Kentucky’s freshmen grew up in a big way in SEC win at Florida. ‘They have a will to win.’
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Game day: No. 6 Kentucky 87, Florida 85
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Florida at Gainesville, Florida.
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Aaron Bradshaw leaned against a wall in the underbelly of the Stephen C. O’Connell Center, and let out a smile.
A shake of the head followed.
No, he wouldn’t reveal what UK assistant coach Chin Coleman told him at halftime, and which phrases from the Chicago native inspired Bradshaw to totally turn around his play Saturday in the second half of Kentucky’s 87-85 win in its SEC opener at Florida.
Bradshaw’s failure to disclose these words hardly matters. They likely couldn’t have been printed anyway.
“Chin was all up in my face, yelling and stuff like that,” Bradshaw said. “I don’t really like when people do that, so he knows that’s my fuel. So he just kept on doing it, and I just had a different motor going into (the second half).
“I want to win. At first, I wasn’t wanting to win (enough).”
There are many parts and pieces to pick apart from UK’s unlikely road triumph over the Gators. But any discussion about how John Calipari’s No. 6-ranked Wildcats saw off a physical Florida team in front of a hostile crowd in Gainesville has to center around the second-half surge by the freshman members of another famously young Kentucky team.
The statistics speak for themselves on this one.
D.J. Wagner went from two points and one rebound in the first half to 12 points (a team high), three assists and two rebounds after the break. It was he who assisted Bradshaw on the game-shifting 3-pointer that Bradshaw buried with less than 90 seconds left to give Kentucky the lead for good, reminiscent of their old days as Camden (New Jersey) High School teammates.
Rob Dillingham endured a horrific first half: 1-for-4 shooting, four turnovers, zero assists. Four points, one assist and one rebound in the second half might not seem like much, but he cut out the turnovers, much to his head coach’s delight.
“Quit trying to make the hardest play possible,” Calipari recalled postgame about Dillingham for the umpteenth time in less than eight months coaching him.
“I told him: ‘I’m leaving you in because I believe in you.’”
Reed Sheppard still stuffed the stat sheet in the first half to the tune of five points, four rebounds and two assists. But even this was muted by Sheppard’s standards and the lofty expectations that come with being floated as a possible NBA draft lottery pick.
While most of Sheppard’s nine second-half points came late, they were critical to the win: In a game in which UK shot 20-for-28 (71.4%) from the foul line, Sheppard went 6-for-7 (85.7%) himself in the second half, with all of the makes coming in the final 19 seconds as he salted the game away from 15 feet out.
“Everything that happened in the second half toward the end was huge,” Sheppard said. “… For us to keep fighting and keep sticking together as a team, not going isolation (plays) and doing all that. We all stuck together and got the win.”
Bradshaw was the biggest example of Kentucky’s young stars emerging from the locker room with a new mindset. In the first half, Bradshaw’s only counting statistic of note was a defensive rebound in 10 minutes on the court.
“He got muscled. He got manhandled. Couldn’t come up with a ball, couldn’t make a layup,” Calipari lamented.
That morphed into the following in 15 second-half minutes: 10 points, six rebounds, two steals and one block. And that block came on the possession before his big 3-pointer as well.
Coleman’s words worked wonders.
“If you take those shots, you’re a big player,” Bradshaw recalled UK coaches telling him.
Postgame, Calipari’s news conference — which can vary from from a solemn, at times tense meeting after defeats and a gregarious gathering following wins — was the latter Saturday.
And during it, he stressed Kentucky’s ability to stick together through what was dismal opening half of basketball against Florida that saw Kentucky trail 45-37 at the break.
From Bradshaw to Dillingham to Wagner, Calipari touched on each of his freshmen that struggled in what was their first true road test as star college players.
“I love when they shh,” Bradshaw said a few minutes later, pressing his left index finger against his lips to mimic the Florida crowd’s reaction when his key shot went down.
Despite being billed as a sell-out, the O’Dome wasn’t packed Saturday afternoon. But it was plenty loud enough as the approximately 10,000 people in attendance made themselves heard.
While that raw crowd size (which included a fair amount of Kentucky fans) might have been bigger than what any UK freshman previously experienced, Bradshaw said he and Wagner leaned on their experience together at Camden to rally around it.
“We played in rowdy crowds too, so we were kind of used to it,” Bradshaw said. “… We just have to stay together. That’s our main thing, as long as we lock in and glue, then nothing can stop us.”
Bradshaw taking a pass from his old high school teammate and nailing a dead-eye 3-pointer, without hesitation, was tangible evidence of two of UK’s biggest freshmen staying the course.
“He does it in practice,” Calipari said of Bradshaw’s ability to knock down shots from distance, a calling card of his immense potential as a five-star recruit.
“That’s why we ran that high ball screen, threw it back to him. The kid had the courage to make it.”
Of course, Kentucky’s comeback win (just the third time since March 2020 that UK has overcome a halftime deficit of at least eight points to win) couldn’t have been possible without those who kept the lights on during the first half.
Fifth-year forward Tre Mitchell produced the lion’s share of a 12-point, 10-rebound double-double in the opening half.
“That’s my vet. Whatever he tells me I listen to,” Bradshaw said of Mitchell. “Not only is he a good player, he’s good up here (pointing to head). He has really strong mental ability. So whenever I have questions on the court, off the court, I always go to Tre.”
Fellow super-senior Antonio Reeves actually led UK in scoring Saturday with 19 points, but 14 of those came in first 23 minutes of the contest.
Let’s also not forget everything that happened against Florida transpired without sophomore Adou Thiero, a key member of this UK squad who missed his second straight game with “general soreness,” per the program.
“At halftime I just said, ‘Guys, we’re down four baskets. And we played that way?’” Calipari said. “And we gave this, and we gave that. We’re fine.”
Shooting variance also had a big effect on Saturday’s result: Florida went 8-for-20 (40%) on 3-pointers in the first half, and 1-for-11 (9.1%) on 3-pointers in the second half. Kentucky went 1-for-10 (10%) on 3-pointers in the first half, and 4-for-10 (40%) on 3-pointers in the second half.
But when it came down to crunch time, it was Kentucky’s freshmen that did the work required to gut out a conference road win.
Bradshaw’s 3-pointer came with fellow first-years Justin Edwards, Sheppard and Wagner also on the court, along with Reeves. (Mitchell cramped up and limped off the court right before the possession.)
When it mattered most, the kids carried Kentucky to an inspiring win, perhaps their most impressive victory of the 2023-24 season so far given that UK only led for 5:25 of game time.
“I don’t care that they’re young. They’re dogs. They have a will to win,” Calipari said. “They were playing to win the game.”
SEC kicks off final 14-team men’s basketball season
Saturday marked the start of conference play for all 14 SEC schools. This season is the final iteration of a 14-team men’s basketball league for the SEC, with Oklahoma and Texas set to join the conference starting with the 2024-25 season.
Here’s a look around the league at the other results that took place, in addition to the Cats-Gators matchup.
South Carolina 68 (13-1, 1-0), Mississippi State (11-3, 0-1) 62: Second-year head coach Lamont Paris has something with this group of Gamecocks. Junior guards Meechie Johnson (24 points) and Myles Stute (15 points) led the way, as the Gamecocks also outrebounded Mississippi State by nine.
Graduate student forward Tolu Smith had 13 points from the Bulldogs in just his second game of the season following an offseason foot injury.
South Carolina is already 25% of the way to its conference win total from last season.
Georgia 75 (11-3, 1-0), Missouri (8-6, 0-1) 68: A balanced scoring effort with four Georgia players scoring in double figures allowed former Florida head coach Mike White to begin his second SEC season with Georgia in victorious fashion.
Second-year Missouri head coach Dennis Gates’ team has fallen off substantially from last year’s group that reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
While four players also scored in double figures for the Tigers, Georgia claimed a whopping 23-3 advantage in bench points.
Georgia’s 12-for-28 (43%) outing from 3-point range also dwarfed that of Missouri: The Tigers were 6-for-19 (32%) from distance.
No. 25 Auburn 83 (12-2, 1-0), Arkansas (9-5, 0-1) 51: A shocking result from Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville saw the hometown Hogs put to pasture by the visiting Tigers.
Junior wing Chad Baker-Mazara had 16 points to led Auburn, but the headline from this one was Arkansas shooting 31% from the field and 29.2% from 3-point range.
The Razorbacks only had nine bench points. Arkansas’ 51 points were the lowest scoring total by an SEC team on the opening day of league play.
Alabama 78 (9-5, 1-0), Vanderbilt (5-9, 0-1) 75: Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats is now 10-0 in games played in Nashville after a sloppy, if successful, outing to begin SEC play for Alabama.
A 14-0 run by Alabama in the first half set the tone for the win with senior guard Mark Sears scoring 21 points.
Despite the defeat, Vanderbilt had a pair of 20-point scorers in senior guard Tyrin Lawrence and freshman wing Jason Rivera-Torres.
The Commodores are just 5-5 at home this season.
No. 5 Tennessee 90 (11-3, 1-0), No. 22 Ole Miss (13-1, 0-1) 64: Ole Miss entered SEC play Saturday as just one of three unbeaten teams in the nation. Now, only one remains (Houston) after Ole Miss was comprehensively defeated in Knoxville by the No. 5-ranked Volunteers. (Another unbeaten, No. 19 James Madison, also lost in an upset at Southern Mississippi.)
The Rebels’ harsh dose of reality came as the Volunteers scored 50 second-half points to run away after establishing a nine-point halftime lead.
Junior forward Jonas Aidoo had 24 points for Tennessee, which shot 47.2% from the field overall. The Volunteers also punished the Rebels on the glass, winning the rebounding battle 47-29.
LSU 68 (9-5, 1-0), Texas A&M (9-5, 0-1) 53: The last SEC game to go final Saturday had second-year head coach Matt McMahon’s Tigers outscore Texas A&M by 17 points in the second half to easily erase a two-point halftime deficit.
A 20-point, 10-rebound double-double by LSU graduate student guard Jordan Wright (an offseason transfer from Vanderbilt) keyed the road win.
A&M, picked to finish second in the SEC in the preseason media poll, got 23 points from junior guard Wade Taylor IV, the preseason media pick for SEC Player of the Year, and not much else.
The teams combined to shoot 11-for-52 (21.2%) from 3-point range.
Next game
Missouri at No. 6 Kentucky
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
TV: ESPN
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Kentucky 11-2 (1-0 SEC), Missouri 8-6 (0-1)
Series: Kentucky leads 14-3
Last meeting: Missouri won 89-75 on Dec. 28, 2022, at Columbia, Mo.
This story was originally published January 6, 2024 at 5:40 PM.
