John Calipari says he has two teams. Which Kentucky combo worked best Saturday? This one.
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It’s a good problem to have, John Calipari will be the first to tell you.
Heading into one of the biggest college basketball games of the season so far — No. 14 Kentucky vs. No. 9 North Carolina in Atlanta on Saturday — the UK coach finally got his first extended look at what this Wildcats team could be last weekend in Philadelphia.
There, freshman Aaron Bradshaw played 29 minutes in just his second college appearance, putting up 17 points, 11 rebounds and three blocked shots to help lead the Cats to an 81-66 win over Penn.
The addition of the versatile 7-foot-1 newcomer was a big one for the Wildcats, who had struggled to rebound and had no real rim-protecting threat while Bradshaw — out since late March with a broken foot — and fellow 7-footers Zvonimir Ivisic and Ugonna Oyenso were sidelined.
To that point, Calipari had relied on a relatively small approach, going with four players listed as guards — though some of those “guards” are also listed at 6-8 — alongside indispensable forward Tre Mitchell in the 5 spot. With Bradshaw back, how might those UK lineups change?
“I have no idea right now,” Calipari said immediately after the win Saturday.
Kentucky’s coach came back to the question himself a short time later, thinking out loud about the possibilities while answering a question related to the Wildcats’ improved rebounding performance — they beat Penn 41-31 on the boards — with Bradshaw fully in the rotation.
“This is going to be interesting — us figuring this out,” Calipari said. “Because you’re exactly right. I have two teams. I have a small team. And now I have a big team. And when do they play?”
The only results so far scream the obvious: go with the big team. As much as possible.
That “big team” is the one that features Bradshaw (7-1 and 226 pounds) with Mitchell (6-9 and 231 pounds) and three guards. That big team dominated the Quakers on Saturday afternoon.
Bradshaw and Mitchell were on the court at the same time for 28:14 of the Penn game — a little more 70 percent of the 40 minutes — and Kentucky outscored the Quakers by 23 points with that duo playing together. In a game in which the Cats won by 15, that’s a telling number.
Even more telling is what each player did on his own.
Mitchell played as the only big for 9:26 of the game — all but one minute of that came alongside his fellow starters — and Penn outscored the Cats by seven points in that time. Bradshaw played without Mitchell for 4:20, and the Quakers beat UK by a point with those lineups.
Going into the weekend, Penn was outrebounding opponents by more than eight boards per game — top 40 in the country in that stat — and Kentucky was struggling mightily against lesser opponents.
For this game, Bradshaw had 11 rebounds. Mitchell tied a season high with nine boards. And though the fifth-year college player was just 2-for-7 from the floor, he dished out four assists. The addition of Bradshaw helped free him up to do other things, true of every other Wildcat on the court during those stretches.
“Us outrebounding them — so what happened?” Calipari asked rhetorically, pointing to Bradshaw immediately. “Now the other guys do their thing, and he can go do what he does.”
What he did Saturday, clearly, was make everyone around him better.
It really didn’t matter which guards that duo played with. The team excelled every time.
Bradshaw and Mitchell drive UK
Here’s the breakdown:
▪ Calipari’s most-utilized lineup Saturday featured D.J. Wagner, Reed Sheppard and Rob Dillingham with the two bigs. That five was a plus-6 over 10:20 of playing time.
▪ Next came Sheppard, Dillingham and Antonio Reeves with the two bigs. They were plus-7 in 8:45 on the court together.
▪ After that, the starters — Wagner, Reeves, Justin Edwards, Adou Thiero and Mitchell — a group that played just three total shifts together, getting outscored by four points over 8 minutes, 26 seconds.
▪ The only other five that played together more than four minutes turned out to be the best, from a pure plus-minus perspective. Wagner, Sheppard, Reeves, Bradshaw and Mitchell played three shifts together — for a total of just 4:15 — but outscored Penn by seven.
A guard-by-guard look at who played well alongside the big man duo also shows they all did. Here’s each Kentucky guard’s plus-minus Saturday while playing with Bradshaw and Mitchell.
▪ Sheppard: plus-20 in 25:20.
▪ Reeves: plus-17 in 15:54.
▪ Wagner: plus-16 in 17:29.
▪ Dillingham: plus-13 in 21:05.
It’s worth noting that the combo of Wagner, Sheppard, Dillingham, Bradshaw and Mitchell finished off both halves Saturday.
Now, this is obviously a small sample size.
This is one game in December against a team that started this week at No. 190 nationally in the KenPom ratings. Calipari will surely try different combos over the next few games, and UK will face much more size and stiffer competition as the season goes on, starting this Saturday with the No. 9-ranked Tar Heels and preseason All-American center Armando Bacot.
It’s also worth noting that foul trouble with Edwards — a player billed as a possible No. 1 NBA draft pick in the preseason — limited his role throughout the day, in turn limiting his opportunities to play alongside UK’s two-big lineup.
Adding the versatile, 6-8 Edwards alongside those two would be intriguing. That trio, Wagner and Reeves did get to play together for 2:54 in the second half — just one shift and the only instance of Edwards on the court with Bradshaw and Mitchell at the same time. Kentucky was a plus-3 during that span, which included the moment when the Cats effectively shut the door on Penn.
The sequence featured Bradshaw blocking a shot off the backboard, Edwards hustling to save the ball in bounds to Mitchell, who quickly dished a touch pass to Wagner, who started the fast break and found Reeves for a wide-open 3-pointer to put the Cats up 70-57. It was quite a play, every Cat on the court touched the ball in a span of seven seconds, and Penn never threatened again.
With the versatility of Kentucky’s backcourt, the possibilities moving forward are plenty.
Next game
No. 14 Kentucky vs. No. 9 North Carolina
What: CBS Sports Classic
When: Saturday at about 5:30 p.m. (following a game between Ohio State and UCLA that starts at 3 p.m. on the same court)
Where: State Farm Arena in Atlanta
TV: CBS-27
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Kentucky 7-2, North Carolina 7-2
Series: North Carolina leads 25-17
Last meeting: Kentucky won 98-69 on Dec. 17, 2021, at the CBS Sports Classic in Las Vegas
This story was originally published December 12, 2023 at 7:00 AM.
