Explosive offense allows Kentucky to run over South Carolina State

After a sluggish performance against Michigan State in Indianapolis on Tuesday in a double overtime loss, Kentucky entered Thursday night’s home contest against South Carolina State with a massive on-paper advantage. However, the game isn’t played on paper.

A slow start followed as Kentucky held a 13-12 lead with 14:41 remaining in the first half. From that point on, it was total domination by the Big Blue.

How did Kentucky get to the 106-63 final with a lead that got as big as 47 points? By doing whatever it wanted at the offensive end.

Dunks and layups

There has been much criticism surrounding John Calipari and his offenses at Kentucky due to their resistance to play modern basketball. Most importantly, folks get irritated by odd lineups and the willingness to shoot long twos. In today’s basketball, threes and shots at the rim have the most value.

That’s what Kentucky provided in the win on Thursday with most of its damage coming in the paint.

The Cats collected 50 paint points in the win over South Carolina State with 10 dunks and 14 layups. For the night, the offense was 24 of 29 (82.7%) on shots at the rim. Kentucky was able to score 48 points from point-blank range and that made scoring a whole lot easier.

Most notably, junior big Lance Ware scored a career-high 12 points on six field goal attempts doing all of his damage in the paint. Kentucky finished the game with a very efficient 1.43 points per possession constantly putting pressure on South Carolina State with its effectiveness at attacking the rim.

Making jump shots certainly helps

Any offense in basketball would prefer to do all of its damage at the rim, but defenses are built to take that away. Therefore, offensive balance is needed to have success. Kentucky had great balance in their latest win.

Not only were the Wildcats dominant at the rim, but the offense got 30 points on 10 of 24 (41.7%) shooting from three with CJ Fredrick and Antonio Reeves combining to shoot 6 of 14 from behind the arc.

Currently, Kentucky is shooting 42.4 percent from three-point range this season and that ranks inside the top 25 nationally. If that continues, this offense should be very hard to stop.

Sahvir Wheeler is dealing

We are four games into the season, and Kentucky’s offense is averaging 88.8 points per game with six players putting up double figures on a nightly basis. John Calipari is using a heavy rotation with nine players playing over 15 minutes per game.

But the biggest thing that stands out early is Sahvir Wheeler‘s 29/5 turnover-to-assist ratio. The senior point guard ranks inside the top 10 nationally in assist rate (49.8%) and is doing it without being careless with the ball. The former Georgia transfer is the table setter for this team and is playing at a high level to start the season averaging 11.0 points and 9.7 assists per night. The latter will be hard to maintain, but this roster has many offensive weapons, and that could lead to a big season from Kentucky’s pass-first point guard.