UNC Showdown Is Bam Adebayo's Chance to Prove Kentucky Is a True Title Contender

Kentucky is trying to figure out how good it can be in this stage of the season as it heads into its Saturday meeting with North Carolina.

It's clear playing fast is effective for the Wildcats, their backcourt is super talented and the defense has some dominant characteristics. But whether the Wildcats are national championship good or simply SEC-champs-and-maybe-a-Final-Four good comes down to one question: What exactly is freshman Bam Adebayo?

Is he an athletic specimen who can influence the game with his motor on both ends? Or is he that and a low-post scoring threat?

Kentucky likely needs him to be the latter to have a chance at the title, and Saturday is a "show me" game with the chance to play against one of the best front lines in college basketball in Kennedy Meeks, Isaiah Hicks and Tony Bradley.

Adebayo's first real litmus test came two weeks ago against UCLA. He had a solid game—18 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks—but UCLA provided a blueprint for how to beat UK:

1. Have a ridiculously elite offense.
2. Try to make UK beat a set half-court defense.

That second goal is not easily attainable because the Cats have so much team speed that they sometimes score in transition off the other team's made bucket. But when UCLA was able to get its defense set, Kentucky was over-reliant on its guards to score.

The Wildcats still managed 1.05 points per possession in the half court against a set defense that day, which is a good mark, but they might have won the game if they had been able to mix in more of the best version of Adebayo.

Adebayo got the ball in the low post on four possessions—the first of which didn't come until almost two minutes into the second half. On those four possessions, he missed three shots he probably should have made at the rim and got fouled once. He also got fouled two other times trying to post up.

Most of Adebayo's points against the Bruins were off hustle.

Since that game, the Wildcats have made more of a concerted effort to get Adebayo inside touches, and he's had two of his best performances all season.

	FGs	FTs	Pts
vs. Valparaiso	5-9	6-8	16
vs. Hofstra	7-10	0-1	14

Kentucky needs to go into every game with a goal to involve the big fella. It's easy to let De'Aaron Fox, Malik Monk and Isaiah Briscoe do their thing. But Monk is the only shooter of that trio, and he's a streaky one at that. When the Cats face an elite defense, they're going to need more ways to score than dribble penetration, and that's where adding Adebayo to the mix is important.

The luxury head coach John Calipari has in his freshman beast is it's not that difficult to get him the ball when his number is called. UK often doesn't have to run any sort of action to feed Adebayo in the post. He uses his strength to establish position.

The knock on Adebayo is that his skill lags behind his physical readiness.

"He's the readiest [of the trio] athletically and physically," an NBA Eastern Conference general manager told Michael Scotto of Basketball Insiders, speaking of Adebayo and UK's freshman backcourt. "His offensive skill set is still very much in the development stage."

This is a fair assessment, but Adebayo has started to show some touch, and his footwork is improving.

One issue Adebayo had in the UCLA game was hurrying to get his shot up after he made his move. He has slowed down the last two games and gone up with confidence. In his most recent game against Hofstra, he showed impressive patience when he got the ball in the post. Give him some time, and he's going to find a way to get to the rim.

This is why Adebayo is such a difficult matchup when he's playing with confidence and getting touches. There aren't many college big men who can handle him. Throw a true big man at him—with size and strength—and he'll use his quickness to get an edge. Most athletic 4s won't be able to handle him physically.

The Tar Heels are likely to guard Adebayo with Meeks, who has strength but could struggle with Adebayo's quickness. The Wildcats can also put Meeks in an uncomfortable situation by pulling him away from the bucket and using Adebayo to set ball screens.

While this is usually most effective in the college game when a talented guard is paired with a big man who can shoot it and pick-and-pop, Adebayo's elite speed allows him to roll hard to the rim.

Adebayo is also the perfect fit in UK's uptempo style. The Cats are playing faster than they ever have before under Calipari—their average possession lasts 13.4 seconds, fourth-fastest in the country according to kenpom.com—and Adebayo runs rim to rim as well as any big man in the country.

In the UCLA game, Kentucky scored 28 points on 15 transition opportunities, which computes to 1.56 points per possession. This has been the norm all year. Kentucky is too fast and too athletic for most opponents.

Joe Robbins/Getty Images

The Calipari teams that fall in the "scary good" category usually show a dominant gear early in the year, and even with the UCLA loss, this group is there.

Based on adjusted efficiency margins from kenpom.com, a decent way of comparing teams across seasons, this is the third-best group Calipari has had in Lexington behind the 2012 champs and the 2015 club that went 38-1.

The ingredient that put those two teams over the top was a dominant big man—Anthony Davis for the champs and Karl Anthony-Towns for the latter.

Adebayo is not quite in their class, but for the Cats to approach that level of elite, they need him to be close.

C.J. Moore covers college basketball and football for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @CJMooreBR.