Mark Pope is a tactician, and this year he has talked openly about how reactive the team has had to be. He has admitted there were times he went into a game thinking something would work, only for it to blow up in his face.
That didn't happen Wednesday night.
Kentucky exploited Texas' defensive gameplan
Texas likes to play drop coverage, meaning their big man sits back and waits for the drive off the screen. It doesn't always have to be the big, but usually, it is. They want to protect the rim and force teams into taking short, contested medium-range jumpers.
Mark Pope saw that on tape, and his team was ready to capitalize.
“We were prepared for that kind of defense that they were going to throw at us,” Mo Dioubate said postgame. “It made it easier for us on the offensive end.”
Texas head coach Sean Miller noticed the preparation as well.
“I thought they did an outstanding job of attacking our drop coverage,” Miller said of Kentucky. “They became too comfortable.”
The snake dribble explained
If you listened to the game on TV, you probably heard the announcers mention a "snake dribble" being used by Kentucky.
For those who aren't X's and O's junkies, the snake dribble is when the ballhandler comes off a screen and immediately crosses back into the space in front of the screener, often moving toward the middle of the floor. This move creates added separation from the on-ball defender and forces the opposing big man to defend more space. It keeps the defender on the ballhandler's hip and gives the offense a clear advantage to be able to do what they want to do.
This specific move helped Kentucky's Otega Oweh and Denzel Aberdeen get into the lane and get what they wanted for most of the night.
Mark Pope broke it down in detail during his postgame comments.
“They’re in a drop ballscreen defense,” Pope explained. “Which means (Matas) Vokietaitis at the five will not come out to the point of the screen, and he’s gonna stay kinda free-throw level, and then as our guard attacks downhill, he's going to back up.
“And what they’re hoping is to get a one-on-one possession with our guard against their seven-footer at like six feet, seven feet. The way we combat that is we’ll get a driving line, let our big roll into contact, and if our guards are smart enough, they can make a second move.”
The Cats will be back in action tomorrow at 11 AM due to Winter Storm Fern.