Five big questions for this Kentucky basketball team heading into the NCAA Tournament
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The bracket is set, and Kentucky’s run in the NCAA Tournament begins Thursday night.
Can the Wildcats make their first Final Four appearance in seven years? Will UK be cutting down the nets in New Orleans as national champions on April 4?
Obviously, much will need to break the Cats’ way to successfully maneuver the madness of the next few weeks, but this Kentucky team seems well-equipped to make a deep postseason run.
Here are five big questions for these Wildcats in their pursuit of the program’s ninth national championship.
Can Oscar stay out of foul trouble?
At the beginning of the season, this was a major question mark, especially with the unproven Daimion Collins and Lance Ware as Oscar Tshiebwe’s most likely backups. In his season and a half at West Virginia, Tshiebwe averaged 2.7 fouls in 22.4 minutes per game. His relentless style of play — combined with the kind of strength that often leads to a quick whistle — was cause for concern, from a fouling perspective, heading into this season.
And then that concern basically disappeared. Tshiebwe pretty quickly settled in and was able to stay on the floor, even while upping that all-out aggression to put up rebounding numbers that no one has seen in decades.
On Saturday, he fouled out for the very first time as a Kentucky player — relegated to the bench for crunch time in the Southeastern Conference Tournament loss to Tennessee, playing just 24 minutes. Going into that day, Tshiebwe had played at least 30 minutes in nine straight games and 17 of the last 18. His 24 minutes were the lowest since playing 22 in UK’s 98-69 victory over North Carolina on Dec. 18 and the lowest all season in a game decided by fewer than 19 points.
Overall, Tshiebwe is averaging 2.6 fouls per game this season, but he’s doing that while playing 40 percent more minutes than he did at West Virginia (and leading the nation in rebounding and UK in steals while also emerging as a national defensive player of the year finalist).
There is no way to overstate Tshiebwe’s importance to this Kentucky team. If he’s not on the court against good competition, the Cats won’t be winning a national title. Period.
Can Wheeler keep things steady?
When Sahvir Wheeler is breaking down defenses, putting his passes on the money, and knocking down shots at the rim, few players are more exciting to watch. When UK’s point guard gets out of control with the ball in his hands, it’s a cover-your-eyes-this-is-gonna-get-ugly situation.
While Wheeler has been better than many probably expected in his first season as a Wildcat — he led the SEC in assists for the second consecutive season, while cutting down on the turnovers considerably — there have been plenty of those moments when Kentucky fans recoiled in disgust and frustration.
Auburn fans saw what happened in the SEC Tournament when the Tigers’ similarly fun backcourt went sideways. Wendell Green missed six of his first seven shots, KD Johnson was 0-for-14 from the floor, and Auburn got bounced by Texas A&M, possibly costing itself a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
The stakes are higher starting this week, and Wheeler has to make sure he doesn’t go a similar route.
Since the season-opening loss to Duke, he’s dished out at least six assists in 18 games. Kentucky is 18-0 in those games. When he plays within himself — and makes those moves toward the rim with a purpose — Wheeler can be as good as just about any college point guard in the country, especially with the personnel he has around him. Cutting down on the frenzied play, curious decisions and circus shots will give Kentucky a much better shot at a Final Four.
Can TyTy and Grady get going?
They better, or UK won’t be going far. When TyTy Washington or Kellan Grady is on, the Wildcats can be difficult to stop. If they can both knock down shots at the same time, this Kentucky team — with the ever-dependable Oscar Tshiebwe in the middle — can be downright unstoppable.
The problem lately is both of UK’s top backcourt scorers have struggled, and as they’ve gone, so have gone the Wildcats.
Washington was a week removed from his career-high 28-point performance at Tennessee when he injured his ankle in the opening minutes at Auburn. For the most part, he hasn’t been the same since (and another injury against Florida on Feb. 12 likely only complicated things).
While Washington was out, Grady saw his court time skyrocket to the point where he played 38.6 minutes per game over a 10-game stretch. His season-best 25 points against Alabama was Game 9 of that span, and he hasn’t looked like the same player since (going 5-for-22 from three-point range in the six games since that day).
If neither is capable of putting up big numbers, the Cats are likely to be in trouble.
Washington showed some hope of a revival in the SEC Tournament, where he scored 25 points against Vanderbilt and 17 points against Tennessee, his first back-to-back games with 15-plus points in two months. More importantly, he’s starting to look like his midseason self as far as attacking the rim and playing with confidence with the ball in his hands. UK needs more of that.
Grady’s case is cause for more concern. He’s scored in double figures just once in the last five games — with the high being 11 points — and that Alabama game was 26 days ago. Opposing teams are doing a good job of keeping him from getting transition threes, but he can obviously still be a major threat in the halfcourt. A hesitance to take open shots in that setting, a failure to get himself such looks by working off the ball, and a seeming reluctance on John Calipari’s part to get Grady in space are all partly to blame for what’s happening.
Sometimes shots just don’t fall — any shooter will tell you that — but Grady has looked off at the most important time of the season. The Cats will need him to turn it back on in some of these tight games that are sure to come in March.
Can anyone provide a breakout moment?
It’s pretty clear that, if he had his druthers, John Calipari would exclusively play a rotation of seven players — Sahvir Wheeler, TyTy Washington, Kellan Grady, Keion Brooks, Oscar Tshiebwe, Davion Mintz and Jacob Toppin — against pretty much any opposing team.
In March, it’s never that easy.
Whether it’s foul trouble or injuries or just a weird matchup, lineups can and will change on the fly. And that’s when some unlikely NCAA Tournament heroes emerge.
Kentucky might need somebody to have a Marcus Lee vs. Michigan moment in this edition of Madness, and there’s reason to believe it’s possible. Bryce Hopkins dropped 13 points out of nowhere in a comeback victory over LSU three weeks ago. Fellow freshman Daimion Collins has proven to be an over-the-top threat against certain defenses, most recently against Alabama last month. Lance Ware clearly has the trust of Calipari to do some dirty work inside, and that can be crucial in close games. Dontaie Allen has made only two shots since November — and, at this point, it seems unlikely he’ll play at all in a close one — but UK fans have seen him go off from deep before, and stranger things have happened this time of year.
One of these players’ numbers is bound to get called in a big moment this March.
Can the Cats stay healthy?
This is probably the most important question of all.
That 80-62 victory at Kansas on Jan. 29 was undoubtedly the biggest for Kentucky — and arguably anyone in college basketball — this season, but it was the 107-79 drubbing of Tennessee two weeks earlier that stands out as the apex of what this team can be.
UK blew the doors off the Volunteers with a total team effort — and a 68-percent shooting performance — on a day when everything finally looked in place. Over the first couple of months of the season, there were some nagging injuries and illnesses, but the Cats’ biggest struggles came from the players on this team still getting to know each other, still searching for their roles, and still working on reshaping their games to fit this collective of talent.
Davion Mintz, Sahvir Wheeler, Kellan Grady and all three freshmen led their respective teams in scoring last season, don’t forget. That can make for a tough transition.
By that afternoon in Rupp Arena when Kentucky dismantled Tennessee, it had finally all come together.
Seven days later, TyTy Washington went down with a sprained ankle at Auburn. More injuries mounted, players missed games, roles got scrambled, and — with that night in Lawrence as pretty much the only exception — UK hasn’t looked quite the same since.
Calipari and the Wildcats coaching staff showed during that stretch that they can put together a winning plan if they know a key player is going to be out. But as the opponents get better, the Cats will be hard-pressed to keep advancing if they’re missing any regulars. And they’ve struggled mightily when losing guys like Washington and Wheeler in the middle of games.
We’ve seen what this Kentucky team is capable of at full strength, and we’ve seen the hardships that come with playing short-handed. If the Cats can stay healthy and rediscover that mojo of the latter half of January, they might just be the favorites to win the whole thing.
This story was originally published March 16, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
