LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- John Calipari's latest University of Kentucky men's basketball squad is a dazzling offensive force that has pinned 101 or more points on six helpless opponents.
You cannot defend all of Calipari's guys. Three Wildcats who are high-volume three-point shooters are making better than 43% of their attempts from distance, with one more player at a solid 37%. Kentucky is never out of any game.
Kentucky is third in the nation in scoring, second in three-point field goal percentage and first in the minds of many as a team you do not want to play in the NCAA Tournament.
But as a likely No. 4-seed on most reasonable NCAA Tournament projections, is Calipari's team a reasonable dark horse pick to turn a bracket upside down and reach the Final Four?
The record as well as the numbers say no.
The record says you cannot play defense the way that Kentucky plays defense and expect to win four consecutive games in March.
That's not me speaking. That's the defensive efficiency numbers (as compiled at Ken Pomeroy's analytics site) over the last 24 NCAA Tournaments speaking.
What the record shows Thursday is Kentucky ranks 99th in the nation in defensive efficiency. Even though the Wildcats limited Vanderbilt to 77 during their Senior Night victory Wednesday, Kentucky's defensive efficiency slipped from 96th to 99 this week.
How many of the last 96 teams to make the men's Final Four (starting with the 1999 season) ranked 99th or worse in defensive efficiency?
The answer is two teams.
One was coached by Jim Larranaga.
The other was coached by Tom Crean.
It happened last season. The Miami team that Larranaga led to victories over Drake, Indiana, Houston and Texas while winning the Midwest Regional ranked 99th in defensive efficiency.
The most significant outlier was Crean's 2003 Marquette squad. The team carried by future Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade, the one that upset a Kentucky team that was the tournament's overall top seed with an 83-69 win over the Wildcats on a day when UK star Keith Bogans logged 24 ineffective minutes on a bad ankle.
That Marquette team ranked an eye-popping 109th in defensive efficiency.
For the record, defensive efficiency measures how many points a team allows per defensive possession. Kentucky has allowed 103 points per 100 possessions this season.
The goal is to keep that number at 100 or lower. No. 1 Houston leads the nation at 89.6 points per 100 possessions.
UConn (95.9) and Purdue (97.1), two other likely No. 1 seeds, both rank in the top 20.
So does SEC regular-season champion Tennessee. The Vols rank third nationally at 91.2 points. Kentucky visits Tennessee at 4 p.m. Saturday.
Back to what the record shows.
Marquette's defensive issues were quickly exposed at the Final Four in New Orleans. The Golden Eagles lost to Kansas, 94-61.
Miami also lost in the national semifinal last season, stumbling against eventual champion Connecticut, 72-59.
The record shows what you would expect it to show. The better a team defends, the more likely it is to make the final weekend of the season.
Half of the last 96 Final Four teams ranked in the top 10 in defensive efficiency.
Three-quarters of the 96 Final Four squads ranked in the top 20 in defensive efficiency.
And more than 83% of the 96 Final Four teams finished their seasons ranked in the top 30.
What about winning the championship?
Outscoring people is not the path most frequently taken.
Of the last 24 NCAA men's champions, 15 played top-10 defense and eight others ranked in the top 20.
The exception was Baylor, which delivered for Scott Drew three seasons ago despite ranking 22nd in defensive efficiency.
Pomeroy does not have the numbers for John Calipari's 1996 Massachusetts' squad. But the site does have them for Calipari other Final Four teams:
- 2008 Memphis, No. 2, 86.5 points per 100 possessions
- 2011 Kentucky, No. 16, 92 points per 100 possessions
- 2012 Kentucky, No. 7, 89.6 points per 100 possessions
- 2014 Kentucky, No. 32, 95.8 points per 100 possessions
- 2015 Kentucky, No. 1, 84.4 points per 100 possessions
Calipari will try to do it a different way this season — and the numbers show he'll shock the world if Kentucky delivers.
Kentucky Basketball Coverage:
- Dillingham scores 23, No. 15 Kentucky pulls away from Vanderbilt 93-77 for 4th consecutive win
- CRAWFORD | Kentucky (Marymount) uses late flurry to put away Arkansas 111-102
- Reed Sheppard's basket with just under a second left sends No. 16 Kentucky past Mississippi State
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