What we learned: lineups, minutes, and philosophy from Kentucky vs. Kentucky Wesleyan
By Mark Knight
There was so much to like about this new squad and this new team. It looked so much different than what we are used to and the result speaks for itself. It was an absolutely dominating win, a win in which the Wildcats never let off the gas. This will be key down the stretch, not letting opponents climb back in but continuing to keep the pedal down.
What did we learn though? We went into this season with so many questions, and there's no way one exhibition game will answer them all; we did learn a few things about new Kentucky head coach Mark Pope's squad. One of the biggest questions was how Pope would get everyone into the game. What sort of lineups would we see? What minute distribution would be handed out? Who would be the first subs in? And really many more questions like that. Let's dive in.
Lineups
Pope used all 11 of his planned 12 (though he did get Walker Horn in at the end for a few minutes). The only exception was Kerr Kriisa, who was held out in a precautionary way from a sore and recovering hamstring. He could have played if needed, but why risk it in an exhibition? So, Pope left him out for this one.
He played all sorts of lineups in all sorts of scenarios, so we may not have gotten a great feel for them yet. But here's how they played out.
Starting Lineup:
Lamont Butler
Otega Oweh
Jaxson Robinson
Andrew Carr
Amari Williams
When Pope first went to his bench, he subbed into this lineup:
Butler
Brea
Robinson
Andrew Carr
Brandon Garrison
At this point, Butler had played through all the lineups and with him being the only active (true) point guard, I was curious how he would sub out. He finally did on the third lineup we saw was:
Brea
Travis Perry
Collin Chandler
Garrison
Ansley Almonor
The fourth lineup:
Oweh
Perry
Chandler
Carr
Garrison
Then it was time to get Butler back in, and we saw this lineup:
Butler
Oweh
Chandler
Carr
Williams
After that, we started to see these lineups rotate throughout the game. But it's interesting to note the initial subs and how Pope plans to use his squad. It would be easy to say that it's an exhibition game, and so it may have been different, and that's going to be true. However, the first few of the bench will be a consistency we see throughout the year if there aren't injuries.
Minutes
It's no surprise that Lamont Butler and Jaxson Robinson led the team in minutes at 46. What surprised me and many others was who came in third. It was a guy many expected to be mostly a role player and a guy that could give wind to the bigs, Ansley Almonor. He was third on the team with 39 minutes.
Butler - 46
Robinson - 46
Almonor - 39
Oweh - 35
Williams - 33
Brea - 33
Carr - 30
Chandler - 25
Perry - 25
Garrison - 23
Noah - 17
Horn - 3
I'm going to leave this here to see how this develops and how the minutes break down as we see more games. However, it's fascinating to see the distribution even in one game.
Philosophy
The philosophy of basketball was startling, to say the least. It was so much different from what we are used to that it was like watching a different sport. It was beautiful how much passing there was. We started to notice this in practice videos posted, but it was on full display in the game. There truly wasn't much dribbling because there was so much passing.
Kentucky basketball has often looked like a glorified pickup game over the last decade. They were really impressive athletes who knew how to take control of a court and just dominate, but not a ton of teamwork. It was on the fast break and maybe a pass or two if there was. But never 5 or more passes before a shot was taken. Instead, that felt like every possession tonight.