(H-L photo/Mark Cornelison)
John Calipari exclaimed last night that this may be his worst defensive team since 1988.
My statistical library doesn’t go back that far, but I do have the stats for his nine years at the helm at Memphis, where the Tigers were generally very good defensively. In fact, last year stats guru Ken Pomeory ranked Memphis best in the country in defensive efficiency.
Opponents managed to shoot better than 40 percent just three of Cal’s nine years there. And the 3-point percentage by opponents was normally around the 30-32 percent mark, which is certainly respectable.
Through three games, a very small sample, this year, opponents are shooting 42 percent from three-point range and averaging a mind-blowing 12.33 triples per game.
Morehead State must be kicking itself, wondering why it didn’t hit more threes. The Eagles were 4-of-24 from behind the line.
When analyzing Memphis’ stats under Cal, it should be noted that Louisville, Cincinnati, DePaul, Marquette and South Florida left C-USA after the 2004-05 season.
Anyway, here’s the chart comparing Calipari’s reign at Memphis with the rain of threes this year:
I know everyone is concerned about the defense, I am too. But what I think most are over looking is that in the past, we had coaches that focused on the defense, and most everyone complained we had no offense on the team.
WAKE UP!!!
This early in the year, with a new coach and new system, so no returning experience, and then add to that 3 starting freshmen, and the first off the bench is a freshman, and this is what you will get, a team that is good at playing on one side of the ball. In this case, it is offense. So basically the vocal majority, the ones who cried the loudest to get Coach Smith and Coach G run out of town, are getting exactly what they asked for, only now they are crying that there is no defense.
It’s kind of like the old saying about having your cake and eating it too!!
Go CATS!!!