David J. Phillip/Associated Press

It does not take much insight to note that the Kentucky Wildcats are the most athletic team in the country. It pops off the screen; the Wildcats are bigger, stronger and faster than their opponents. That advantage starts with Anthony Davis but continues on through a roster that has five probable first-round picks in the next N.B.A. draft.

Superior athleticism gives Kentucky a tremendous advantage, but it also overshadows the job Coach John Calipari has done with this team. He has taken a group of extremely talented basketball players, and, by tweaking his offensive strategy, put them in the best situation to use that athleticism in the half court. That’s a skill that comes into play in the tournament as teams slow the game down to a grinding pace.

Athleticism shows up first in the highlights, but it is the little plays where it has the biggest influence on games. A dunk is worth two points, the same as a layup, but athleticism affects every defensive and offensive possession. The measure of its influence is in the ability of more athletic players to recover from their mistakes. This is Kentucky’s greatest luxury; if a player loses a defender along the 3-point line, his length allows him to recover without giving up three points.

If a defender blows by Michael Kidd-Gilchrist on the wing, Kidd-Gilchrist has a decent chance of affecting the shot because of his leaping ability. If he doesn’t recover in time, Davis can be a step slow with his help defense and still get a hand on the ball. The same thing happens on offense. Athleticism makes a bad pass look good. Bad possessions end with good shots because each of the Kentucky players has the size and ability to go one on one late in the shot clock.

It is on the offensive end that Calipari has done a masterful job with his team’s athleticism. Often teams with superior talent play at an unbelievably quick pace. They run up and down the floor helter-skelter, creating as many fast-break opportunities as possible. A number of assumptions are in play with this strategy; the first is that athleticism shines in the open court, where speed and leaping ability create advantages. The second is that the more possessions a game has, the better the chance the more talented team will win. This strategy is counteracted by coaches like Notre Dame’s Mike Brey, who slow the game down, have their teams shoot late in the shot clock and keep games close (and final scores in the 50s). These half-court games emphasize execution over athleticism.

It is also easier to force a half-court game than one in which both teams run up and down; to run, both teams have to push the basketball; to slow things down, only one team needs to walk the ball up the court. Conventional wisdom says that an athletic team needs to be effective in the half-court and be able to win a slow, grinding game to win the tournament.

It is here that Calipari has made an exceptional adjustment. The greatest weakness of playing slow-it-down basketball is that the beginning of the shot clock is not used effectively. A team walks the ball up the court, makes a number of perimeter passes, and does not even attempt to score until the last ten or fifteen seconds of the shot clock. Calipari has his players do the opposite. They push the ball up the court every possession and they do so under control.

Sometimes this leads to dunks and highlights, but more often it puts pressure on the defense early in the shot clock without leading to a traditional fast break. Maybe it leads to a mismatch. Maybe it leads to an open shot on the secondary break. Maybe it leads to nothing, and Kentucky sets up its offense. But by making use of the early clock, Calipari is giving his players chance after chance to use their athleticism to get easy shots.

The result is not always beautiful execution, unlikely with so many underclassmen, but early aggressiveness combined with the one-on-one play late in the clock gives talented players four or five opportunities to score every time down the court. This is not traditional fast-break basketball, it is a controlled technique to provide more scoring opportunities. As such, it is an excellent use of the team’s athleticism, showing both Calipari’s creativity and his teaching ability. It is no small thing to instill the discipline to push the ball and not take bad shots into young, talented players. And it is beautiful to watch a coach get the most out of that kind of talent.

Stephen Danley played basketball at the University of Pennsylvania and is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford researching citizen participation in post-Katrina New Orleans.