Kentucky Basketball: 3 takeaways from defeat to Kansas Jayhawks
By Andrew Tineo
Three pointing shooting woes haunt the Wildcats again
Kentucky had one of its roughest games in quite some time in their last outing as against now #19 Richmond. Especially from beyond the arc. Not only did the Wildcats only shoot the ball 11 times from three-point range, but none of them managed to find the bottom of the net.
Although very worrisome, it was the Wildcats’ first true competition and it was against a team lead by four seniors. You would expect that the Wildcats would improve to an extent in that area. Kentucky’s shooting woes would continue, through the first half of the game.
The Wildcats would miss their first six shots and still have an early advantage. That is an attest to how good this unit played defensively. They finished shooting an abysmal 3-21 (14 percent) from beyond the arc and 3-32 over the past two games. It’s simply that this team is not built to shoot the three-ball.
In an era that is dominated by it, Kentucky just cannot do it well whatsoever. Two of three came from Mintz and the starting lineup combined to shoot 0-11 in that category.
The Wildcats want to be good on defense with their length and they did exactly that Tuesday night. They forced Kansas to shoot 30% from the field, the worst they have in a win since 2012. Kansas only made 23 percent of their three-point shots
Not only did three-pointers hurt, but getting outrebounded, having 16 turnovers, and 26 fouls did not help their case. Kansas took 30 free throws compared to Kentucky’s 20 and overall, just beat Kentucky over the stat sheet.
Kentucky now falls into the 300’s in three-point shooting and if they don’t get out in a hurry, things could get from bad to worse. The good news for Kentucky is they don’t have a ranked team to play on their schedule, until January, 30th when they play Texas in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
If Kentucky wants to be any threat of a national champion and compete for an SEC championship, the team needs to grow up rather quickly and more three-pointers need to be falling.