Yes, Kentucky is a very talented team, more talented than the Hoosiers. Yes, they’re undefeated against a difficult schedule thus far. Yes, a loss is the likely outcome for IU on Saturday. Yet, there’s at least one area that the Wildcats are weak in, an area the Hoosiers would be wise to exploit. Also, in Ken Pomeroy’s latest rankings, Kentucky only ranks 54th in the country, which is shocking if you look at its No. 4 ranking in the AP Top 25 Poll and its win-loss record against that tough schedule.
Let’s take a look at some of this:
As you can see, IU has done a respectable job this year at creating turnovers — they’re in the top 50 in the country in defensive turnover percentage. Meanwhile, Kentucky is one of the worst teams in the country in offensive turnover percentage. At 291th, only 56 DI teams are turning over the ball at a higher percentage. And even though IU’s turnover percentage is poor, UK’s defensive turnover percentage doesn’t jump out at you. As we saw against Pitt, winning the turnover game can be beneficial for this squad.
A long, hard look at the Hoosiers
Many of you have your gripes about IU’s defense, and it’s justifiable. Many of you have gripes about IU’s offense. That, too, is justifiable. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to dig into some specifics on both sides of the ball (though, now that I look through this thing, it’s really just the offense), and seek to find a clearer understanding on why this team has lost eight straight Big Ten games.
Ready, set, go.
Start here.
Thanks to the Big Ten Geeks, here’s a scatter plot of offensive and defensive efficiency in the Big Ten as of yesterday:
Yes, not only is IU worst in the Big Ten offensively, as its only scoring about .93-.94 points per possession, but its second to last in defensive efficiency, allowing about 1.11 points per possession. If you want to know why IU has lost eight straight Big Ten games, you don’t have to look any further than these two numbers. When you aren’t scoring as much as your opponents, and you aren’t defending them well either, it’s sort of hard to get over the hump, ya dig?
When will they crack 60?
Let’s get visual, visual again. Via Statsheet, here’s IU scoring numbers:
NCAA Basketball
IU has failed to eclipse the 60-point mark in its last four games, and barely did it in its fifth to last game — hitting 61 — in a loss to Northwestern. And pace really has nothing to do with the low amount of points IU is scoring: according to Ken Pomeroy, the Hoosiers’ adjusted pace of 68.6 possessions per game is a touch higher than the national average. They aren’t playing a slow game.
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