Kentucky had 'lack of communication' against Purdue and still held them to just 35 points

While Kentucky did some good things offensively against Purdue, they didn’t beat the Boilermakers by 41 because of their hot hand. It was the fact that they rose to the occasion yet again defensively, holding Purdue to just 35 points on 20% shooting from the field.

When you hold a team to 35 points, there isn’t a whole lot to complain about. However, it did look like Kentucky’s defense struggled at times because the communication was off. Kenny Brooks thought that was the case too.

“You’re exactly right,” he said when KSR asked about the communication issues in his postgame press conference. “I thought we were in the right places at a lot of times. We did a lot of good things scout-wise and what we wanted to do and try to take them out — a lot of great things — but we had some miscommunications, or I can just say lack of communication.”

“They understood it and they recognized it after the fact,” Brooks added. “We’ve got to be able to learn to recognize it before the fact in order for us to beat really good basketball teams. I think we have the potential to be a good defensive basketball team.”

Kentucky has the luxury of having tremendous length and size across the board and especially in the backcourt. However, it takes more than just having physical advantages to play good team defense.

“Our length obviously, adding Jordan [Obi] as a two guard, and she’s extremely gifted, but she played more in the post at Penn, and she’s adjusting very well,” Brooks mentioned. “We can’t rely on our length to erase everything, especially playing against really good teams. You got to play early defense, which we call it, and be in the right positions to contest shots instead of having to bail yourself out with a blocked shot.”

Through six games to begin the season, Kentucky is holding opponents to just 43.5 points per game. The Cats have one of the best defenses in the country, but if they can get their communication sorted out, they may end up being really special on that end of the floor.

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