Kentucky Unveils Another Dangerous Weapon as Early 3-Point Barrage Keys UNC Romp

The Kentucky Wildcats have been impressive in all facets of the game during their dominant start to the season, with one notable exception: three-point shooting. However, after Saturday's blowout win over North Carolina, the Wildcats might have solved that problem for good.

In front of a packed crowd of Wildcats fans, last year's runners-up took out No. 21 UNC 84-70. While the outcome wasn't surprising, the execution certainly was—Kentucky, which was previously 313th in the country in three-point shooting, made six shots from beyond the arc in the first half, seven total, to bury the Tar Heels.

Kentucky was already by far the best team in the nation before this game. This one simply proved that its options truly are endless. 

This performance was particularly impressive because just two days ago, Kentucky lost one of its starters, junior Alex Poythress, for the season with an ACL tear.

Coach John Calipari has a two-platoon system for his deep and talented team, rotating his starters and bench players in unison. With Poythress out, Calipari had to shift things up a bit and move freshman forward Trey Lyles into the starting lineup. 

It remained to be seen how the young Kentucky team would react to losing one of its leaders, but it turns out it didn't miss a beat. In fact, Scott Phillips of NBC's CollegeBasketballTalk actually thinks that Poythress' absence helped Kentucky's three-point proficiency:

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Offensively, Kentucky didn’t miss Poythress one bit and its offense probably played even better without him.

With Poythress on the floor, he provided zero threat to shoot from the perimeter, so Kentucky’s floor spacing is much better with either Lyles or freshman guards Tyler Ulis (three points, eight assists) or Booker on the floor in place of the junior.

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Added threats on the perimeter—especially the Harrison twins and freshman Devin Booker—will only help UK spread the floor better and open up the center of the paint for the team's inside men to dominate even more.

Of course, Williams thinks there's another reason why the Wildcats had a better three-point day than they've been accustomed to: UNC let them.

As reported by John Clay of the Lexington Herald-Leader, Williams was very disappointed by his team's defending, particularly when it was in the zone:

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I told John [Calipari] before the game, we can cure a lot of peoples’ three-point woes. We tried to play a little bit of zone early and we haven’t played any zone this year. We didn’t do a good enough job in the zone. We didn’t get there and guard them. Texas played in the zone, but they challenged them, they made their first three less than three minutes to play. Texas challenged those threes much better than we did. When we went man-to-man the dribble penetration really hurt us.

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The Tar Heels are now 6-3 on the season and in danger of falling out of the AP Top 25. The team's big star, Marcus Paige, was held to only two points in the first half, and even though Paige finished the game with 14, it was far from his best outing. The junior has seemed to be lacking in both confidence and accuracy early in the season, and UNC simply doesn't have the talent to make up for that against top-level teams.

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The Wildcats, meanwhile, have the talent to make up for many deficiencies. The unbeaten talk is no longer just a whisper, it's a roar—Kentucky is 11-0 on the season and has beaten every team by 10 points or more.

Now, with the emergence of the three-pointer, Kentucky has the ability to rapidly take over games and build on its leads in an instant. That's bad news for any team that might be sniffing an upset.

On Saturday, the team had four players score in double digits, led by junior Willie Cauley-Stein and Booker with 15 points each. Booker, a member of the second platoon who was 0-of-9 from three-point range in his last two games, was 3-of-3 from behind the arc against the Tar Heels.

But in typical Kentucky fashion, this was a team effort. In addition to the outside shooting, Kentucky was dominant on defense, scoring 24 points off of 18 UNC turnovers. Freshman Karl-Anthony Towns had what was perhaps the play of the game with this block of Nate Britt:

That's the thing about Calipari's team—when you are playing it, there is literally zero margin for error. Even when the Wildcats have had subpar performances this season, they have found a way to make it through. For example, in their game against Columbia earlier this week, Kentucky was only 2-of-17 from three-point range and scored just 56 points, but it defeated an in-form Lions team by 10 anyway.

Of course, as the season goes on, bad days are likely to happen against better-quality teams, and it remains to be seen how Kentucky will handle that. But, for now, the team is doing everything it should do early in the season to set itself up for one of the most special college basketball seasons we've seen.

As it proved on Saturday against one of the most storied programs in college basketball history, Kentucky just keeps getting better week by week. If that keeps happening, whether it's inside or outside the paint, the world better watch out—even if you bring your best against Kentucky, it might not be good enough.