THE POWER RANK

  • About
    • About The Power Rank
    • Start Here
    • Contact
  • Predictions
    • Games
    • March Madness
  • Content
    • Must Read
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • The Craft of Sports Betting Professionals
    • March Madness Book
  • Rankings
    • World Soccer/Football
    • College Basketball
    • College Football
    • NFL
    • NFL passing success rate
    • MLB
    • Cluster Luck
  • Members
    • My Account
    • Login
    • Become a member
  • Log in

Members: The new Kentucky

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

The only thing John Calipari values more than his suits are recruits.

In the 2012 tournament, Kentucky stormed to Calipari’s first national championship. He had the services of Anthony Davis, the top pick in the next NBA draft.

Calipari might have had an even better team in 2015. This Kentucky team went undefeated until losing to a great Wisconsin team in the Final Four. They had Karl-Anthony Towns, again the top pick in the next NBA draft.

After an awful 9-16 campaign last season, you figure Calipari would reload with another set of future pros. Nope.

Instead, Kentucky is thriving due to transfers:

  • 6’9″ Oscar Tshiebwe (West Virginia) leads the nation in offensive and defensive rebounding rate.
  • 6’5″ Kellan Grady (Davidson) is shooting 43% from 3.
  • 5’9″ Sahvir Wheeler (Georgia) runs the show.

Calipari didn’t intentionally make it seem like he started shopping at Walmart for his suits.

He did recruit guard TyTy Washington, a key piece of this team and a player projected as a top 10 NBA pick. Also, he brought in McDonald’s All-American Daimion Collins, but the 6’9″ player has had a limited role behind Tshiebwe.

Despite these top recruits, Oscar Tchiebwe is the best player on this team. However, he is not considered a high NBA draft pick. Various mock drafts have him going at the end of the first round to not getting selected in either of two rounds.

At Tennessee, Tchiebwe struggled against the length of taller players on both ends of the floor. He gave up easy baskets on defense and had his shot blocked multiple times on offense. Despite these struggles, he still had 15 rebounds, close to his ridiculous 15.3 average for the season.

While Kentucky has lost 6 games, this is mostly due to a difficult schedule. They opened the season with a loss to Duke, possibly the most talented team in the country. It’s also easy to explain road SEC losses to LSU, Auburn, Tennessee and Arkansas, all top 20 teams in my college basketball team rankings.

Kentucky thrives on offense, as they rank 3rd in my adjusted points per possession. Led by Tshiebwe, the Wildcats have the best adjusted offensive rebounding rate in the nation. Grady is a magnificent three point shooter.

Kentucky is not as good on defense. The Wildcats rank 16th, and they have slipped from a higher ranking earlier this season. At times, Kentucky seems disorganized on defense.

Overall, Kentucky 7th in my member college basketball rankings. Despite not having elite talent and some warts on defense, these numbers suggest Kentucky will to be a threat in both the SEC and NCAA tournament.

Filed Under: College Basketball, Member Content

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Data driven betting information

Valuable. Concise. Entertaining.

To sign up for The Power Rank's email newsletter, enter your best email and click on "Sign up now!"

Popular Articles

  • How to predict interceptions in the NFL
  • 5 insights from academic research on predicting world soccer/football matches
  • How to win your NCAA tournament pool
  • The ultimate guide to predictive college basketball analytics
  • Accurate football predictions with linear regression
  • The surprising truth about passing and rushing in the NFL
  • Football analytics resource guide
  • The Reason You Can’t Avoid The Curse of Small Sample Size
  • The essential guide to predictive CFB rankings
  • How computer rankings make you smarter about sports
  • How to win your college football bowl pool
  • Do you make these 3 mistakes with college football statistics?
  • The Top 10 Things to Know About The Power Rank’s Methods

Recent Articles

  • Podcast: Hitman on NFL betting, Super Bowl LVII
  • Members: Super Bowl game and prop analysis
  • 7-Nugget Saturday, January 28, 2023
  • Cincinnati at Kansas City, AFC Conference Championship Game
  • Podcast: Dr. Eric Eager on the NFL Conference Championships

© 2023 The Power Rank Inc., All rights reserved.

About, Terms of Use, Privacy Policy

Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes

Valuable. Concise. Entertaining.


These are the goals with every correspondence, which cover bets on the NFL and college football.


To sign up for The Power Rank's free email newsletter, enter your best email and click on "Sign up now!"


No thanks, I'll make my predictions without data and analytics.

{"cookieName":"wBounce","isAggressive":false,"isSitewide":true,"hesitation":"","openAnimation":false,"exitAnimation":false,"timer":"","sensitivity":"","cookieExpire":"","cookieDomain":"","autoFire":"","isAnalyticsEnabled":true}
  • About
    • About The Power Rank
    • Start Here
    • Contact
  • Predictions
    • Games
    • March Madness
  • Content
    • Must Read
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • The Craft of Sports Betting Professionals
    • March Madness Book
  • Rankings
    • World Soccer/Football
    • College Basketball
    • College Football
    • NFL
    • NFL passing success rate
    • MLB
    • Cluster Luck
  • Members
    • My Account
    • Login
    • Become a member