Kentucky just got a lot more interesting. With the addition of Kerr Kriisa Kentucky has not only added another elite shooting PG with tons of experience it also adds one of the best personalities in CBB. Kriisa is a guy Pope has wanted for a long time and now he’ll get the chance to coach him. We’ll take a look at how he fits and if you missed our other previews you can find them here:
Offensively
Kriisa has been a good offensive player for all 4 of his years in CBB. He’s an exccelenct passer and sees the court really well. Last year, on a bad WVU team he had a 29% AST% which is outstanding. The downside of some of those spectacular passes is that Kriisa seems to believe he can make any pass on the court. It’s a gunslinger mentality and it leads to a higher TOV% than anyone would want from a starting PG. 24.4% TOV% last year at WVU (and it wasn’t a whole lot better at Arizona) is a tough pill to swallow. That is something that must be ironed out.
The other thing Kriisa brings his scoring. He’s a very good shooter from three (42% from 3 last year) and can get his own shot. Kriisa has tons of experience both in CBB and overseas and knows how to use angles to his advantage and a good touch around the rim. He is outstanding coming off screens and reading what the defense is giving him and making the right read. Just like his mentality leads to a lot of turnovers, Kriisa has never met a shot he didn’t think he could make. That irrational confidence creates incredible moments but also creates some dud shooting performances.
When the irrational confidence combines with crazy passes that aren’t connecting and shots that aren’t falling Kriisa can be almost unplayable. There are also times when everything is connecting, and he looks like he might be the best player in the world. I will say that Kriisa is a good enough all-around player that those lows are not as frequent as they were early in his career at Arizona.
Defensively
Kriisa is not a particularly good defender, but he is an absolute pest. He knows how to get under an opponent’s skin and uses it to his advantage. I will say that at Arizona he was surrounded by good defensive players and managed to not be a total liability on that end. He’s got decent size at 6’3” and he is very capable of reading the game. Kentucky will likely pair him with good defensive players in Butler, Oweh, and Williams that frees him up to do what he does.
2024 Outlook
Of all the pieces that Pope has added this one seems to be the most polarizing. Kriisa has some tremendous highs in his 4 years and his personality will be entertaining. Personally, I’ve loved him since he riled up the whole Tennessee basketball program ready to fight him a few years ago.
I also think that fit matter in CBB. Kriisa’s advanced numbers from last year are not great if you’re only looking spreadsheets. If you watch games you’ll know that WVU’s roster was completely derailed by Bob Huggins’ legal issues. Kriisa didn’t transfer out when he had the chance and while he showed improved shooting that team was not suited to make up for his limitations or take advantage of his strengths.
With Pope I expect Kriisa to be far more comfortable. He’ll have good passing bigs to play off of, surrounded by elite shooting, good defensive partners in the backcourt, rim protection on the back end, and he’ll be playing for a program that expects winning and will embrace him. Kriisa’s personality is very BBN, the man went straight at Luka Doncic and essentially called him soft. I’ll trust that Mark Pope has a plan and we’ll see the best version of Kriisa more often than not.
