Not since the days of Stu Jackson, Michael Finley and Rashard Griffith have Wisconsin basketball teams been known for their offense.

Thanks, however, to defining offense and defense by ways other than the score, which reflects tempo almost as much as the ability to put the ball in the basket, the 2014-15 Badgers are believed by the stats types to be better on offense than defense.

Tonight’s national semifinal is a battle of the number one defense, Kentucky, and the number one offense, Wisconsin, in terms of efficiency. Matt Norlander asks:

So tell me: How can Kentucky beat Wisconsin?

That’s no typo.

How will Kentucky, 38-0 Kentucky, beat Wisconsin?

Let’s get into this, because one of the big reasons this is among the most enticing and attractive Final Fours ever is this game — which has the elements for topping last weekend’s Kentucky-Notre Dame classic — and the diametric forces at work. UK-Wisconsin might end up among the best national semifinals in the history of the sport. It’s obvious why the Wildcats are the five-point favorites and rightfully being framed as presumed winners.

But they’re not likely winners. There are arguments to be had on both sides here. This undefeated Wildcats defense is going to be remembered for its length, size, speed and skyline-high fortification. It’s without debate among the most impressive defensive units in the past decade, if not the best. Kentucky’s 85.6 adjusted defensive efficiency mark on KenPom.com ties 2013 Wisconsin’s crew, of all teams, for second-best ever. A John Calipari team, coincidentally enough, has the best per-possession defensive rating in the KenPom era (i.e. since 2002): Memphis in 2008-09 posted an 85.1 DRtg.

“Having so many tall, athletic players, it definitely doesn’t make it easy,” Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky said. “At the same time we know that we’re going to be able to get some stuff just like they’re going to be able to get some stuff going on on offense. It’s going to be a battle, we know that. They have like seven guys over 6-10. … It’s going to be fun. I can’t wait. It’s not going to be easy to prepare because obviously there’s no scout team in the country that can replicate what they have on their team.”

But for as superb as UK is on defense, it’s now facing Wisconsin, which boasts far and away the best offense in modern college basketball history. In a sentence: the Badgers are better with the ball than Kentucky is without it.

“One of our biggest things in the Notre Dame game was giving up backdoors, easy baskets,” Cauley-Stein said. “They utilized that. They kind of pride themselves on, you know, exploiting people’s weakness and taking over from it. So that’s our biggest thing is not giving up easy baskets, not letting them play angles against us.”

If Notre Dame was a river for Kentucky to ford, Wisconsin is a white-capped rapid. The Badgers have an offensive rating of 127.5, meaning they are dousing foes at a blazing rate. UW’s scoring nearly 128 points per 100 possessions. Unheard of at the college level.

Here’s how their shot chart looks. This is every basket attempted this season:

That UW is flirting with 1.3 PPP on a per-game basis is flatly freaky. We should’ve expected a continuation from last season, when the Bucky O clocked out at 120.8, but it’s gotten ridiculous.

And the team’s efficiency keeps rising.

Since March began, Wisconsin’s offense has only gotten better — against better opponents in the biggest time of the season, mind you. …

That Sconnie embarrassed Arizona’s elite defense to the point of jumping its overall O rating almost two full points in the Elite Eight has to be one of the most impressive achievements any team’s had in the NCAA Tournament — ever.

While we don’t have data from prior teams/decades, it’s very possible no group has ever been this efficient on offense in the history of college hoops. It’s all the more likely when you consider the 3-point line didn’t come into play until the 1980s. This team has five guys averaging more than one 3-pointer made per game. …

Kentucky’s defensive assignments are going to be fascinating. Will Cauley-Stein match up on Kaminsky, and if so, who does Karl-Anthony Towns guard? And Trey Lyles? Expect shifts by the possession.

“I think with the guys that we have, we’re going to do a lot of switching anyway,” Cauley Stein said. “Not one person is going to be on that set player during the whole game. You know, everybody in practice has been guarding guards and bigs. We’re just kind of ready for everything.”

Additionally, this year’s Final Four is so intriguing because it’s got the headliner of undefeated Kentucky and that wowing defense — then you see Wisconsin, Duke at 119.8 points per 100 possessions, which is third in the country, and Kentucky with a 115.6 O rating, fifth-best in the sport this season. And then you factor in how Wisconsin doesn’t slice at itself. The team’s foul-per-game rate is 12.4, the lowest in the country, and its turnover percentage sits at 12.3 percent of possessions. That’s also the lowest in the country. It’s done this against the eighth-toughest schedule nationally.

Your offense gets much better the less you give the ball away. No one has mastered this like Wisconsin.

Through this lens, it’s a little surprising we haven’t seen more people make a bigger deal out of what UK’s dealing with. Especially when you factor in that Kentucky and Wisconsin played each other in last year’s Final Four, and that game was a classic.

Oh, right, and Frank Kaminsky is the Player of the Year.

“How much better he’s gotten over a two-year period, it’s almost scary,” Calipari said.

To ask or expect a rematch in the Final Four and for both teams to be putting up peerless numbers is a treat for fans and proof Calipari and Bo Ryan are all-time greats. It’s only fitting they’re both up for Naismith Hall of Fame nominations. (We’ll find out Monday morning if Calipari and/or Ryan earned enough votes for induction this year.)

Kentucky’s the one with the undefeated record, but as Calipari’s repeated often this month, it’s not perfect. His guys faced their best opponent of the season last weekend in Cleveland and they barely won. Notre Dame more than likely wins that game if it scores just one basket in the final two and a half minutes.

Wisconsin going two and a half minutes without a point would be Halley’s Comet-rare.

The question isn’t: How is Wisconsin going to be Kentucky?

The question is: How incredibly lucky are we to get a game of this caliber on the sport’s ultimate stage?

James Pennington adds:

So what does that mean when the No. 1 defense in the country and the second-best defense of any team since 2002 (Kentucky) plays against the best offense, by a wide margin, in college basketball since 2002 (Wisconsin)? Do we have a cliche to easily solve this? Is there any precedent at all for excellence at these levels in direct competition?

That since 2002 was established because that’s when KenPom.com started tracking data in college basketball. Since then, the best offense in college basketball is this year’s Wisconsin team. The Badgers score 127.5 points per 100 possessions. The 2014 Michigan Wolverines (124.1) and 2005 Wake Forest Demon Deacons (124.0) are the only two teams to top 124 since 2002. This is a historic offense.

Kentucky’s defense hasn’t let it down yet. The Wildcats remained undefeated in the regional final because their defense found just enough to slow down Notre Dame — the second-best offensive team in the country — despite the Irish’s near-perfect plan to pull off the upset. The Wildcats’ 85.6 points allowed per 100 possessions is the best in college basketball this year, and the only team better since 2002 was John Calipari’s 2009 Memphis team. This is a historic defense.

The beauty of these two teams playing in the Final Four rather than the title game is that the two coaches will have been planning against each other for a full week in preparation for a direct battle between the nation’s best at each end of the floor. And both teams are great because of how well the coaches deploy their players.

I hesitate to call either Wisconsin’s offense or Kentucky’s defense art, because the most common reaction to watching either at its best is along the lines of, How did they do that?, and the term artistry implies that technical execution is invisible. Moments of artistry-relative-to-basketball pop in and out between strict sessions of regimented offense (in Wisconsin’s case) and defense (in Kentucky’s case).

For instance, the Wildcats: A defense as good as Kentucky’s has to be intensely structured. Calipari is a master of teaching defense on a short timetable. Whereas Jim Boeheim can allow a player to prosper for a few years and quietly master the intricacies of the 2-3 zone, Kentucky has four freshmen that each average at least 50 percent of Kentucky’s available team minutes.

Still, Kentucky’s defense is characterized by its understanding of Calipari’s defense and commitment to execution, paired with immense size and athletic ability used creatively to react to lapses (or perhaps even to proactively take more risks). …

Whereas Kentucky’s athleticism likely overshadows its defensive execution, Wisconsin is the other way around. The Badgers are clinicians. They perfectly mix patience and urgency, rarely taking shots too soon or not soon enough unless they are doing so with a specific end in mind. …

Ryan’s offense is so efficient because of the open looks it creates, but Ryan also allows his players the freedom to use their athleticism and attack the basket at will. ..

Both Dekker and Frank Kaminsky have such a handle on Ryan’s offense that reading ripples in opposing defenses and riffing off of them is a big part of why Wisconsin is so dangerous, and that both of them can move as well as they do enables Ryan to let them loose.

Predicting which will prevail — Wisconsin’s offense or Kentucky’s defense — isn’t the point of the build-up to Saturday. No, the point is embracing the talent and unity of both teams. Neither would be in the Final Four and the best in the country at what they do if it weren’t for the right mixture of talent, unity, coaching and a hundred other factors I nor most readers would ever come up with on our own. One team will win Saturday because the rules of basketball demand it, and the other team, whether it’s Kentucky or Wisconsin, should be remembered for its excellence rather than falling short against the team designed perfectly to stop it.

Well, my rule of postseason sports is that defense is more important than offense. And that’s why I am still picking Kentucky to win today. Sadly.