‘You can call it what you want.’ If UK’s Grady is in a shooting slump, it’s time to reset.
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Selection Sunday: Both UK teams headed to Indiana for NCAA Tournament
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Kellan Grady (aka Steady Eddie) missed all five of his three-point shots in Kentucky’s loss against Tennessee in the Southeastern Conference Tournament.
Even though he made two of three shots from beyond the arc against Vanderbilt on Friday, Grady has made five of 22 three-point shots in UK’s last six games.
Shooting slump?
“You can call it what you want,” he said during a teleconference Sunday. “. . . I’m sure if people say I’m in a slump, the numbers the last five or six games probably suggest I’m below what I’m shooting for the year.”
Grady went into the Tennessee game with the sixth-best shooting percentage on three-pointers among Division I players: 43.7 percent.
“At the end of the day, it’s a new opportunity to reset,” he said of Kentucky beginning play in the NCAA Tournament against Saint Peter’s Thursday in Indianapolis. “And it’s up to me to take advantage of open shots and shoot with confidence.”
Grady is averaging a team-high 32.8 minutes per game. This led to a question about fatigue affecting his shooting.
“I’m sure we could speculate whether that’s a possibility,” he said before adding, “I’ve been playing 35 minutes per game for my whole college career. So, I’m not going to use that as an excuse.
“The bottom line is I shot like crap (against Tennessee) and didn’t play well. There’s nothing else I’m going to attribute that to other than my own failure.”
Friend vs. friend?
A second-round game pitting Kentucky against Murray State would include a friend-versus-friend element.
“One of my best friends is at Murray State,” Grady said. “So there’s a little emotion there. Happy for him and his team to be in that position.”
The friend is Carter Collins, who was on the Davidson teams with Grady for four years. “He’s my best friend from Davidson,” Grady said.
Collins, a 6-foot-3 guard, averages 4.4 points and 21.6 minutes going into the NCAA Tournament. He has a 40-to-20 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Masked man
Jacob Toppin confirmed that he broke his nose in UK’s victory over Vanderbilt on Friday. He played in the second half wearing a mask.
After that game, Sahvir Wheeler said it was difficult to understand what Toppin was saying.
Toppin said that mask “kind of squished my face.”
He found relief by wearing a different mask against Tennessee.
Right or wrong?
As Selection Sunday neared, UK Coach John Calipari expressed concern that the top four seeds in the SEC Tournament would not be placed in four separate regions. This would prevent an all-SEC Final Four, he said.
That didn’t happen. Auburn (Midwest), Tennessee (South), Kentucky (East) and Arkansas (West) are in separate regions.
Still, questions persist.
Calipari said he was “stunned” that Texas A&M did not receive a bid.
After his team lost to Tennessee in Sunday’s SEC Tournament title game, A&M Coach Buzz Williams declined to speculate on the chances for a bid.
“I try not to partake in conversations that I don’t understand the whole process . . . ,” he said. “I know what the numbers are. And I do think that how the last three and one-half weeks have transpired for us I would think for sure was a help to our resume.
“Is it enough? I don’t know.”
Texas A&M beat No. 4 Auburn and No. 15 Arkansas to reach the SEC Tournament finals. And on March 2, the Aggies beat Alabama, which received votes in this past week’s top 25 poll as conducted by The Associated Press.
Tennessee a 3?
Tennessee is a 3-seed in the South while Kentucky is a 2-seed in the East.
Tennessee beat UK two out of three games. Tennessee was a better seed in the SEC Tournament. And Tennessee has 10 Quad 1 victories to Kentucky’s nine.
“I was kind of surprised Tennessee got a ‘three’ and not a ‘two,’” Calipari said.
The UK coach spoke of Tennessee, Auburn and Kentucky arguably all being two-seeds.
“Which I would have been good with,” Calipari said. “(The Vols) probably deserve it.”
One at a time
CBS commentator Seth Davis said the East region represented “pretty clear sailing for Kentucky.”
CBS colleague Clark Kellogg also said he liked Kentucky’s chances to advance.
Calipari and the UK players on the teleconference stuck to the one-game-at-a-time theme.
“I think there are a lot of good teams,” Grady said. “I’m not going to try to speculate on whether we have an easier region than some of the others.”
This story was originally published March 13, 2022 at 10:07 PM.
