D.J. Wagner’s wise decision in Starkville is a good sign for Kentucky’s prospects in March
For all the winning basketball plays that were made by the Kentucky Wildcats on Tuesday night, one of the most important was a play that never happened.
With the game tied and just 8.1 seconds left, freshman point guard D.J. Wagner took an inbounds pass from Reed Sheppard and charged up the court. As he approached the 3-point line, Wagner hit Mississippi State’s Josh Hubbard with a crossover and tried to penetrate to his left. Nothing was there. Instead of continuing toward the rim and trying to win the game himself, Wagner wisely backed off, spun around, and passed it off to Sheppard.
The rest is UK basketball history. Sheppard hit the game-winner. The Cats left Starkville with a 91-89 victory.
“Everybody on the court wanted to shoot that shot, and everyone would have been OK with anyone (else) shooting that shot,” Sheppard said. “But D.J. knew — he tried to attack, and they were there, and then he just made the right basketball play, which is what’s so special about this team.”
Sheppard then nodded back to John Calipari’s well-worn line that everyone on this Kentucky team can “pass, dribble and shoot” — noting that “what’s so special” about this group of Wildcats is that they recognize that if a shot isn’t there, someone else on the floor is just as capable of finding a way to score.
Up until the beginning of this season — and possibly even more recently than that — Wagner probably would have continued his drive to the rim and taken the shot himself. Long ranked as the No. 1 recruit in his class, he’s been the best player on his team for his entire basketball life.
Still just 18 years old — he’s the youngest Wildcat on this team by four months, younger than Sheppard by more than 10 months — this season has been an opportunity for Wagner to grow.
“He gets in trouble when he makes his mind up what he’s going to do before he goes,” Calipari said after Tuesday’s win. “And then there’s three guys and he goes anyway. No. If they’re there, pull it back. He’s learning. You know, he’s learning. And that’s all part of the process.”
Calipari, who coached Wagner’s father — one-and-done NBA lottery pick Dajuan Wagner — at Memphis, has been as publicly protective of the younger Wagner as just about any UK player in recent years. The Kentucky coach knows his youngest Cat has been the subject of fan and media scrutiny while other guards — Sheppard and Rob Dillingham, to be specific — have rocketed past him on NBA Draft charts and often put up bigger numbers in the Wildcats’ games.
Wagner got off to a slow start to the season, relative to expectations, while Dillingham and Sheppard surged almost immediately, but his absence due to an ankle injury — first for UK’s loss to UNC Wilmington, then for a three-game SEC stretch in which the Cats lost twice — showed that this team is a little more disjointed without him on the court.
Kentucky’s players and coaches have talked throughout the season about Wagner’s positive contributions to the team, even if the numbers in the box score or the deeper analytics don’t always reflect his worth to the Wildcats.
“I think D.J. is a natural leader,” UK assistant coach John Welch said last week. “And I think that’s what we miss the most when D.J.’s not out (there). It’s one of those things that’s hard to define, but when you see it, you know it. It’s just who he is. And he not only has a confidence, but I think he gives other players confidence. And that’s kind of what the special players do.”
Welch, who coached in the NBA for two decades, likened Wagner to one of his former players, Patrick Beverley, a hard-working NBA veteran who has been a crucial defender and sparkplug player on playoff teams over the years.
“He not only has confidence, but he makes everyone around him more confident,” Welch said. “And I think D.J. has that effect on our team.”
While providing intense on-ball pressure since his return from an ankle injury three weeks ago — a key factor in the Cats’ generally improving defense — Wagner has struggled offensively. He barely practiced for the two weeks he was sidelined, and Calipari noted that he did very little with a basketball in his hands over that time. The offensive skid renewed calls to redistribute some of his minutes elsewhere.
“It takes time to get your rhythm back. And it’s taken him time,” the coach said. “But I’m not like, ‘Well, don’t play him anymore?’ Stop.”
In addition to the awareness that went along with that final play Tuesday night, Wagner made some other big ones over the course of Kentucky’s win at Mississippi State.
His 3-pointer with 18:55 left in the first half served as UK’s only points in the first five-plus minutes of the game, the Cats falling behind 14-3 over that stretch. With Kentucky down 11 in the final seconds of the half, he nailed another 3-pointer to cut the Bulldogs’ lead to single digits going into the halftime locker room.
Before Tuesday night, Wagner had been 0-for-15 from 3-point range over his last seven games.
“He comes back, he can’t make a shot and no one understands why,” Calipari said. “He didn’t touch a basketball for two-and-a-half weeks. It’s going to take him some time. He’s still not all the way back. But he’s getting to where we’re all really confident with him in the game.”
Wagner finished with 10 points — snapping a skid of seven consecutive games in single digits, including a zero-point showing in the loss at LSU last week — plus four assists. He also had a key steal late in the game that led to a crucial dunk by Aaron Bradshaw to give the Cats a three-point lead, their largest of the night to that point.
“Last night, I saw the signs of D.J. Wagner,” Calipari said on his weekly radio show Wednesday. “Not all the way there yet, but I saw the signs of it.”
Kentucky has just three regular-season games left before the postseason begins. First, the SEC Tournament — a contest the Cats haven’t won since 2018 — and then the NCAA Tournament, where UK hasn’t advanced beyond the first weekend in five years.
Wagner’s continued progression will be a key for Kentucky once those games begin.
He’s had Calipari’s trust all season long. And Tuesday night was the latest example of that, as well as Wagner’s growth as one talented player on a team filled with them.
“There’ll be some that (say), ‘Why didn’t you call a timeout?’” Calipari said of that final play. “Because of what just happened. They can’t set up their defense. They had no timeouts. And you look at D.J. and say, ‘Make something happen.’ And the ball ends up in Reed’s hands, and he goes and makes it, and we win the game. …
“I said after the game to the team, ‘Isn’t it nice to have D.J. back?’”
Next game
Arkansas at No. 16 Kentucky
When: 1:30 p.m. Saturday
TV: CBS-27
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Arkansas 14-14 (5-10), Kentucky 20-8 (10-5)
Series: Kentucky leads 35-14
Last meeting: Kentucky won 63-57 on Jan. 27 in Fayetteville, Ark.
