Kentucky Wildcat Basketball: Charting Kentucky and Ohio State

Big hat tip to Luke Winn of Sports Illustrated tonight who actually did most of the work for this column.  He released his power rankings of the Sweet 16 teams and it appears that he thinks Ohio State will win the game as Ohio State was number one and Kentucky was number 8.  Along the way, he does look at some interesting stats and comparisons between the two teams, as well as the field of 16.  Let’s take a look at the comparisons.

Both teams rank in the lower portion of the teams in regards to minutes played by juniors and seniors, signalling a huge youth movement.  Ohio State ranks 9th (light green) and Kentucky 12th (orange) in this stat.  Ohio State gets about 57% of its minutes from the upper classmen, while Kentucky is right at 49%.  If you want to look at the adage of veteran leaderhip propelling teams, look no further than number one and number two in this catergory — Richmond and VCU.

Winn also  broke down the difference between John Wall’s and Brandon Knight’s style of play.  As you can see, almost half of Wall’s possessions were transition plays while Brandon Knight relies more on off ball screens, pick and rolls and handoffs.  Not really anything to do with OSU, but interesting to note the differences between the two superstars.

Tom Leach pointed out a couple of days that Kentucky could really take advantage of their speed and Winn broke down a chart as to who actually runs more.  So far, in the NCAA, UK is the 7th most runningest team left in the sweet 16 with 14.7% of their possessions being transition ones.  Ohio State is 10th with 13.7% .  Now look for Kentucky to exploit their speed a bit more as Kentucky’s numbers are impacted by the grind it out affair versus Princeton and Ohio State’s numbers should stay about the same as they pretty much played the games they wanted so far in the tournament.

Ohio State’s strength looks to be in the half court offense as the Buckeyes have the second best statistically in the tournament, shooting 54.3% out of it and turning the ball over just 12.8% of the time.  In contrast, Kentucky has the eight best half court offense, hitting 50.9% of their shots and turning the ball over 13.3% of the time.  If Kentucky can play some pressure defense here and force a few more turnovers, they can disrupt the Buckeye’s game.  Both teams are also very good after timeouts with Kentucky converting the fifth best and the Buckeyes seventh best.

Another thing that I found really interesting is the overall net efficency margin.  Basically this stat sums up how well the particular team is playing versus it opponents.  Not surprisingly, Ohio State has rolled through its first two teams and have a best rating of 111.3.  Kentucky on the other hand is listed at 20th among the NCAA teams that have played two games and have a rating of 46.4.  What it says is pretty obvious.  Ohio State has played about as well as they can the last two games while Kentucky has room for improvement.  The big question is whether the Buckeyes can keep up this proficient play against a a team with a top 10 RPI.   

The biggest chance that Kentucky may have is the “old law of averages” theory.  Ohio State is undoubtedly due a “down game” and they have not been tested for a while.  If Kentucky can come out in the first half and control Sullinger and somehow limit the long range game of the Buckeyes, they have a chance.  Like UK of last year, OSU has lost just two games and most of their games have been blow outs.  If Kentucky can test them and even be up 4-6 points with 10:00 left, they can put the pressure on how the Buckeyes react with their backs up against the wall. I refuse to believe UK does not have a chance …

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