Andrew Carr has returned to form after a back injury. What does it mean for UK basketball?
With the end of the regular season now in sight, Kentucky basketball can’t afford to throw the baby out with the bathwater while navigating the toughest conference in college basketball with a makeshift lineup.
Saturday night’s game could prove to be a most prominent example of this.
Yes, UK dropped to 18-9 overall and a disappointing 7-7 in SEC play with a 13-point loss at Alabama, a defeat that gave the Crimson Tide the season sweep over the Wildcats.
But while plenty of questions remain about the health of Mark Pope’s first Kentucky squad — as well as the Cats’ outlook on the defensive side of the ball given these injuries — a clear, prominent positive emerged for UK during the ultimately unsuccessful trip to Tuscaloosa.
Andrew Carr is back for Kentucky, and in a big way.
The fifth-year power forward seems to have shed the ill effects from a nagging back injury that bothered Carr for most of the last seven weeks. Carr was back to his old self against Alabama, scoring 17 points on 6-for-9 shooting from the field while grabbing six rebounds and recording two assists and steals each.
A quick scroll through Carr’s performances in conference play for Kentucky reveal that Saturday’s outing was likely his best against SEC opposition this season.
Against Alabama, the 6-foot-11 Carr:
▪ Scored his most points (17) since the Dec. 7 overtime win over Gonzaga.
▪ Grabbed his most rebounds (six) since the Jan. 11 road win at Mississippi State.
▪ Made his most shots from the field (six) since the Jan. 14 home win over Texas A&M and his most 3-pointers (three) as a UK player.
Combine all of this with the fact Carr showed glimpses of his best basketball with an 11-point performance in Wednesday’s home win against Vanderbilt, and it appears that Carr’s offensive revival could be here to stay.
“He’s been working so hard to find his way back. I thought he was brilliant. He really did look like his old physical, attacking self,” Pope said of Carr following Wednesday’s win over Vandy.
Carr’s return to form has coincided with a return to Kentucky’s starting lineup. Carr’s back injury — which first revealed itself during UK’s final nonconference game against Brown on Dec. 31 — led to a significant reduction in playing time.
During his previous four college seasons (two each at Delaware and Wake Forest) Carr played in 117 of a possible 118 games, and in all of his college contests against Division I opponents. That stretch came to an end — after Carr had played in 135 consecutive games against Division I schools — when he missed Kentucky’s Jan. 25 road loss at Vanderbilt.
That came after UK lost to Alabama on Jan. 18 at Rupp Arena, a game that particularly resonated with Carr because of how much his back troubled him in that contest.
While that Jan. 25 game at Vanderbilt remains the only game Carr has missed this season, Pope moved him out of the starting lineup when he returned for UK’s Jan. 28 road win at Tennessee. Carr played less than 90 seconds in that game.
Including that Tennessee contest, Carr came off the bench for UK in six straight games. During that span — and excluding the Tennessee game in which he barely played — Carr averaged 6.0 points and 2.8 rebounds in 17.4 minutes while shooting 45% from the field during a five-game stretch coming off the bench.
Carr said last week there was a minutes restriction in place for him as he recovered from his back injury.
Then came Wednesday night, when Carr was shifted back into the starting lineup (replacing senior Ansley Almonor, who drew praise from Pope for his handling of the situation) and revved up his offensive engine again. Carr had 11 points on 5-for-8 shooting from the field against the Commodores, which proved to be a prelude to Carr’s performance against the Crimson Tide.
Over the last two games as a starter again, Carr is averaging 14.0 points and 4.0 rebounds in 25.0 minutes while shooting 64.7% from the field. The 29 minutes Carr logged against Alabama on Saturday marked his most time on the court in a game since UK’s SEC opener against Florida on Jan. 4.
Obviously, a return to health was paramount to allow for this from Carr. Pope said Carr hadn’t been able to participate fully in practice on consecutive days until Monday and Tuesday of last week.
But returning to the best version of himself was something easier said than done.
Specifically, Carr spoke last week, prior to the Vanderbilt game, about the process of being aggressive enough on the offensive end of the court, and how that doesn’t always directly translate to box score stats.
“For me, it’s really cool to be able to just pick out specific parts (of a game). That really helps me see, within the flow of the game, ‘OK, at this time you could be more aggressive by ducking in here or trying to be more aggressive driving here,’” Carr said last week. “… That’s pretty much the game plan (against UK). Most of the teams have been trying to be super aggressive, really physical. It’s a testament to Amari (Williams) and BG (Brandon Garrison), how well they’re passing the ball … We’re really just trying to focus on all the things that we’ve talked about: cutting for fouls, cutting through people grabbing and holding us and if we’re able to do that, we’ll have some success.”
UK basketball needs Andrew Carr to be at his best as season nears end
It bears repeating that if there was any point in the season in which Kentucky needed Carr to rediscover himself on the floor, now is the time.
The shorthanded Wildcats are down to just nine available scholarship players, with fifth-year guards Lamont Butler, Kerr Kriisa and Jaxson Robinson having all missed the last three games. This has led to a sharp uptick in both playing time and responsibility for each of UK’s three freshmen, guards Collin Chandler and Travis Perry and forward Trent Noah.
As such, it’s been left to the elder statesmen of this Kentucky team — players like Carr, fifth-year center Amari Williams and fifth-year wing Koby Brea — to pick up the slack.
How much longer Kentucky can withstand these absences remains to be seen. But Carr’s play of late has done plenty to give Kentucky a fighting chance, even with the Wildcats far from being at full strength.
Case in point: Kentucky trailed Alabama by seven points at halftime on Saturday night, and despite this, Carr had a plus-14 rating at the break. In a game that UK lost by 13, Carr was a plus-11, the best mark of any UK player and one of only two Wildcats (Chandler was a plus-7) with a plus-rating for the contest.
“I’m super proud of our guys. You know, they’re competing, playing hard. Andrew and Koby specifically, I thought, competed at a really high level tonight,” Pope said Saturday after the Alabama game. “They were carrying a huge burden. That’s what they do.”
