Kentucky has a chance to avenge its loss in Tuscaloosa at the start of SEC play when it takes on Alabama in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament on Friday.
The Wildcats will be the favorite in that matchup, which will send one team to the semifinal on Saturday, but there are some keys to this potentially tricky game.
1. Reverse the rebounding margin from the first game.
Alabama outrebounded Kentucky 40-32 in its 77-75 win against Kentucky in Tuscaloosa back at the start of conference play. That has proved to be a real outlier as Kentucky has turned out to be one of the nation's better rebounding teams and Alabama has not been that. The Tide ranks 173rd in the country in defensive rebounding percentage and around 90th in offensive rebounding rate.
Having said that, there is no question that when Alabama makes a commitment to the glass they are formidable on the boards. The latest evidence: Alabama outrebounded Ole Miss 50-30 in its Wednesday win against the Rebels.
That included 17 offensive rebounds and 15 rebounds by Donta Hall, who had 10 boards against Kentucky in the first meeting.
2. Get out on jump shooters.
Alabama doesn't do a lot of things well offensively. If you dig into the advanced numbers, they aren't efficient in transition, they don't score effectively on post-up opportunities, isolation isn't a concern and hand offs don't produce many results.
What the Tide does extremely well is knock down spot up jump shot attempts. The Tide was 10 of 23 from three-point range against Kentucky (43.5%) in its win earlier in the season. It shot 46% from the field overall, and that number included plenty of jumpers.
3. Get contributions from big men other than PJ Washington.
When these teams played the first time around PJ Washington hadn't really started to play like an All-American. Nonetheless, he scored 15 points and grabbed seven rebounds as one of five Wildcats who scored in double-digits. Reid Travis scored 12 points in that game but was pretty much shut down after halftime.
Fortunately for Kentucky, John Calipari says Travis will play on Friday. Whether it's Travis, EJ Montgomery, Nick Richards or some combination of the three, Kentucky needs more than just Washington playing well on the inside.
Richards and Montgomery combined to provide three points, three rebounds and one block in 21 combined minutes in that game, and their production will need to be substantially better than that.
Alabama is 19th in the country in blocks per game and they can contest shots inside. UK's bigs have to play tough.
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