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Cats Host #20 Mississippi

As a result of the Cats’ loss on the road to South Carolina, a sweep of Vanderbilt and holding serve at Rupp Arena became essential elements for the Cats to win the SEC regular season in 2010. On Saturday, the Cats took care of the first half of their necessary Vanderbilt sweep with a 13 point home court win. It is a fact that the Cats emerged from the starting blocks into a full sprint to build an early double digit lead, and it is a fact that Vanderbilt never found a way to cut that lead back into single digits, once UK established it. It is also a fact that for about 30 minutes of the game, the lead fluctuated between 11 and 19 points.

However, the Cats established their biggest lead of the game in the first half, and they were never able to extend that 19 point lead to 20 points or more despite multiple opportunities to do just that in each half. The first half against Vanderbilt was impressive at the offensive end of the floor, 49 points in 36 possessions [1.361 ppp] on offense. However, defensively the Cats allowed Vanderbilt to score 34 points on 36 possessions [0.944 ppp] which is well above UK’s season average defensive efficiency.

Nevertheless, a 15 point lead at the half against a ranked opponent, on the strength of that impressive offensive outburst was impressive. The second half, however, had a different ring to it at both ends of the court. This is why Kentucky could not put this Vanderbilt team away earlier, and allowed Vanderbilt to flirt with getting back into the game with several opportunities to cut the deficit back into single digits. In that second half, the Cats managed to score 36 points on 34 possessions, less than their season average and considerably less than the first half performance in this game. All while allowing Vanderbilt to score 38 points on 36 possessions, again much worse defensively than the season average and worse that a ho hum first half in this game.

The result was the 13 point, 85-72 final score. However, with a consistent effort throughout the full 40 minutes, or with a defensive effort on par with the offensive effort, the Cats could have put Vanderbilt away before halftime, and never let them off the mat.

Yes, the Cats did manage to hand Vanderbilt their first SEC loss of this season, and in so doing pull themselves into a “tie” with Vanderbilt for the lead in the SEC. That coupled with recent losses by SEC West leaders Mississippi and Mississippi State to Arkansas this past week propel UK and Vanderbilt into the front seat of the SEC 2010 Express, but Vanderbilt remains behind the wheel despite UK’s win on Saturday by virtue of its road wins at USC and Tennessee, and UK’s road loss at USC with trips to Vanderbilt and Tennessee yet to come.

Kentucky must not only hold serve the rest of the year at Rupp, it must beat Vanderbilt in Nashville later this month to secure the SEC 2010 Championship.

On Tuesday night, the Cats must take their next step toward that SEC Championship when they host Mississippi.
Mississippi will bring an 16-5; 4-3 record into this game. The Rebels finished their non-conference schedule 12-2 with losses to Villanova [#13] by 12 on a Neutral court, and at West Virginia [#6] by 10. However, Mississippi opened play in the SEC this year with a home loss to arch rival Mississippi State [#37] by 5, and lost at Tennessee [#25] by 2 in overtime. While their home loss to Miss. St. certainly put them behind the 8 ball after just one game, their loss at Tennessee was not fatal. Sunday, the Rebels lost to Arkansas at home by 7 points, essentially taking themselves out of any serious position to win the SEC regular season championship this season without running the table from this point forward.

Mississippi has averaged 80.9 ppg on 72.5 possessions per game, 1.116 points per possession, and they have allowed their opponents to score 69.3 ppg on 72.1 possessions, 0.961 ppp. Mississippi’s turnover rate through 19 games is 17.1% while their opponents have committed turnovers on 20.8% of their collective possessions. On the Boards, Mississippi has grabbed a decent 35.4% of their own misses but OLE MISS has allowed their opponents to get 35.4% of their missed shots.

Kentucky has averaged 82.2 ppg on 72.2 possessions per game, 1.139 points per possession, and they have allowed their opponents to score 66.0 ppg on 71.7 possessions, 0.921 ppp. UK’s turnover rate through 14 games is 21.0% while their opponents have committed turnovers on only 20.5% of their collective possessions. On the Boards, the Cats have grabbed a very powerful, but declining 43.5% of their own misses and limited their opponents to only 31.4% of their missed shots.

Based on this data for Mississippi and the Cats for the 2009-10 season, the NGE analysis indicates a 12-point win for the Cats, 83-71 in a game that will be played at a pace about 72 possessions for Kentucky and 72 possessions for Mississippi. The NGE analysis indicates an offensive efficiency of about 1.15 ppp with a defensive efficiency of about 0.98 ppp range. The pre-game magic number is 78 points.