📅 Published on: 2024-11-26 00:21:05

⏱ Duration: ( seconds)

👀 Views: | 👍 Likes: [vid_likes]

📝 Video Description:

Will Mark Pope and Kentucky basketball be challenged by Western Kentucky’s defense? On today’s episode of Locked On …

🎙 Channel: Locked On Kentucky

🌍 Channel Country: [channel_country_name]

📂 Tags:

[vid_tags]

🕵️‍♂️ Transcript:

the numbers suggest that Western Kentucky is actually a solid team but are they really especially in comparison to the Kentucky Wildcats you are locked on Kentucky your daily podcast on the Kentucky Wildcats part of the locked on podcast Network your team everyday all right what’s going on Big Blue Nation welcome on into locked on Kentucky your daily Kentucky Wildcats podcast I’m your host Lance da and on today’s episode of Locked on Kentucky we are going to be previewing Kentucky basketballs matchup with the Western Kentucky Hill Toppers according to Ken pal and according to the eye test yeah they’re a pretty decent Squad but are they actually especially in comparison to the wild cats going to dive into the good what do we know about the hill Toppers what have they done well this season going to dive into the bad there are some hidden things about this team that you may not realize on the surface and it’s going to contribute in a major way when breaking down kind of how these two teams match up and then to wrap up the show going to have our two bi-weekly segment I should say uh mark it down I’ll go ahead and play the little sticker here for you on uh on YouTube if you’re watching there today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel you can continue your season with a big return on FanDuel because new customers can place a $5 bet and get started with $150 in bonus bets if they win their first $5 bet just visit fanduel.com to get started thank you guys so much for making lock on Kentucky your first listen every single day want to remind everyone out there that we are free and available on all platforms and if you are watching on YouTube I would greatly appreciate it if you subscribe to the show and if you’re listening on podcast I would also appreciate it if you subscribed there as well all right let’s go ahead and get into it Kentucky basketball looking to improve to 6 and0 would be their best starting record since the 2016 17 season cats went 7-0 to start that year before a loss to UCLA if I’m not mistaken wild cats taking on the three and two Western Kentucky Hill Toppers as of this recording Western Kentucky ranked 127th on kenpom they are a pretty solid school one of the better non-conference teams Kentucky will have faced this season I have some bold predictions despite the fact that they are ranked as one of the better teams Kentucky has faced so far I I just don’t know if Western Kentucky will be able to keep up with UK for a variety of reasons but before we get to that let’s talk about what do we know about the hill Toppers what do we know about their team and kind of what do they do well well to start let’s discuss their head coach Hank plona in his first season I believe that’s how he pronounced his last name in his first season as a division one head coach he started his career as a ga at Providence after getting his Masters there he was an assistant at Arkansas Fort Smith then an assistant at Indian Hills Community College he was an assistant at South Plains Joo before becoming the head coach back at Indian Hills and he was the head coach there from 2015 to 2023 he amassed a 225 to35 record won like 85% of his games was a really really good coach there I believe won a title or got very close to doing so winning his division there uh late in his 10 then he decided to resign from his position at Indian Hills Community College he became an assistant at Western Kentucky in 2023 he was there as an assistant for one season and then Steve Lutz the former head coach of the Hill Toppers was hired away at Oklahoma State and just like that Hank plona finds himself as a division one coach coaching the hill Toppers so far the season 3 and two are the hill Toppers with their best win being against lip scum a team that Kentucky just beat they beat them 66-61 in Bowling Green Kentucky they actually just played Jackson State as well last Wednesday part of the Big Blue Nation Invitational so Kentucky is the final stop here for the hill Toppers in that Invitational and they have been at different points this season despite a couple of different losses to Witchita State and Grand Canyon they’ve been putting up points and that’s kind of where I want to start the positives here they are averaging right now 81 points per game now we’re going to dive into exactly kind of where they got those points later on in the show there’s something I’m intentionally not telling you here but overall the offense has been able to score they are led by Don McKenry who sounds like an 80s rock star he’s averaging 17.2 points per game they’ve got a couple of other really solid pieces one of which will break down in the second segment as the player to watch in this game as the biggest matchup once again Kentucky going up against a player that is pretty solid in the front Court a big physical Wing forward type can they handle the matchup so far they’ve been able to do just that despite some I think some better presences that they’ve seen down low but McKenry is solid the team is extremely balanced when it comes to Distributing the ball it’s a really interesting team they are very uh they’re very interesting in terms of of experience in bench minutes they’re just balanced across the board when it comes to getting different guys involved outside of McKenry uh it’s an interesting Squad as a firste head coach you are going to expect some statistical struggles right you’re going to go look at their Kim pom page you’re going to go look at their ESPN page wherever you want to go look and get your numbers and you’re going to see some things with some areas a lot of different areas where they just flat out aren’t performing and that’s okay it’s part of the process building towards something it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re an incompetent product I would argue against that and say Western Kentucky 3 and two they’ve looked pretty solid especially considering if you’re comparing rather I should say them to a couple of other teams that Kentucky has already faced however there are some holes there are some holes the final positive thing that I will say and this is maybe the biggest thing here is that their defense has not been too shabby they are currently s 75th in the nation an adjusted defensive efficiency they are 56th in effective field goal percentage they are 56th in three-point percentage at just 28% that’s what their opponents are shooting now granted they’ve played some really bad three-point shooting offenses in fact I can go over here to the opponent tracker and look at three-point shooting percentage they have already faced three of the eight worst shooting teams that they will face this season Kentucky obviously one of the best three-point shooting teams in the country so we’ll be it’ll be interesting to see how those two things kind of clash against each other but the offense is averaging over 80 points and the defense is really good for a mid major team and they prevent rebounds they create some turnovers they play with a decent pace there’s not a ton here to really knock on the defensive side of the ball but the offense is kind of where things get interesting and that’s kind of one to want to dive into further preview a couple different players one big player to watch down low before we continue our preview of Kentucky versus Western Kentucky want to tell you guys about our friends over at FanDuel you can get started with FanDuel today America’s number one sports book because right now you get started today new customers can bet $5 and get $ $150 in bonus bets if they win the FanDuel Sportsbook app gives you everything you need to place live bets on the NFL and it’s all in one place so when you get a hunch in the middle of a game you can check out the latest stats view live play byplay and so much more all on the same page where you place your live bets just visit fanduel.com to join today again you’ll get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet that’s fanduel.com you never waste a hunch and make every moment more with FanDuel an official Sportsbook partner of the NFL all right continuing along here on the Monday edition of locked on Kentucky Lance doll hanging out here with you thank you guys so much for checking out the show today if you have not subscribed to the YouTube channel or the podcast cast feed I would greatly appreciate it if you did so we are previewing Kentucky basketball’s matchup with Western Kentucky this team pretty good according to Kim pal ranked 127th I’ll pull it back up here right now Kentucky has faced off against the 138 226 fourth 131 and 336 best teams in the country according to those rankings so this is technically the second best opponent that Kentucky has faced it’s actually hilarious I’ve done all of these notes and I’ve just pulled back up Kim pom and there are a couple of major numbers that have changed a couple different spots for Kentucky which is hilarious that’s just kind of how things e and Flow by the way if you’re not watching the Maui Invitational over the course of the next couple days you absolutely need to do it it’s going to be incredible Feast week is the best one of the best weeks for college basketball of the season I love it the Yukon uh Memphis game if you got to see that earlier today what a barn burner um really some questionable calls late but it was still a phenomenal game nonetheless anyway college basketball is good right now Western Kentucky Kentucky is going to be another really good game so what to watch for here that’s kind of leaning towards the negative side so we talked about the positive stuff right we talked about a new head coach talked about his really strong record at his community college that he coached at for so long he has moved up the ranks pretty quickly here he is coaching WKU against Kentucky they’ve got a good defense the offense despite averaging 81 points per game is one of the worst Kentucky has seen so far in terms of adjusted efficiency this team is 225th nationally they are in the bottom third of the country in all of these statistics just walk with me here it’s essentially every single stat effective field goal percentage turnover percentage offensive rebound percentage free throw attempts over field goal attempts how often they get to the foul line twoo percentage free throw percentage block percentage steel percentage assists per field goals made how much much they distribute the ball they are struggling in nearly every single statistical category almost all of it is bad minus three-point shooting which is average if you go and look they’re shooting 33.3% from Beyond The Arc and non steal turnover percentage those are the only two stats that you can look at and say they’re doing a good job in and non steel turnover percentage if we’re just talking about random numbers that doesn’t really matter if you’re one of the worst teams than in the nation and allowing steals to happen if the ball gets stolen from you more than almost anyone in the country it doesn’t really matter that you don’t have if you have a a low non- steel turnover percentage because the turnovers are being created elsewhere like you’re not going to have any opportunities to just throw the ball out of bounds and not get stolen you know so it’s um it’s a bad offense they rank 13th in the country in Tempo an average possession link their 11th adjusted Tempo I should say so they’re one of the fastest offenses in the nation and it looks like and I had to go and watch the lipsum game for myself because the entire the entire uh I was going to say show the entire game was on YouTube I went and watched about half of it yeah they’re uh they they like to get shots up quickly and some of them are not the most efficient shots some of them are good shots taken by players that are just not executing very well this is an offense that is only averaging 81 points per game because of the game that they played against an Nia school on November 12th they played Campville in Nia school they scored 104 points that is what is bringing up their averages in their other games they have scored 84 72 66 and 79 yes this offense still would have scored a decent chunk of points but that 104 Point Victory not margin just total points is doing a lot of heavy lifting here for their stats I do not think that they are going to score more than 70 points in this game kmom thinks they’re going to score 69 I don’t think they’re going to score more than 70 points in this game I think Kentucky is going to be able to continue to do some of the things that they’ve done really well defensively in this matchup now there are a couple of other interesting stats here that I one of them I posted a Twitter that we’ll talk about in the market down segment just something I want you guys to be aware of but for this matchup they don’t have a ton of really good Shooters just flat out and the only front Court presence that they have that I’m concerned about does not shoot very well and that’s babacar I believe it’s fay babacar fay uh was at College of Charleston for a couple of years if I’m not mistaken but for transferring to Western Kentucky this is the best start that he’s had averaging 15 points per game almost almost eight rebounds a block per game but he’s only shooting 48% from the floor as a 6’8 big he is their starting five he’s not shooting more than 50% as the center and that’s just simply not very good he is the presence that I am most concerned about in this game though he’s the player to watch he grabs rebounds he plays decent defense he’s physical but his shot selection is just not very good the fact that he’s been able to get to 15 points per game so far this season is I believe largely due in part to the fact that they just play with so much Tempo and they create a couple different turnovers on defense and it gives them more possessions to put shots up this is kind of what we talked about a lot last season when it came to Kentucky and Tempo and how they managed their offense their defense gave up more points despite being statistically eh because of the fact that they played so fast on offense it just gave their opponent more possessions Jaylen Jackson outside of Baba car and Don McKenry is the only other player that I look at and I say I am interested to see how K Kentucky matches up here Jaylen Jackson is a sixth year player he played at North Texas for two years he played at Texas A&M Corpus Christie for two years he’s now here at Western Kentucky he’s averaging three assists per game he’s the only player on the roster to average more than 1.8 assists per contest you got hit the third start of the Season against Jackson State keep in mind we’re five games in he’s only started three games you got to start last contest if he starts here and he is essentially the only like noticeable assist man on this team if Kentucky shuts him down what does the offense really do like how how do they consistently score points because again the the roster is extremely balanced when when it comes to Distributing the ball there are eight different players here that average between 1 and 1.8 assists per game Jackson’s the only player that averages more so like will they be able to find enough outside of him through the this conglomerate of players who kind of all distribute the ball or if they take Jackson out is it just kind of like okay we’re left with this relatively mediocre like ability to distribute the ball and there just not a ton of points to be found especially when you consider the fact that they don’t shoot well they don’t grab rebounds they don’t they turn the ball over a ton it’s it’s not a good offense will Kentucky speed kind of allow them to make some mistakes in this game there’s a chance that could happen there is absolutely a chance that could happen but I’m not banking on it I think Kentucky will continue to play well defensively in this game I think they will lock in I think they will execute um this is kind of what we’ve said for several years on the show at Western Kentucky which by the way I do want to say this Hank plona in his first year is still projected to have a winning record both overall and in conference play he’s going to have something going on here he okay he’s going to beat a decent amount of teams in conference US USA Western Kentucky’s going to be a decent Squad they’re probably going to be even better as he gets more time there but against a team like Kentucky who is arguably the best team on their schedule when they’ve got they’ve got teams like Michigan and Liberty coming up past the wild cats ky’s bigger they’re faster I think that they have a leg up when it comes to coaching just because of where Mark Pope is currently his career and the offense that he runs it’s at home everything points to a Kentucky Victory if Kentucky somehow finds a way to lose this game and they get upset we’ll talk about it we’ll we’ll break it down we’ll explain why a collapse happened right sometimes upsets happen but in on paper the wild cats should not lose this game anybody would agree with that I don’t think that Western Kentucky scores more than 70 I don’t think they score more than 65 I think they score maybe somewhere between 60 to 65 64 points somewhere between there and I think Kentucky will scrape 90 I’m going to go 90 63 we’ll say 90 to 63 that’ll be my projection for this contest I think the wild cats are are going to be able to do enough on both sides of the ball I don’t think that Western kuy’s three-point defense is as legitimate as it looks statistically because they played a bunch of really poor shooting teams Kentucky plays well in transition Kentucky will shoot threes Kentucky will be aggressive they are just simply an overall better team again Kentucky has not been six and0 or better since the start of the 2016 17 SE season they should get there tonight that is my prediction let me know what you think in the comments below what are your score predic who do you think is going to be the most important player in the game let me know if you’re watching on YouTube leave a comment there if you’re listening on podcast at lock onuk on Twitter is where you can find me and give your thoughts there all right we going to we’re we gonna we’re going to wrap up the show with a segment that I started last weekend called Mark it down going to give you my hot takes and predictions for the upcoming week can I give a in a hot a hot prediction hot take man I can’t talk hot take for this game here tonight about Kentucky really clamping down on the defensive side of the ball before we get to that though I want to tell you guys about our friends over at game time game time is the place that you need to go if you’re looking to get tickets to this game against Wester Kentucky Western Kentucky or any home game for R Arena you need to go to game time it is the place to go to get tickets to your favorite events it’s not just college basketball college football you can go to MLB games whenever they start back up in the spring you go can go to to NBA games NFL games you can also go to concerts theater any event near you you can find the tickets over on game time they also have this new thing called Game Time picks it’s curation that makes it e easier to save more on Sports like concerts comedy theater and more near you they’ve got the lowest price guarantee they’ve got seat views before your you buy I have used them for several years now going to different college football and basketball events and it is so easy to get a deal that I want that I like I can get in and out of the app I can see where I’m sitting I’m I can get the tickets I can share them with my friends super super quick super super easy and you can take the guesswork out of buying your tickets with game time picks by downloading the game time app creating an account and using Code locked on college for $20 off your first purchase terms apply again create an account redeem code locked on college for 20 bucks off download game time today what time is it game time all right wrapping up the Monday edition of locked on Kentucky previewing Kentucky basketball versus Western Kentucky and we’re going to round out the show here with you guest it Mark it down I absolutely love that little stamp on YouTube if you watch it there I’m sure you can hear it on podcast um uh I I find great joy in that all right so we previewed or we started rather I should say and we previewed ky’s next two upcoming games on Friday with Market down by predicting that Kentucky BAS basketball at the end of that two game stint would be inside the top 30 nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency as of today they sit at 29th before I hit record they were 31st so uh this West Western Kentucky game will essentially be the deciding factor if whether or not that stays true and my hot take is correct and Kentucky was like 36th or something like that whenever I made that prediction anyway mark it down GNA play it again because I feel like it Mark it down this will be the lowest field goal percentage a Kentucky opponent has all season and I know what I said after the Jackson State game I said that this was probably going to be the lowest shooting percentage that any opponent had against the cats no I think it will be this game Jackson State shot 19% from three they shot 39.6% from inside the ark I think that this will be the worst game for a couple of reasons first first of all as we just previously stated Western Kentucky’s offense is not very good they are 234th and effective field goal percentage and they cannot finish at The Rim they have struggled mightily to do so I do not think that they are going to be able to shoot extremely well against Kentucky from three I don’t think they have enough pieces to do that who knows I may be wrong but this is my prediction this is hot take this is Mark it down but you can mark it down this is going to be the best defensive performance that Kentucky uck has this season period this is the fourth worst offense Kentucky will see in terms of efficiency this season this is the fourth worst out of like 30 games this is it I think they will clamp down I think they will hold Western Kentucky to a very low percentage at The Rim maybe three-point shooting makes up for that a little bit but it’s still going to be the worst that is my prediction you can mark it down as we wrap up the show today I want you guys to be aware of something in relation to this three-point shooting and it’s something that I tweeted about earlier today this is a fascinating stat about Kentucky basketball so you guys know the defense has actually been pretty dang solid to start the year their 16th and effective field goal percentage they have the third best three-point defense in the nation Kentucky does right now it’s really really really good here’s your here here are your numbers and we’ll leave we’ll stop talking about stats the Wildcats defense currently allows the second most field goal attempts in the country at 69.6 only one team in the nation defensively get gives up more shot attempts in the country Kentucky is only allowing 66 points per game and they are 38th nationally in opponent field goal goal percentage almost 70 field goal attempts per game and yet kuy’s opponents are shooting 37% from the floor I want you guys to be aware of something we talked about this a little bit when we discussed Clemson and Gonzaga and Louisville and Ohio State to close out the noncon you are not going to be able to keep that up you are going to find opponents who Finish Well at The Rim they don’t do what Duke did in the second half which is fall apart they will continue to dominate you I’m looking specifically at the Florida game to open SEC play if Kentucky doesn’t get a rude awakening against Gonzaga they may get a route Awakening against Florida who is currently in the top 15 and two-point field goal percentage you’re not going to be able I don’t think to keep this up it’ll be very hard to do so to give up so many shots and for your opponents to just continue to miss it felt like so many times last season it felt like teams were putting up shots that could have gone in could have not and opponents were hitting them way more often than they should and then we got angry at kuy’s defense this team does not foul a ton they don’t put teams on the line and they don’t give up points in the half court we’ll see if if it continues but the numbers suggest otherwise conference play could be rough if that starts to Trend in a dramatically negative direction or you could kind of maintain where you’re at and the field goal attempts drop because maybe as conference play hits you play a little slower who knows I’m just projecting here but what I do know is that cannot stay the same There is almost no way that stays the same For Better or For Worse just something to be aware of games like this against westton Kentucky hey I expect us to play well if they play well do not take it for granted that’s all I got to say all right that’s going to do it for today’s episode of Locked on Kentucky you can follow the show on Twitter at lockon UK you can follow me on Twitter at lore and follow the show over on Instagram that is at Kentucky podcast any questions comments concerns leave those in the YouTube comments below hit me on the socials I will see you all tomorrow for another episode of on Kentucky hope you guys have a great rest of your day and God bless [Music]

🔗 Watch on YouTube

🚀 Related Hashtags: #Kentucky #Western #Kentucky #basketball #preview #tough #challenge #Mark #Pope39s #offense

Disclaimer: This video is embedded directly from YouTube. All rights to the video and content belong to the original creator, Locked On Kentucky. For more details, please visit the original source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI702dzhle8.