Oscar Tshiebwe is the name that jumps off the page when looking at Kentucky, the former West Virginia Mountaineer deserves all the praise he gets. But an equally as scary proposition for the Wildcats is trying to find a way to contain Antonio Reeves.

The Kentucky guard transferred from Illinois State this season and slid into being the second-leading scorer on this team behind Tshiebwe. Reeves averages 14.6 points per game and the scariest part of his game for K-State would be that Reeves shoots 42% from three.

Three times this season Reeves has knocked down at least five threes in a game, all of which came against NCAA Tournament teams (Howard, Texas A&M, Providence on Friday). K-State has been good statistically this season defending the three, ranking 15th in the country by holding opponents to 30% from three.

My eye test of three-point defense has always been weary of the Wildcats this season, and diving deeper into the game by game numbers, K-State has struggled over their last nine games defending the three. K-State has allowed 214 points off of threes in the last nine, and six times have allowed the opponent to make at least seven triples (Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Baylor, Oklahoma,West Virginia, TCU). Compared to the 12 games prior to that stretch at the start of Big 12 play, they allowed just four opponents to hit the seven threes in a game mark (Texas, Baylor, Texas Tech, Kansas). In that 12-game stretch, opponents scored 214 points off of threes. Only twice in the pre-January games did K-State allow teams to make seven or more threes, the win against Nevada and the loss at Butler.

Reeves isn't the only shooter to be mindful of for K-State though, Sahvir Wheeler shoots 37% from three and Cason Wallace is 34% from deep. As a team Kentucky shoots 35.4% from three, which is better than every Big 12 team except for Baylor (37.1%).

K-State's biggest weakness in 2023 has been hanging onto the basketball, and multiple times in Friday's win the Wildcats were poised to push the lead to a bigger number but allowed Montana State to get back into the game by bad giveaways.

The K-State Wildcats turn the ball over on 20% of their possessions in 2023, which ranks 298th out of 363 Division I basketball teams. However, the Kentucky Wildcats are one of the country's worst at turning teams over.

Big Blue only turns their opponents over on 16.7% of possessions, which ranks 263rd in the NCAA. If the Wildcats don't force a steal, they are among the nation's worst in non-steal turnover percentage (348th) according to KenPom, meaning that K-State will have the chance to fully establish their offense as long as they don't hurt themselves.

What does all that non-sense mean? For those that are confused, BLOB stands for "baseline out of bounds," which references a team's plays coming from passes from the baseline after a foul or out of bounds call on their scoring end. SLOB equates to "sideline out of bounds" and ATO is "after timeout." All of these are plays that equate to drawn up plays that teams can use in inbound situations.

Jerome Tang has been great in his "ATOs" this season, quickly rising the ranks in the Big 12 as one of the best drawn-up play coaches. Bill Self is still the master, but Tang has made a strong case in year one. The Wildcats haven't been as good on their BLOBs and SLOBs, but last night they converted two beauties. They are pictured below.

Kentucky has allowed 0.942 points per possession on ATOs this season, which Synergy ranks in the bottom 10% of college basketball. Another area where K-State might be able to execute is on any SLOBs against Kentucky, which ranks in the bottom 20% of college basketball and allows 0.929 points per possession on this season. Below is an example of the ultimate SLOB from K-State's season, the game-winner against Kansas.

Oscar Tshiebwe's rebounding prowess is well-known at this point, he had 25 on Friday night against Providence and his career high is 28 in a game. K-State has struggled to prevent teams from grabbing offensive rebounds this season, ranking 219th in that category via KenPom.

Meanwhile, the Wildcats of Kentucky the second best offensive rebounding team in the country according to KenPom. When facing a team with a deeper roster and superior talent, the margin for second chances is pretty small.

K-State's approach to finding a way to limit or slow down the second chances for Kentucky is important. The Wildcats aren't going to magically correct their struggles that have lasted for the length of the season, but they can try to do enough to hold off Kentucky.

It will require Nae'Qwan Tomlin to keep himself in the game and avoiding foul trouble, pick spots to be aggressive in going to grab the board and most of all, just find a man and be fundamentally sound.

Thsiebwe is a great player but plays pretty physically inside to try and get to the offensive rebound, if he is going to get a board, make him go through you and possibly force a loose ball foul call. It is a tall task for the Wildcats, but they should be able to come up with some creative ways to mask their deficiencies for Sunday's Sweet Sixten ticket-punching game.