For all that a game between Kentucky and Wisconsin offers -- and it offers so much -- among its most apparent opportunities are those to make waste of some of basketball’s most dead-horse cliches. The best defense is a good offense! is one so overwrought, it, as a phrase, has its own Wikipedia article. Folks also like to say that defense wins championships! and that offense sells tickets!, and nobody knows how to make sense of any of these statements, because they usually don’t make sense.
Will elite offense or elite defense prevail when Wisconsin and Kentucky meet?
Something has to give when the best offense and best defense in college basketball play each other Saturday.
What truly wins championships -- or, in the case of Saturday’s game, championship semifinals -- is a confluence of events that has to do with all kinds of stuff, and when a team is really good at one of those categories, then that thing usually weighs strongly toward its favor. In other words, no team wins anything on one given quality.
So what does that mean when the No. 1 defense in the country and the second-best defense of any team since 2002 (Kentucky) plays against the best offense, by a wide margin, in college basketball since 2002 (Wisconsin)? Do we have a cliche to easily solve this? Is there any precedent at all for excellence at these levels in direct competition?
That since 2002 was established because that's when KenPom.com started tracking data in college basketball. Since then, the best offense in college basketball is this year's Wisconsin team. The Badgers score 127.5 points per 100 possessions. The 2014 Michigan Wolverines (124.1) and 2005 Wake Forest Demon Deacons (124.0) are the only two teams to top 124 since 2002. This is a historic offense.
Kentucky’s defense hasn’t let it down yet. The Wildcats remained undefeated in the regional final because their defense found just enough to slow down Notre Dame -- the second-best offensive team in the country -- despite the Irish’s near-perfect plan to pull off the upset. The Wildcats’ 85.6 points allowed per 100 possessions is the best in college basketball this year, and the only team better since 2002 was John Calipari’s 2009 Memphis team. This is a historic defense.
The beauty of these two teams playing in the Final Four rather than the title game is that the two coaches will have been planning against each other for a full week in preparation for a direct battle between the nation’s best at each end of the floor. And both teams are great because of how well the coaches deploy their players.
I hesitate to call either Wisconsin’s offense or Kentucky’s defense art, because the most common reaction to watching either at its best is along the lines of, How did they do that?, and the term artistry implies that technical execution is invisible. Moments of artistry-relative-to-basketball pop in and out between strict sessions of regimented offense (in Wisconsin’s case) and defense (in Kentucky’s case).
For instance, the Wildcats: A defense as good as Kentucky’s has to be intensely structured. Calipari is a master of teaching defense on a short timetable. Whereas Jim Boeheim can allow a player to prosper for a few years and quietly master the intricacies of the 2-3 zone, Kentucky has four freshmen that each average at least 50 percent of Kentucky’s available team minutes.
Still, Kentucky’s defense is characterized by its understanding of Calipari’s defense and commitment to execution, paired with immense size and athletic ability used creatively to react to lapses (or perhaps even to proactively take more risks).
This happened in the Sweet 16, when Kentucky took a top-50 offense and beat the hell out of it.
West Virginia's BillyDee Williams, who is 6'6, had a fairly clear lane to the basket. Marcus Lee had his back facing the rim, and Williams knew he had a lane to go up with the ball. Willie Cauley-Stein and Trey Lyles reacted, and the result was that both players blocked Williams' dunk attempt simultaneously. The ball then bounced out of bounds off Williams, helpless, and Kentucky won, 78-39.
Calipari also has free reign to virtually do whatever he wants to do given his personnel. In the regional final against Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish were down 68-66 and had six seconds to take the ball the length of the floor to either tie or win. Naturally, Mike Brey put the ball in the hands of Jerian Grant, his 6'5 All-American point guard. Calipari's choice to keep Grant from a quality look: Cauley-Stein, the 7-footer seen above double-blocking (or half-blocking?) a shot the game before.
Cauley-Stein stayed in front of Grant and forced him to the corner, and Andrew Harrison (6'6) and Trey Lyles (6'10) closed out to keep Cauley-Stein's momentum from causing a foul. It was perfect defense that no other team in the country could have pulled off (or would have even tried). But Calipari knows his team well enough to know what risks he can take, and 7-footers as fast and agile as Cauley-Stein allow for quite a few risks.
Whereas Kentucky’s athleticism likely overshadows its defensive execution, Wisconsin is the other way around. The Badgers are clinicians. They perfectly mix patience and urgency, rarely taking shots too soon or not soon enough unless they are doing so with a specific end in mind. Below are three straight three-pointers Wisconsin made to surge ahead in the second half of the regional final against Arizona.
Notice how Wisconsin is always spaced well across the floor, and notice that each of the three shots came at different points in the shot clock (in order: 25, 13 and 18).
Ryan's offense is so efficient because of the open looks it creates, but Ryan also allows his players the freedom to use their athleticism and attack the basket at will. In the Sweet 16 against North Carolina, Sam Dekker controlled the ball in transition and started to settle into the half-court until he caught an opening in the Tar Heels' defense.
Both Dekker and Frank Kaminsky have such a handle on Ryan's offense that reading ripples in opposing defenses and riffing off of them is a big part of why Wisconsin is so dangerous, and that both of them can move as well as they do enables Ryan to let them loose.
Predicting which will prevail -- Wisconsin’s offense or Kentucky’s defense -- isn’t the point of the build-up to Saturday. No, the point is embracing the talent and unity of both teams. Neither would be in the Final Four and the best in the country at what they do if it weren’t for the right mixture of talent, unity, coaching and a hundred other factors I nor most readers would ever come up with on our own. One team will win Saturday because the rules of basketball demand it, and the other team, whether it’s Kentucky or Wisconsin, should be remembered for its excellence rather than falling short against the team designed perfectly to stop it.
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