MOSports Podcast (2024)

07/04/2022

We Don’t Even Know Who Will Be On Kentucky’s Team Next Year, But The Hype Comes Anyway

More desperate and ridiculous than ever after a first-round loss in the NCAA tournament, the Kentucky hype machine is telling us how great next year’s team will be—even though we don’t even yet know who will be on the team.

It’s as though Kentucky basketball has become such a fantasy land that the actual team doesn’t have to materialize. They win anyway!

On the court, there is no empirical basis to think Kentucky will be anything special.

Two years ago was a wreck, and following that up with a loss to a No. 15 seed in first round does not exactly inspire confidence.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting your team to be good, but in this case, the problem is the Kentucky hype machine can’t simply tell the truth about this upcoming team, which is pretty clear:

If Oscar Tshiebwe and Shaedon Sharpe both return, Kentucky will actually be pretty good.

Otherwise, they are an unknown at best.

As for future NCAA tournament prospects, Kentucky is not trending favorably.

Over their last eight NCAA tournament games, spanning the 2018, 2019, and 2022 tournaments, Kentucky is shooting 30-of-108 from three-point range.

These offensive woes are the main reason Kentucky hasn’t been to a Final Four in seven years and hasn’t won a championship in a decade.

Since its last Final Four in 2015, Kentucky has reached the Elite Eight only twice (2017, 2019).

Fellow SEC teams South Carolina and Auburn have been to the Final Four since Kentucky.

These disappointments mean even if Tshiebwe and Sharpe return, Kentucky wouldn’t be the automatic champion Kentucky fans seemingly want to believe they always will be regardless of personnel or performance.

That’s more being a loser who needs to get a life than a real basketball fan.

In any case, another big problem for Kentucky in recent years is players who may put up good numbers but don’t know how to win.

Kellan Grady was so loose against Alabama in Rupp, he didn’t even know a pass had been thrown to him, grabbed the ball after it hit him, and tossed it in for a three-pointer like there was nothing to it.

Grady went 7-of-9 from three-point range that game and had 27 points.

But as the pressure mounted and March arrived, Grady slumped. In the tournament, Grady had a bad game against Saint Peter’s just as he had the year before in Davidson’s NIT loss to NC State, when he went 0-of-6 from three.

Grady was 0-for-7 from three until the final minute of the Saint Peter’s game, when he made his first three to put Kentucky up 69-68 before the game went into overtime and Kentucky lost.

One reason Kentucky lost is they missed five of six free throws in overtime—an obvious sign the pressure was getting to them, something that doesn’t happen to players who know how to win.

The point is, even with Tshiebwe and Sharpe, Kentucky won’t have a single player who has won an NCAA tournament game—except CJ Frederick, the Iowa transfer whose resume boasts a 0 point, 0-for-2 from three-point range in 13 minutes performance in a second-round blowout loss to Oregon in the 2021 tournament.

Then there is the question of what mold incoming stars Carson Wallace and Cade Cunningham will be and if they will thrive under Calipari or flounder as all too many recruits have lately.

Two years ago, BJ Boston was a brick house at shooting guard and the rest of the newcomers were lost and clearly overrated.

This past season, whatever strides Daimion Collins and Bryce Hopkins may have made, they did not play a minute against Saint Peter’s.

If Wallace and Cunningham turn out to be more like recent recruits than the early studs who had instant success at Kentucky, the team will certainly struggle if they have to lead the way in the event Tshiebwe and Sharpe fly the coup.

Even if everything works out great, there is still the issue that guards, obviously, don’t thrive in Calipari’s system, as evidenced by the persistently bad three-point shooting by numerous players and multiple teams.

When Davion Mintz picked Kentucky to transfer to, he could not have imagined he would not win a single NCAA tournament game playing for the Big Blue.

It’s not often any Kentucky player goes two seasons without an NCAA tournament win.

That’s on Calipari, not Mintz.

And Kentucky fans: wait until you know who will be on your team before you start saying how great they will be.

Right now, Kentucky basketball already looks foolish enough.

Dr. David Overbey talks about sports at length, without notes, mostly UK and UofL but everything else as well. Intelligent analysis of sports = MOSports!

05/04/2022

Cool Your Heels

At least John Calipari held on to a big lead at halftime against Kansas in a national championship game.

Tonight’s 40-25 North Carolina lead heading into the locker room was nearly identical to the 41-27 lead Kentucky rode into halftime ten years ago in the same arena against the same coach and same team.

Oh, how the storylines change on a dime—in basketball as in life.

Calipari can be much maligned for back-to-back disappointing seasons, including last year’s disaster.

It’s true that Kentucky is two NCAA tournaments and counting without an NCAA tournament win while two teams Kentucky blew out in the regular season played for the national championship tonight after a full month of significant improvement while Kentucky peaked, plateaued, and never got on a roll again.

Kentucky came into March flat, and got stunned by Saint Peter’s in the first round.

But even though that six-point win over Vandy in the quarterfinals of the SEC tournament might not seem worth $18 million—what Calipari made to coach Kentucky the last two years to get that one postseason win—Kentucky fans have to look at their 2012 championship a little differently after tonight.

The knock on Calipari is that he has won only the one title at Kentucky, but that one championship can’t be taken for granted—not after we saw how Bill Self and Kansas can comeback in a national title game.

Much-celebrated North Carolina blew this year’s championship game not once but twice—at the start of the second half and in the final minute—and lost to Kansas 72-69.

Hubert Davis failed at a chance to join Tubby Smith as one of the rare coaches to win the national championship in his first season as head coach of a national power.

Instead, Davis joins Mike Kryzyweski, the legendary coach he dispatched the game before, as a coach who lost 72-69 in his first championship game appearance.

In 1986, in his first championship game appearance, Kryzyzweski lost to Denny Crum and Louisville by the same score as tonight’s game, 72-69.

A man 24-hours ago who could do no wrong, the pressure is now on Davis, who will still have to prove he can win the big one at a place like North Carolina despite winning arguably the biggest game in program history, fair or not.

No one is going to stay coach at North Carolina and not win a championship.

Roy Williams, who preceded Davis, won the national championship in his second season as North Carolina’s head coach.

One can say that the toughest loss of all is to lose in the championship, because one was so close, one never knows when one will get back to this moment, and it can make all the accomplishments leading up to the title game seem for naught.

Think not?

Then what would have become of Calipari by now had he not won that championship ten years ago?

What if Calipari had not managed to weather a furious Kansas rally to punctuate a legendary win over an arch rival in the national semifinals, as Kentucky did after beating Rick Pitino and Louisville on the Saturday before that championship Monday night in 2012?

Unlike Davis and Carolina, Kentucky held on against Kansas because of Doron Lamb’s back-to-back threes after Kansas cut it ten midway through the second half, and in the closing minutes because of Anthony Davis’ intimidating presence defending the perimeter and a clutch three from the top of the key by Marquis Teague.

Such heroics were lacking for North Carolina tonight.

If ever a game proves the importance of the first five minutes of the second half, it was tonight’s game.

Ahead by 15, if Carolina scores the first five points of the second half, it’s over.

Instead, with the game in its grasp, Carolina looked ragged, and for the first time all tournament, fatigued.

The energy was not there for baby blue, and Kansas did what it had to do: get back in the game quickly.

As the second half played out, Kansas beat North Carolina at its own game.

It was Kansas that got some hot three-point shooting in the form of Remi Martin after the Tar Heels had been the ones hitting the clutch threes throughout the tournament.

After North Carolina dominated the first half on second-chance points, it was giving up a second shot that cost the Tar Heels the game.

Ahead 69-68 in the final minute, North Carolina could not secure the defensive rebound after a Kansas miss, and Kansas’ big man David McCormick scored on a put back to give the Jayhawks the lead for good.

McCormick was able to take advantage of the absence of North Carolina’s Armando Bacot, who reinjured his ankle on a drive late in the game.

After Carolina failed to retake the lead, McCormick scored again inside as a double team failed to stop him.

It was a bitter end for North Carolina, which had to be sky high after beating Duke in what had the feel of a de facto national championship game.

But in the second half of tonight’s game, the drama of that game against Duke appeared to catch up with Carolina.

Just like that, to start the second half Kansas was in their face and back in the game, and the Tar Heels’ energy bar simply did not have that much left after going into overdrive to finish off Duke on Saturday night.

The relatively low degree of difficulty Kansas faced in getting to the championship game—exactly what should happen for a No. 1 seed compared to a No. 8 seed—paid off for Kansas in the end.

In addition to the epic bout with Duke, Carolina also had a big game against UCLA that came down to the final minute, and before that North Carolina had to win a difficult game against Baylor that went into overtime after North Carolina built a 25-point lead.

Kansas, meanwhile, did not really have a close game and certainly didn’t have any dramatic finishes—until tonight, when they pulled off a comeback John Calipari made sure didn’t happen to Kentucky ten years ago.

Dr. David Overbey talks about sports at length, without notes, mostly UK and UofL but everything else as well. Intelligent analysis of sports = MOSports!

05/04/2022

No Stopping North Carolina Now

Once again, North Carolina faces an opponent with nearly identical offensive numbers in the Final Four.

On the year, North Carolina and Kansas, the two teams meeting for the national championship tonight, shot an identical .361 from three-point range, with North Carolina making 8.5 threes a game while Kansas makes 7.2.

Both teams are within two-hundredths of a point of each other on made free throws a game: Carolina’s 14.2 free throws a game are .2 of a point better than the 14 free throws Kansas knocks down per contest.

When it comes to three-point shooting in the tournament, both teams put on a clinic in the national semifinals.

Kansas went nuts, knocking down 13-of-24 from behind the arc, while the Tar Heels stayed hot, nailing their average of 10 made threes per NCAA tournament game going 10-of-26 in their win over Duke.

North Carolina has also been clutch from three, especially Caleb Love, who all but clinched the win over Duke with a three-pointer in the final minute after hitting two threes late in the Tar Heels win over UCLA.

Talent + Hot Team = Championship (T+H=C).

Though Kansas is hot too, they have not been on the kind of roll North Carolina has, and their path to the title game has definitely been easier.

Kansas got Villanova with one starter injured and out of the lineup after having to get past Providence and Miami to get to New Orleans.

North Carolina has had to take out two Final Four teams from last year, including defending champion Baylor after the hot-shooting Brady Manek was ejected.

Carolina once again had to play brilliantly to down Duke for the second time in a month to reach the title game.

In the tournament, North Carolina is averaging 10 made threes per game compared to Kansas’ 7.4—a number inflated by Kansas’ incredible 13-of-24 performance from downtown against Villanova.

Before that game, Kansas had been averaging 6 threes a game, making .352 from three for the tournament, another percentage within two one-hundredths of a Carolina stat: the Tar Heels’ .354 three-point shooting going into Saturday’s game.

After the national semifinals, Carolina is now 50-of-139 (.359) from three-point range, and while Kansas ranks 24th nationally in three-point defense, the fact an undermanned Villanova team was able to make 13 threes against Kansas on Saturday means North Carolina likely is facing a defense they will stay hot against.

Kansas only wins if Armando Bacot is not 100%, or if the Jayhawks outscore North Carolina from three-point range.

The former is unknown, and the latter is not going to happen.

Given that Kansas was averaging 6 threes per tournament game before making 13 against Villanova, odds are they cool off from three, while Carolina, confident as ever, stays hot.

Carolina by eight in a relatively high-scoring game.

Dr. David Overbey talks about sports at length, without notes, mostly UK and UofL but everything else as well. Intelligent analysis of sports = MOSports!

03/04/2022

Like Saban, Kryzyzweski Goes Down

In college sports, this year will be a changing of the guard.

Just as Nick Saban was dethroned by the younger Kirby Smart in football, in a matter of hours Kryzyzweski will step aside for a new generation of winning coaches in the person of one Hubert Davis, who has done a turnaround job second-to-none in getting North Carolina to the Final Four after being in the doldrums of college basketball after a home loss to Pittsburgh in February.

Let’s start with something most people are eager to overlook in writing a fairy tale ending for Kryzyzweski:

If the pressure of it being Coach K’s last home game was too much for Duke in its last meeting against North Carolina, why are we to expect that somehow playing in the Final Four against the Tar Heels will be less pressure?

North Carolina is the last team Duke wants to run into now, and the fact the Tar Heels sizzled through Baylor and then downed UCLA before blowing out Saint Peter’s means Davis’ team has only gotten even better since beating Duke 94-81 on Duke’s home floor.

The most important thing North Carolina has going for it is confidence. They know they can beat Duke, and everyone knows now that game was not a fluke.

Duke is playing well, but North Carolina is on fire.

The trio of Caleb Love, Brady Manek, and RJ Davis has made 77.6% of North Carolina’s three-pointers in the tournament.

Unless that trio cools off, Carolina wins. If they remain on fire—as they have been much of the last three weeks, it will be repeat of the Tar Heels win in Cameron and a double-digit win for North Carolina.

Both teams have nearly identical numbers on offense.

For the year, North Carolina has made .361 from three-point range and made 8.5 threes a game.

Duke has shot .370 from three and made 8 threes a game.

Carolina has stayed hot from three—40-of-113 (.354) in the tournament, and Duke’s three-point defense ranks only 83rd nationally—nothing special.

Through four NCAA tournament games, North Carolina is averaging 10 threes per game, Duke 6.3.

The call here is Carolina wins the battle of the three-point line, and thus the game.

And if it comes down to free throws, Carolina outscores Duke 14.1 to 12.8 from the line.

Carolina by seven. Or more.

Dr. David Overbey talks about sports at length, without notes, mostly UK and UofL but everything else as well. Intelligent analysis of sports = MOSports!

31/03/2022

Memories Of The Good Times, Not Hype, Are What Can Get Kentucky Fans Through This Final Four

Remembering great moments that actually happened is a far better tonic for the torment Kentucky basketball has become than soaking in the latest hype about how great Kentucky will be next year.

As Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, and Villanova, four legendary college basketball teams that have all beaten Kentucky in the NCAA tournament, converge at the same spot where Wildcat fans celebrated their eighth national championship ten years ago, these same fans can but sit and watch as the electricity of college basketball’s final weekend leaves them out.

It’s hard enough not to be a part of a Final Four comprised of rival blue bloods.

It’s even harder to watch rival teams compete for the national championship in a tournament where Kentucky lost in the first round.

It’s even more sickening to know this first-round loss comes a year after Kentucky went 9-16.

Last year matters more than ever now, because going into this year the Kentucky hype machine told us John Calipari had “figured it out.”

Darryl Bird and other writers at The Cats Pause claimed Calipari had “hit a home run” with his offseason rebuild.

The prediction turned out to be as off the mark as using a baseball metaphor to talk about a basketball team.

Kentucky didn’t go 9-16 this year, but the Wildcats were still often mired in the problems on offense that have held them back in big games, three-point production specifically.

Kentucky tailed off down the stretch this year, and they lost to a No. 15 seed in the first round because the offense had not made any significant improvement from the year before, when it was one of the worst in college basketball and in Kentucky basketball history.

Which is all the more reason to be skeptical of the Kentucky hype machine and its annual cycle geared to redirect fans’ attention away from failures on the court to recruiting drama and talk about how great Kentucky will be next year because Calipari is such a great coach and so on.

We are unlikely to see any change in tone in how Bird and others who run the Kentucky hype machine discuss Kentucky basketball or assess the work of Calipari.

Unfortunately, this means such outlets are not trustworthy.

Bird and these other people don’t want Kentucky basketball to win, they want to profit off it.

They do so by spouting propaganda that makes the people at the top of the Kentucky basketball hierarchy, and that would be Calipari, look good—no matter what.

No way is it going to circulate in the media that Calipari can’t coach and that he long ago checked out as someone interested in staying current with the game of basketball and staying hungry to win.

Instead it has been a nonstop barrage of hype and propaganda focusing on individual accomplishments and masking over on-court debacles.

Yet again this year, the hype machine is telling fans that it doesn’t matter their team doesn’t win anymore.

Kentucky fans, apparently, need someone else to tell them what it means to be a Kentucky fan and what Kentucky fans want.

Rather than keep the focus on winning championships, getting players to the pros, and hyping incoming players has acted as a substitute for the real thing.

So instead of wasting one’s time listening to such garbage, lets go back to this moment:

Scott Padgett hits a three-pointer from the top of the key, and Kentucky goes ahead 84-81 against Duke with :39.4 to go.

Duke misses. Kentucky rebounds.

Wayne Turner hits one of two free throws. Kentucky leads 85-81.

After Duke hits a three, Allen Edwards is fouled.

Edwards hits one of two free throws to put Kentucky ahead 86-84.

Duke’s point guard dribbles up the court. Jeff Shepherd makes him turn a couple of times to slow him down.

A heave from half court. No good!

Kentucky comes back from down 71-54 with 9:38 to go to beat Duke 86-84 in a regional final on its way to winning the 1998 national championship.

The coaching job by Tubby Smith in that Duke game alone was as fine a moment as any Kentucky coach has had.

Any way one wants to cut it, the Tubby Smith years were every bit as good as the Calipari ones have been.

It’s just that there’s been incredible hype and little criticism of Calipari from the beginning.

For Smith, rockier seasons after his ‘98 debut drew some harsh reaction that eventually drove Smith out of Lexington.

Calipari, on the other hand, seems untouchable. No low is too low.

There is zero time for reflection on the failures on the court nor a serious discussion about whether Kentucky wants to be a basketball team or a circus.

Great victories that actually happened are worth far more than clinging to what has proven to be unreliable hype about Calipari’s next great act.

When it comes to what actually happens on the court, Smith’s one championship in 1998 counts just as much as Calipari’s one championship in 2012.

Whenever the next championship comes, Kentucky fans will have to watch a rival win another one first.

Dr. David Overbey talks about sports at length, without notes, mostly UK and UofL but everything else as well. Intelligent analysis of sports = MOSports!

26/03/2022

Saint Peter’s Keeps Its Cool

If anything is to be learned from Saint Peter’s historic run in the NCAA tournament, it’s the importance of staying cool under pressure.

For all the talk about defense and offense, Saint Peter’s has gotten the better of opponents because the Peacocks keep their cool while their opponent loses its mind.

The psychological and emotional component of winning is the common missing element from the three teams Saint Peter’s has beaten.

Kentucky and Purdue played tense and uptight.

Kentucky missed five out of six free throws in overtime.

Purdue was careless with the basketball and made only 5-of-21 threes despite averaging 9 threes a game and hitting .397 from three on the year.

For both defeated teams, such subpar play wrecks of feeling the pressure.

As for Murray State, the pressure of finally getting to the Sweet 16 after a path had seemingly opened up with Kentucky out of the way was once again too much to overcome.

In all three games, all Saint Peter’s has had to do is not play bad while these other teams have gotten in their own way.

Saint Peter’s key to handling the pressure has been to stay aggressive on both ends, an approach reinforced by the effervescent confidence as exuded by their coach, who has an actual game plan and doesn’t just robotically run a system as though all games are the same.

As winning teams tend to do, the Peacocks make the play they need to make when they need to make it, be it the timely three, making free throws, or getting a stop.

Nothing epitomizes the head case that Saint Peter’s opponents have been like a critical turnover by Purdue’s Jaden Ivey last night.

Ahead by four, with the ball, and just under eight minutes to go, Ivey casually flipped an underhanded, left-handed, look away pass to 7’ 4” center Zach Edey, resulting in a turnover.

Minutes later and again with a chance to go up six, Ivey forced a baseline drive and fumbled the ball out of bounds.

On both possessions, instead of playing good fundamental basketball, Ivey made an unnecessarily difficult play resulting in a turnover.

Coach Matt Painter did not help matters by failing to realize Ivey was off his game and let someone else run the point.

Painter also never got innovative with his offense, such as inverting his set to get Ivey the ball one-on-one in the lane, where he should have scored all day.

Instead, Purdue’s big men clogged the lane, and Ivey kept playing like he had to put on a show instead of just play solid, winning basketball.

The fact Saint Peter’s is now one win away from being the first No. 15 seed to make the Final Four does not mean John Calipari has been redeemed any more than it means Painter can prepare his teams for big games.

If they can’t get their teams emotionally ready to play pressure games, it doesn’t matter how Calipari or Painter put teams together and train them to play.

And as long as the other team feels the pressure more, Saint Peter’s can keep winning.

Dr. David Overbey talks about sports at length, without notes, mostly UK and UofL but everything else as well. Intelligent analysis of sports = MOSports!

22/03/2022

While Opponents Improved, Kentucky Was The Same Team At The End As They Were At The Beginning

Two teams Kentucky blew out during the regular season are in the Sweet 16 while Kentucky is done after a hapless first round loss to Saint Peter’s that has left Kentucky without an NCAA tournament win the last two years.

The fact North Carolina and Kansas are still playing after Kentucky had impressive wins over both teams in the regular season means that these other teams went on to get better while Kentucky fell flat heading into March.

Which says a lot about how well coached the teams are.

Hubert Davis and Bill Self made their teams better after loses to Kentucky, and North Carolina especially has made vast improvement to the point of perhaps being the story of college basketball if they reach the Final Four.

Kentucky, meanwhile, rolled over the Tar Heels 98-69 in December and eventually plummeted mightily after a January win in Lawrence where Kentucky played superbly and defeated Kansas 80-62.

After that game, Kansas promptly got better, starting with a blowout win over Baylor, the same team North Carolina was leaving behind until the referees decided to change the game by ejecting Brady Manek.

If Manek can play against UCLA in the regional semifinals, the Tar Heels are likely to move on to face Purdue, who no doubt will demolish Saint Peter’s the way a superior team should.

There is no need to speculate and feed on hype, as Kentucky fans do more desperately year by year as another season goes by without reaching the Final Four.

Well coached teams get better as the year goes along and play their best basketball when it counts the most.

In Kentucky’s case, the big wins over North Carolina and Kansas were flashes in the pan, not who Kentucky really was.

One might think injuries are to blame, but the fact is Kentucky’s players and their guards especially were up and down, which is exactly how mediocre players play.

Injuries have been used to explain the decline of Tyty Washington, who had 28 points in a big January win over Tennessee, but had only 5 points in the season-ending collapse against Saint Peter’s.

Injuries seem the obvious answer—until one looks at Washington’s numbers in losses to Duke on November 9 and Notre Dame on December 11, when Washington was fresh and healthy and weeks before injuries against Auburn and later Florida may have left him less than 100% going into the tournament.

Washington failed to score in double figures and didn’t make a three-pointer in either game, going for 9 points against Duke and being held to 6 against the Irish, weak numbers for a player who was supposed to be the latest Calipari hotshot guard.

The truth is Washington was another good but not great player playing in a clunky offense that reduces guards to mechanical levers that feed the post and don’t look to shoot threes or play with spontaneity and desire.

If there is a case to be made that injuries impacted his play at the end of the year, it’s that Washington’s average of 7.5 points a game against Duke and Notre Dame was 5.5 points better than the 2 points he had against Saint Peter’s in regulation.

Maybe those 5.5 points are the difference in a game that went into overtime.

But the more accurate read is that once again, in a tough game, Washington was bottled up and the $9 million a year coach couldn’t get him going.

Just as they did all year long, all Kentucky really ever knew how to do was feed Tshiebwe.

It’s true Tshiebwe had a great year, but attention to his feats is typical of the tiresome focus on individual achievements instead of team goals and winning championships.

Tshiebwe is a really good player, but he didn’t cut down any nets this year, and he put up big numbers because that’s all the team was designed to do all year long.

Kentucky had its moments, but it did the same thing the last game as it in its early tests: it fed the big man and lost.

Dr. David Overbey talks about sports at length, without notes, mostly UK and UofL but everything else as well. Intelligent analysis of sports = MOSports!

13/03/2022

Either Conference Tournaments Are Meaningless, Or Kentucky Is In Trouble

When it comes to Kentucky fans, there are plenty of optimists out there on social media.

The national media continue to believe in Kentucky too, with some pundits still pe***ng Kentucky as a national championship contender.

Maybe now is the time to get a bad game out of the way.

Next week is when it’s for real, so today’s 69-62 loss to Tennessee in the SEC tournament semifinals doesn’t really matter.

Kentucky fans better hope so, because the loss continues some ugly trends over recent seasons, suggesting that Kentucky will make a quick exit from the NCAAs.

Obviously, Kentucky’s three-point shooting remains garbage.

Regardless of the season stats that may look nice, Kentucky is 25-of-90 from three over their last six games after going 2-for-20 today.

Kentucky went the entire first half and the first 33:20 of the game before making a three.

The poor three-point offense is coming at the end of the year, and Kentucky has been particularly bad from three in the postseason.

Kentucky’s 25-of-90 three-point shooting over the last six games nearly mirrors exactly their 26-of-93 three-point shooting over their last two NCAA tournament appearances, a span of seven games.

The similar numbers indicate today’s problems were not just about this one game but a coach who can’t coach offense and seems to go out of his way to downplay the importance of three-point offense.

Until John Calipari makes it a priority to figure out how to get open looks for someone besides Keion Brooks, Jr. from three-point range, Kentucky’s offense will remain a predictable, stiff ensemble that never gets anything going in games that really matter.

But one wonders when the games ever matter, for as soon as Kentucky stumbles in the NCAAs, we will move forward, as it were, to the excitement of the NBA draft, the incoming recruits, and accolades for Oscar Tshiebwe, who was neutralized by a big, physical Tennessee front line this afternoon.

Kentucky’s offense was so clueless today that Tennessee could somehow double-team Tshiebwe inside and smother Grady on the perimeter, yet no one else could get open.

That’s because Kentucky’s offense was once again stuck in the mud.

Too often when Kentucky has the ball in the half court set, the player receives the ball on a spot on the floor where they are not a threat to score, a la Jacob Toppin or Lance Ware standing there with the ball behind the three-point line.

Calipari has to understand that fast-break points and points off turnovers aren’t enough offense by themselves.

Tennessee’s guards were quick enough to neutralize Kentucky’s quickness, and Tennessee limited Kentucky in transition, meaning Kentucky had to do what it so often struggles to do: score in the half court set.

The problems for Kentucky basically boil down to talent.

Other than Tyty Washington, Kentucky has a bunch of good, not great players who are not of the caliber of Calipari’s early teams at Kentucky.

John Wall, Brandon Knight, Devin Booker, the Harrison twins—these people did not transfer to Kentucky from Davidson, Creighton, or Georgia.

They were stars at the college level who have gone on to be pros. Booker is an all-star.

Davion Mintz is a good player, but there is a reason he is in his sixth season without the NBA ever drafting him.

Same is true for Grady, a fifth-year player, who went 0-of-6 last year in Davidson’s NIT loss to NC State, indicating, unfortunately, his postseason struggles will continue in the NCAAs.

As for Sahvir Wheeler, matched up against other quick guards, Wheeler does not impact the game that much with his pe*******on or defense to make up for his unreliable perimeter shooting.

Brooks and Toppin are exceptional athletes but erratic basketball players, who, like Kentucky as a team, excel in the open court, not in the half court set.

Tshiebwe has been terrific, but praise for him is consistent with the Calipari sideshow that diverts attention away from team failures in the postseason to individual success.

Regardless of how insignificant the SEC tournament is for Kentucky, two things happened today that will impact the rest of Kentucky’s season.

One, Kentucky played itself out of a No. 1 seed and perhaps even a No. 2 seed.

Two, Tennessee showed the rest of the NCAA field that if you can neutralize Tshiebwe, Kentucky can’t win with three-point shooting, meaning it is all but certain opponents will outscore Kentucky from three-point range and, thus, win the game.

Case in point: Tennessee neutralized Tshiebwe and outscored Kentucky 18-6 from behind the arc, a difference of plus-twelve for Tennessee in a seven-point win.

Kentucky’s three-point defense can’t be counted on either.

After going 6-of-15 from three against Kentucky today, in three games Kentucky this season, Tennessee has shot 45.4% from three-point range (25-of-55) against Kentucky.

The truth is, this team is about as close to a Final Four team as Lexington is to the North Pole.

Dr. David Overbey talks about sports at length, without notes, mostly UK and UofL but everything else as well. Intelligent analysis of sports = MOSports!

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