[Moderated by Matt Jones, Drew Franklin and Tyler Thompson]

Like any horror movie, you are forced to watch and powerless to stop it. You scream, “watch out!
Behind you!” But your pleas fail to be recognized. Another Tennessee offensive rebound is put back up and in. This terror of offensive rebounds was counterbalanced this time: While Tennessee scored 30 second-chance points, they scored only 58 in total.
It was Nightmare on High Street except Freddie Kruger had plastic spoons on his glove.
The Wildcats have been allowing 12.6 opponents’ offensive rebounds per game. According to StatSheet.com, the team is ranked 279th out of 330 teams on allowed average offensive rebounding. This is no surprise. When you have up to three players — mainly all three of your frontcourt members — making a quick adjustment to challenge the a drive, almost all of those players will be out of position to block out for rebounds.
Have those lost offensive rebounds been hurting the Cats, as they did against Tennessee? Despite those opponents offensive rebounds, the team still gets it done on defensive rebounds. From StatSheet, Kentucky is 3rd in the Nation in defensive rebounds per game (19.3). The Wildcats are also 14th in the nation in number of total defensive rebounds (522). The NCAA’s statistics show Kentucky with an overall — offensive, defensive, and team — rebounding margin of 6.4, good for 19th in the nation. Even though Kentucky gives up more offensive rebounds than they get, Kentucky gets significantly more defensive rebounds than their opponents.
Does Kentucky end up struggling when they are out-rebounded by their opponent? Not really. Consider this chart showing UK’s total rebounds and opponent’s total rebounds per game:
There have been 6 games in which Kentucky was out-rebounded by their opponent. In those 6 games, Kentucky won 4 (Delaware State, Appalachian State, Vanderbilt, Tennessee) and lost 2 (@ Ole Miss, @ Vanderbilt).
What happens when Kentucky’s opponent gets more (or an equal amount) defensive rebounds than Kentucky?
Kentucky is 1-4 when an opponent has an equal or more defensive rebounds than Kentucky: A win against Delaware State, 4 losses to Miami, @ Ole Miss, Mississippi State and @ Vandy. In those four losses, Kentucky allowed their opponents to shoot better than 43% FG. (Kentucky has averaging holding opponents to 37% FG.) Also in those three games, Miami and Vandy shot better than 42% for 3-pointers, Mississippi State made 42 points on 51.9% 3FG shooting and Ole Miss scored 30 points on 38.5% 3FG shooting.
Its difficult to grab a defensive board when your opponents are making their baskets. Opponents’ offensive rebounding isn’t nearly as scary as an opponent with a good jump-shooting team. In Columbia Wednesday night, Kentucky faces a monster that can feast on Kentucky’s weaknesses.
Now that’s terrifying.
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February 23rd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
We get a lot of defensive rebounds and our opponents get a lot of offensive rebounds simply because teams tend to shoot poorly against us. We rank very high nationally in shooting percentage allowed. Simple as that!
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
if we played Pitt, DeJuan Blair would pull about 35 rebounds.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Harris couldn’t get 8 boards at a lumber yard.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Call in Gerald Fitch, a top rebounding UK guard. Speaking of which, where is Fitch these days?
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:44 pm
tennessee got alot of their offensive rebounds off of all the 3′s they shot. i think that speaks alot for opponents’ offensive boards, kentucky dares teams to beat them from long range.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
#2, troof.
#3, hilarious!
and for everyone else, lets push for the Kige Ramsey live chat. KSR history would be made. I’d buy Kige’s book. WE MUST HAVE LIVE KIGE CHAT!!!
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Very good post. Nice research.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:53 pm
It goes back to the basics……….FIND YOUR MAN & BOX OUT…its pretty simple really……..i understand at times when you have to help and your out of position but many many times the cats are simply not finding the man they are guarding and boxing out……..RAMON HARRIS is really bad about this!! see Prince for Tenn
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Not enough defensive quickness on the perimeter means we get broken down off the dribble forcing help. The helper’s man is left to grab the rebound, or move out for an open three. Tennessee was long lean (and not too quick) so our denial defense forced more bad shots.
Devan Downey is so excited about Wednesday night that he’s having trouble sleeping! That does not mean that they beat us, but he’s got to love having bigger, slower guys now matter how we match up.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:17 pm
EASY: QUIT TRYING TO BLOCK EVERY SHOT
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
As bad as we suck at rebounding playing man, could you imagine if we played a Zone?(which by the way will never happen unless it is mandated by the NCAA). Rebounding that bad is nothing but a coaching issue.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Bottom line-we give up way too many offensive boards because Patterson can’t do it alone inside and the guards are getting back to slow transition opps. We have lost 3 games because of ricockulous 3 point shooting nights (UL, MSU, SC) because you just don’t guard that hard 25 ft out. We have lost 3 more because we gave up too many second chance points. VMI was a bad matchup and Vandy was a direct result of Pattersons out.
We’ll see what happens when Pilgrim and Orton get in.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Nice job FGM!!
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
It looked like we were playing more of a sagging man to man against Tennessee at times on Saturday, anyone else notice that?
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Need your Shagari fix?
http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&brand=msn&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:963eb029-57a6-483e-90d8-4aaa9501e46a&showPlaylist=&from=IV2_en-us_v11HP&fg=gtlv2
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:35 pm
#11 is exactly right. Playing a zone hurts rebounding. Since we never play a zone, we can’t use that excuse.
Rebounding is achieved by working harder than your opponent, period. We are being out hustled.
The UT game stats are skewed. We had 22 assists to UT’s 4 (!!!). We were finding easier shots while they were jacking up crap and thus allowing for more errant rebound opportunities.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
12) ricockulous ???
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Stronger language than ridiculous-you know, for effect.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:02 pm
when you have 2 guys tring to block everything then you need good guards or a great wing rebounder, which we don’t have. If we don’t block the shot then we are usually a man down and not in the best position for rebounding. No. 3 in blocks in nation and terrible in giving up offensive rebounds. Sometimes you get the good with the bad.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
You know, I think this stat makes perfect sense for this team. We’re one of the leading shot blocking teams in the nation. When you go to block a shot, you’re not in a position to rebound, providing more opportunities for offensive rebounds to the other team.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
OOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!1
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Damn. Those are two staggering statistics.
UT had 30 points off of second chance points, which is horrible for us. Equally impressive, for us, is the fact that they only scored 28 points on first shots throughout the game. That’s defense. If we can start grabbing some boards our defense will be extremely efficient.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Quit posting gay charts!!! I’m at work all day looking at these damn
things. I don’t come to KSR during my breaks to work, I come here to have fun and
discuss the greatest basketball program of all time.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
#23 — Those are most definitely heterosexual charts. Well, the Total Rebound chart did experiment a little in college by dressing up as a pie chart. But there’s no way he would ever touch anything other than a bar graph or a really drunken scatter plot graph.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Replace block shots with drawn charges and block out the players that you can get a a$$ on would help out.
We never block out and very seldom draw a charge. BCG is not a fan of either…I don’t agree with him but he gets paid the big bucks. We will see if his odd ways of Coaching will translate in to a successful tourney Coach. He is 0-2 so far at UK.
February 23rd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
3… Classic!
February 24th, 2009 at 7:15 am
#24. LOL