The Kentucky Wildcats landed what everyone thought was the best shooter in college basketball, but Mark Pope and Cody Fueger failed to utilize Milan Momcilovic against Kansas.
The prevailing thought heading into the season was that even if Momcilovic was not getting shots up, his perimeter gravity would draw enough attention from the defense to open the floor for everyone else.
After whatever that performance was in Chicago, things cannot get much worse on that front.
Momcilovic was just 1-of-3 from
the floor in the first half, and 1-of-4 in the second. There is zero reason a player with his skill set gets that few shots in a massive game, and the shots he is taking are all very hard.
A coaching staff has to either run better plays to scheme him open or put the ball in his hands and let him work. He is simply too good to ignore. Instead, Kentucky did almost nothing with him in the opening 20 minutes, turning his floor time into a game of Where’s Waldo.
In the second half, the staff had him screen and hit the post a few times, but every action felt forced and half-speed. Nothing looked fluid. He never got a clean look at the basket.
Worse, Kentucky couldn’t use him as a decoy to get anyone else open. There was no movement, no force, and no one looked comfortable.
Because the scheme was ineffective, Kansas never had to rotate.
The Jayhawks smothered the Wildcats’ offense without stretching their defense to cover the perimeter. Heading into the matchup, I thought the path to a Kentucky win required Momcilovic to score 20 or more. He finished with just 5 points on 2-of-7 shooting, 1-of-3 from deep.
Pope and Fueger have to go back to the drawing board. Wasting your best offensive weapon on a national stage is not good enough. It’s year 3; it should be better than losing by 20 to Kansas while the best shooter in college basketball a year ago can’t get any clean looks at all.
