Jacob Toppin is heating up from three-point range. Will he shoot more? Don’t count on it.
Way back in the college basketball preseason, when Kentucky was regarded as one of the top teams in the country, it was expected that Jacob Toppin would be a driving force behind the Wildcats’ march toward a possible Final Four campaign.
UK’s season hasn’t gone quite as expected. Neither has Toppin’s.
A big reason behind the heightened expectations around the senior forward — and, by extension, for this Kentucky team — was the idea that Toppin would emerge as a major three-point threat, something that could help propel him toward a starring role in his third year with the Wildcats. He shot 8-for-15 from deep during Kentucky’s four-game summer trip to the Bahamas, and UK’s coaches had been praising him for a greater attention to detail during the offseason, noting that Toppin had shown serious growth off the court and a more mature approach to his own development.
Toppin also went through the NBA Draft process last spring. It was always assumed that he would ultimately choose to come back to UK — he wasn’t projected as an NBA pick, after all — but by putting his name in the draft he was able to collect valuable feedback from league decision-makers.
Something they wanted to see more from Toppin: an ability to make three-pointers.
His return was obviously a major plus for the Wildcats, but it also presented the challenge of balancing Toppin’s individual goal of making the NBA with finding the right style of play that could make Kentucky better.
In the leadup to the season, UK’s coaches acknowledged as much. In a preseason interview with the Herald-Leader, associate coach Orlando Antigua said Toppin would have opportunities to “show all aspects of his game,” but that he need not “press” to prove to league scouts what he could do.
“He just has to be worried about doing the right things for this team to succeed,” Antigua said. “And in the process of that, he’ll be able to highlight and show the things that he can do.”
A message of sorts — directed at Toppin — developed among the UK coaching staff: “Like the three. Don’t love the three.”
They knew he could do in real games what he had done in those Bahamas exhibitions and what he had shown in early practices, but they also knew it had to be a natural occurrence. And there was clearly a sense of concern early on that Toppin might “love the three” a little too much.
“He’s a well-rounded basketball player,” Antigua said in September. “And you want him to display his entire game. And not get pigeon-holed into, ‘I gotta show that I can shoot a three.’ No. You’re more than that. You got more layers to your game than that. And I think that’s what we need him to be for us. He’s got to be able to get to the free-throw line. He’s got to be able to get in there, mix it up, and get some of those rebounds — use that athleticism in tight spaces. Those kinds of things. The tough, hard-nosed things that help you win games.”
Toppin acknowledges now that he leaned on the thought of making threes a little too much. Over the first 13 games of the season, he shot 22 threes. He made three of them. That’s a 13.6-percent clip.
With Toppin missing a lot more than he was hitting, opposing teams started leaving him open on the perimeter. And, his confidence shot, he started passing up open looks. By the time Louisiana State came to Lexington in early January, he hadn’t made a three in six weeks.
About 90 seconds left in the game and the Cats up by only a point, the ball found its way to Toppin in the corner. Wide open. An LSU defender stepped toward him. Toppin pump-faked but didn’t let fly. By the time he pulled the ball down, there were only four seconds left on the shot clock. There wasn’t much choice but to shoot it, and so he did. Nothing but net.
Starting with that shot, Toppin has gone 10-for-19 from long range over 14 games. And some of those makes have come in big spots, including a three late in Wednesday’s victory at Florida that helped pad a Kentucky lead that the Wildcats would need every bit of down the stretch.
“He’s working at it,” John Calipari said of Toppin’s newfound three-point prowess after that win. “But I’m telling you, the best part of him is going at the rim, those little pull-ups, the little floater. But now it becomes dangerous, because if you don’t play him and we drive it and throw it to him, he can make it.”
Indeed, the ability Toppin has shown as a deep threat over the past few weeks will probably keep defenses more honest moving forward. That should unclog the lane and give Toppin and his teammates more scoring opportunities. What this shot-making ability won’t change, it seems, is Toppin’s own approach to his three-point game.
He acknowledged Wednesday night that he was too fixated on proving himself as a great outside shooter, and it worked to his detriment. Over the course of the season, he hit some major lows as he tried to find his game and figure out his role on this team. Now, he thinks he’s done it. And the results are showing: 11 straight games with double-digit scoring, four double-doubles in that span, and a bigger emphasis on all of those things Antigua emphasized before the season began and Calipari reiterated Wednesday night.
“Honestly, not worrying about it has made me a better shooter,” Toppin said. “At the beginning of the year, I was focused too much on shooting threes, when I’m not that type of player. I’m a downhill player. Dribble pull-ups. Getting to the rim. Playing through contact. Rebounding. And then the threes are just extra to my game.”
So, more three-pointers in Toppin’s immediate future? Don’t expect him to start chucking at every opportunity. But if he gets a look in the natural flow of the game or the Cats need a big score, he’ll be ready and willing to give it a shot.
“I’m just happy that I’ve brought my confidence back and I’m able to hit big shots when I need to.”
Saturday
Auburn at Kentucky
When: 4 p.m.
TV: CBS-27
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Auburn 19-9 (9-6 SEC); Kentucky 19-9 (10-5)
Series: Kentucky leads 96-23
Last meeting: Auburn won 80-71 on Jan. 22, 2022, at Auburn, Ala.
