After each UK basketball game and periodically at others times the Cats Illustrated Basketball Stock report will be updated to reflect the latest trends for John Calipari's 2019-20 team.
| 📈 | Kahlil Whitney. Exhale, everyone. You can be forgiven if you panicked a bit after Whitney's awful exhibition against Georgetown College. But nobody should have written him off after one game, and against Kentucky State he showed why. Whitney has excellent form on his jumper, he played with good awareness on defense, getting his hands on loose balls, and while he didn't dominate on the glass he was at least a factor. It was a performance to build on, even if Michigan State's physicality will be a much bigger test. UK needs something from him given Nick Richards' uncertain status. |
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📉 | Tyrese Maxey's scoring. Let's be careful to draw distinctions here. Nobody should be too concerned with Maxey's overall impact, because his defense has been very good and is one of the reasons UK ought to have the best on-ball perimeter defense in college basketball. And he dished out five assists, so Maxey did impact UK in the scoring column. But he has had only one offensively efficient scoring half out of four against poor competition thus far. It's probably best to prepare to be patient for his scoring impact to gradually improve as he adjusts to the college game. |
📉 | Ashton Hagans' jump shot. After an "OK" 2/6 outing from long range against Georgetown College, Hagans was 0/3 from outside against Kentucky State. For a player who shot 27.5% from outside last year, that simply has to improve. |
📈 | Pressure defense. Kentucky forced 22 turnovers and scored 30 points off those Kentucky State turnovers. 22 of those points off turnovers came in the first half when Kentucky turned up the pressure defense on the ball. |
📉 | Halfcourt offense. The execution was pretty brutal especially in the first part of the game. Kentucky had 37 fastbreak points, and that is just not going to hold against quality Division I opponents. UK must get better at running its sets. The good news: It's early and that's to be expected. |
📈 | Rebounding. When Georgetown College outrebounded Kentucky it prompted more than a few raised eyebrows. The 'Cats only outrebounded Kentucky State by two in the first half. But Kentucky doubled down and made it a point of emphasis after halftime, ultimately outrebounding Kentucky State by 10. Keion Brooks was big on the boards. |
