot just 40.7 percent from the field in the second half, with its guards combining to shoot 5-for-14 from the field and 3-for-12 from three.
“I said let’s come up with another plan, too and that’s what we did a little bit,” Calipari said. “We were a little more aggressive, but we’ve got work to do.”
UK was able to limit Mississippi State’s possessions by holding it to 14 offensive rebounds, 11 offensive boards less than it allowed against Texas A&M in its loss Saturday.
All while improving its defense, Kentucky stayed hot on offense. UK shot 55.6 percent from the field and scored 90 points against a Bulldog defense that entered play 35th in the country in points allowed per game (64.8) and 18th in defensive efficiency per KenPom.
“That team, Mississippi State, is a top 10 defensive team in the country, and I think we got to 90 (points),” Calipari said.
Wednesday’s performance wasn’t perfect, but at times, especially in the first half, it showed just how dangerous Kentucky can be when it plays at its best on both ends of the floor.
“It’s playing desperate. Are you willing to do that, or I’m too cool to play defense. Then you can’t be in on this team. Because did you kind of see it doesn’t matter who the five are on offense. It really doesn’t matter. Will score with whatever five we put in,” Calipari said. “That means you better be rebounding, you better be defending, you better be talking, you better be connected to us, or I can play somebody else.”
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