Kentucky Basketball: 3 things we learned from Wildcats loss to Notre Dame

Defensive miscues will plague this Kentucky team

The offense was not great for most of Saturday’s game which is a major issue, but perhaps Kentucky’s biggest problem against Notre Dame was their inability to play adequate defense until they were down big. Maybe it was just me, but it felt like the Wildcats were a step slow on every defensive rotation, which led to various open shots for the Fighting Irish.

It didn’t help that guys Devin Askew and Terrence Clarke would frequently allow Notre Dame’s guards to get a step on them, which forced someone to step over and help them out, but the Wildcats still had many chances to close out on time.

There were also a few times when a Kentucky player was so interested in seeing what the current ball handler at the time was going to do, that they lost track of where their man was, which allowed the Fighting Irish to step into many lightly contested jumpers.

There was one first-half defensive miscue that probably drove John Calipari ballistic, and was only the beginning of the Wildcats’ defensive struggles. With about 13 minutes remaining in the opening half, Cormac Ryan received a ball-screen while he was on the left-wing, and dribbled down the left corner where he was met by Olivier Sarr. While this was happening, Cam’Ron Fletcher was standing outside of the restricted area, preparing to provide assistance to Sarr.

What Fletcher didn’t realize was, Nate Laszewski was standing all alone on the right-wing, and before Fletcher could even turn his head and look at Laszewski, Cormac Ryan was able to fire a cross-court pass over to him, and Laszewski took full advantage of the open three-point opportunity (and helped give Notre Dame a 20-9 lead).

I think that it is pretty clear that, because Kentucky’s offense is not fluid right now, they cannot afford to make those type of defensive mistakes, and frequently play from behind. The Wildcats have only reached 70 points once this season (against Morehead State in their season opener), which leads me to believe that, if the Wildcats’ poor defense causes them to fall behind by 20+ points multiple times in the future, they will get disappointing result after disappointing result.

Essentially, as it stands right now, this is not a Kentucky team that has the ability to easily shoot their way back into games, which is why their defense has to be stellar early in contests so that they don’t have to constantly try to make heroic comebacks.

I know that the Wildcats fought their way back into Saturday’s game, but I can guarantee you that there won’t be many SEC teams this season, that surrender 20+ point leads like it’s nothing. Besides, in order to completely overcome a 20+ point deficit, you basically need to be perfect on both ends of the floor, and on Saturday, the Wildcats demonstrated that they could not accomplish that tall task.

Things may not look very good for Kentucky right now, but the good news is the Wildcats know what they need to do if they want to have the kind of season that many people are expecting them to have.