Adou Thiero has become a Kentucky fan favorite. He’s still trying to find his own game.
Exactly four weeks passed between appearances on the basketball court for Adou Thiero, a lightly regarded recruit who joined Kentucky’s program with few outside expectations but plenty of confidence in his own game.
As his team struggled, the 18-year-old sat, but UK Coach John Calipari often sang his praises. Thiero had a bright future, everyone around the Wildcats’ team seemed to think, but he wasn’t quite ready to start fulfilling it. Not against the type of competition the Cats were playing.
Thiero didn’t play at all between Nov. 23 and Dec. 21, and he never left the bench in any of Kentucky’s four highest-profile games before the calendar flipped to 2023, sitting against Michigan State, Gonzaga, Michigan and UCLA — all UK losses, with the exception of the Wolverines game.
Finally, he logged four minutes against Florida A&M.
“I thought Adou played well,” Calipari said after that Dec. 21 game. “It’s kind of like waiting your turn, and he’s the one guy that hasn’t had the opportunity that the other guys on the team have had. But his time is coming. You watch.”
The Kentucky coach went on to say that Thiero would have a “huge impact” on college basketball before his playing days were finished.
He didn’t play in the first half of UK’s next game — an 89-75 loss at Missouri — but Calipari put him in with 16:53 remaining, and he didn’t leave the court until the final buzzer. Three days later, Thiero played seven minutes in a win over Louisville.
Calipari said he grabbed Thiero after that game and told him, “You’re family to me.” Thiero’s father, Almamy Thiero, had played for the UK coach at Memphis, and the current Wildcat had attended Calipari’s camps growing up.
“You’re now in the rotation, but I can’t tell you how much you’re going to play, because someone may be playing really well and you won’t,” Calipari told him.
Sure enough, the Kentucky coach shortened his rotation in the very next game, playing just seven guys in a win over Louisiana State. Thiero wasn’t one of them, but he played a career-high 18 minutes a few days later at Alabama, then sat out the entire game again in a home loss to South Carolina after that.
Amid UK’s struggles — the Cats fell to 10-6 after that South Carolina defeat — Thiero became something of a symbol of lost opportunity to Kentucky fans who thought he could help.
He’d given them plenty of hope, blowing away the light expectations with a flashy debut during the Cats’ summer trip to the Bahamas, then continuing to play well — while other players were sidelined — during UK’s preseason schedule. And when he did get those game-day opportunities, he showed a trait that Kentucky fans have always adored: maximum effort on the court.
Thiero came to campus projected to be UK’s 10th man — perhaps the 11th, once Ugonna Onyenso joined the Cats in August — but that was never really his own expectation. He’d been a top player on whatever team he played on for years, and — when that “10th man” talk was bounced off of him during preseason interviews — he never really accepted the premise.
And even as he sat, he didn’t sulk. He said he tried to avoid social media, but his dad would tell him that Calipari was high on his game and fans were clamoring to see more of him on the court. “Because he loves Twitter,” Thiero said with a grin. “He’s always on there.”
When the Cats are playing — especially if they’re losing — it doesn’t take much scrolling to find fans clamoring for Thiero to come into the game.
The freshman tried not to put much stock in any of that talk. Thiero spoke to the Herald-Leader a couple of days after the win over Louisville, but the topsy-turvy nature of his role on this team hasn’t changed since then. Whether it’s a practice day or a game day, Thiero never quite knows what he’s going to be asked to do. And in times like that, it’s best to keep the same demeanor.
“Every day, I was just coming into practice thinking, ‘Let me work and get better and try to show why I should be on the court.’ And try to get some more minutes,” he said.
Thiero at Tennessee
When Calipari tells players to “be ready,” it’s games like Saturday’s that he’s talking about.
A reeling Kentucky team walked into Thompson-Boling Arena to face the fifth-ranked Tennessee Volunteers and a raucous home crowd. The Cats were without Sahvir Wheeler, who was sidelined with a shoulder injury. The team’s only other point guard — freshman Cason Wallace — was dealing with a back injury.
And so — against the No. 5 team in the country — Thiero got his latest shot.
With Wallace in the tunnel stretching out his back, Thiero entered the game midway through the first half and was immediately matched up with all-league-caliber guard Zakai Zeigler, a spark plug for the Vols and one of the best defensive players in the Southeastern Conference.
Not only was Thiero playing, but he was running the point for the Cats.
And that’s not out of the ordinary for the listed-at-6-foot-6-but-still-growing teenager. Thiero often plays point guard in UK’s scrimmage sessions, when regular starters Wallace and Wheeler team up together on the other squad.
That’s unlikely to be his position long term, but he showed plenty of promise Saturday afternoon. Early on, he nearly picked Zeigler’s pocket for a steal then forced the Vols guard into a tough look to beat the buzzer of the shot clock. A little later, Thiero stole an inbounds pass and took it the other way, leading to a UK basket. Less than a minute later, he tipped a ball from behind for another steal. Right after that, Thiero got switched onto 6-11 big man Jonas Aidoo but bodied up the 241-pounder in the paint, never giving Tennessee’s guards a chance to feed him.
Wallace’s injury and foul trouble led to two more lengthy stints on the court for Thiero, who continued to play point guard. He drove the lane and got fouled twice, making all four free throws. He battled 7-1, 265-pound Uros Plavsic — one of the SEC’s most physical players — for a rebound, disrupting the UT big man just enough to ensure Kentucky got the ball. He drew an offensive foul and generally played tough, energetic basketball for the 13 minutes he was on the floor.
“I just know that I’m gonna go in and try and play as hard as I can every day,” Thiero said of his approach.
He certainly provided a spark in UK’s 63-56 upset of the Vols, though his final stat line was nothing fancy. He missed all three of his shots, tallied four points, two steals, two turnovers and three fouls. He made some mistakes — biting on ball fakes, leaving a good shooter open on the perimeter, getting beat on a drive. But, he’s also still 18 years old, with relatively little college experience and a role that changes from day to day.
Thiero is looking on the bright side of that. He thinks the constant changes he goes through in practice — a point guard one day, a power forward the next — will help in the long run. And he’s the first to acknowledge that he’s not even sure what kind of player he’ll be yet, especially if his ongoing growth spurt — doctors have told him he could get to 6-11 — continues.
“I think I’m still trying to figure that out. I’m still developing my game,” Thiero said. “Still trying to figure out who I am. In high school, I was a scorer. But that’s different now, because I’ve got multiple people around me who can do the same thing.”
He knows he still has a ton to work on. He wants to be even more aggressive on the court, especially as an offensive player. He wants to do more as a rebounder and become a better on-ball defender. And he still has plenty of time.
A freshman never knows exactly what he’s walking into — especially at a place like Kentucky — until the practices and the games begin. In Thiero’s case — a late-blooming recruit without a national profile — UK’s coaches didn’t know what to expect until they got him in the gym.
So far, signs are pointing toward a promising future.
“The work definitely matched my expectations. We do a lot, and I was expecting that,” Thiero said. “Getting into games — I was hoping for my chance a little earlier, but things worked out. And I’m just gonna keep grinding every day and try to add more playing time to my book.”
Tuesday
Georgia at Kentucky
When: 9 p.m.
TV: ESPN
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Georgia 13-4 (3-1 SEC), Kentucky 11-6 (2-3 SEC)
Series: Kentucky leads 130-27
Last meeting: Kentucky won 92-77 on Jan. 8, 2022, in Lexington
This story was originally published January 16, 2023 at 7:00 AM.
