Cold and flew: Collin Chandler fights off illness to lift Kentucky to another win
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Collin Chandler battled illness, played 32 minutes and delivered key scoring.
- Chandler posted a career-high 18 points, seven rebounds and pivotal defensive plays.
- Kentucky wins 85-80; Kam Williams broke his foot and several players remain sidelined.
For the umpteenth time since taking his seat in front of a group of reporters in the bowels of Rupp Arena on Wednesday night, Collin Chandler stopped talking, buried his face in his sleeve and started hacking.
And once that was finished, he offered up his umpteenth apology.
“Sorry, guys,” Chandler sincerely said to those gathered around him.
In normal circumstances, this clearly sick Kentucky Wildcat wouldn’t be doing interviews following a game. These were not normal circumstances.
After the performance Chandler put on — particularly in the second half — everyone wanted to talk to him. And between those hacks, he recounted what was perhaps his best college basketball game to this point in his career.
How did the two or three days leading up to it feel?
“Not the greatest,” Chandler said.
An 85-80 victory over Texas was enough to make him feel a whole lot better.
“Collin’s been sick — really sick — for the last couple days,” UK coach Mark Pope said. “Just gutted out practice, and then today, we just sent him home from shootaround. …
“That’s hard. Like, cold sweats in bed for three straight days and then get up and come compete in the game. And for him to come perform like he did, I thought he was elite. I thought he was aggressive. I thought he was sure. … Man, he put together a really incredible performance.”
Without him, the Wildcats might not have come out on top.
Chandler did indeed skip the team’s shootaround Wednesday, sent home to get whatever rest he could before the game. It hadn’t come easy in the days leading up to it. He couldn’t say how much he actually slept Tuesday night. Not much at all, from the sound of it.
He went through an abbreviated warmup before the game. He also got an IV before he hit the Rupp court. Once he was out there, he didn’t spend much time on the sidelines.
Chandler ended up playing 32 minutes against the Longhorns — topping his previous high in an SEC game by eight minutes — and was an integral part in Kentucky’s fourth consecutive win.
Denzel Aberdeen and Otega Oweh carried most of the scoring load in the first half, each of the senior guards scoring 10 points to help the Cats go into halftime with the game tied at 40. Still, Chandler had four points and four rebounds in 14 minutes during that opening period.
Before two minutes had ticked off the clock in the second half, disaster struck.
Kentucky starter Kam Williams came up lame while running down the court. Pope confirmed after the game that Williams had broken his foot on the play. He’ll join Jayden Quaintance (out the past four games with knee issues) and Jaland Lowe (out for the season with a shoulder injury) on the UK sidelines for the time being.
When Williams limped off the court, Pope called Chandler’s number. There was 18:11 on the clock. And Chandler never came out of the game from there.
“He’s an important player for Kentucky, because he comes in off the bench and he can really change the game from 3,” Texas coach Sean Miller said. “The closer and more you watch him — and obviously Mark knows him well — he can steal a basketball. He’s physical. He runs and jumps way, way better than maybe you give him credit for. I think he’s a really good player.”
He was at his very best in the second half Wednesday night.
Chandler hit a shot to give UK a 63-58 lead with 9:41 left. When Texas wing Dailyn Swain answered with a layup on the other end to make it a one-possession game again, Chandler answered right back with seven consecutive points of his own.
First, he drained a 3-pointer. Then he earned two free throws on a transition opportunity. He made them both. A short time later, he hit two more free throws. That put Kentucky ahead 70-60, the Wildcats’ first double-digit lead in a game that had been close all night long.
A little more than a minute later, Kentucky’s lead was back down to six points.
And Chandler struck again.
Miller took the blame for the first one. He called for a zone defense. “We’re not a zone team,” he pointed out, saying he wanted to give the Cats a different look in an attempt to take them out of their rhythm.
That zone didn’t account for Chandler, who was standing in the corner — closer to two Kentucky teammates and the entire UK cheerleading corps than anyone in a burnt orange jersey — calling for the ball with as much volume as his ailing lungs would allow.
Malachi Moreno, who led the Cats with six assists, got his teammate the ball.
“I think they had some sort of miscommunication where I was in the corner,” Chandler said. “And I was open there for a little bit. So I started screaming at Malachi, and he finally saw me, and when I got the ball, I still had a bunch of time to adjust and to stay comfortable.”
Chandler took his time and buried the shot to give Kentucky a 74-65 lead.
“We left him alone in the right corner,” Miller said. “And sure enough, you leave a guy like that alone — I thought that was a big play in the game, just to give them a bigger cushion. He’s good. I think he’s a real important player for Kentucky.”
He wasn’t quite finished.
On Texas’ ensuing possession, Chandler made a quick defensive move to blow up a pick-and-roll pass, tipping the steal to Aberdeen and tearing down the court. Aberdeen took one dribble and passed it ahead to Chandler, who gathered the ball in stride and soared in for a two-handed jam. He landed right in front of the UK student section, excitedly waving his arms to ask for more noise. Miller called a timeout. The Cats were ahead 76-65, their biggest lead of the night.
That dunk came with 5:48 left in the game. It was Kentucky’s final bucket of the night. Texas cut the Cats’ lead to as little as two down the stretch, but Aberdeen hit six free throws in the final 79 seconds to ice it, and UK left Rupp Arena with its fourth straight win and a 4-2 SEC record.
Chandler scored a career-high 18 points. He grabbed a career-high seven rebounds. Pope lauded him afterward for his defensive performance. And as he recounted everything that had happened over the previous two hours and change, Chandler said it was the best he’d felt in days.
He looked awful. He sounded worse. But he still had a smile on his face.
After all he’d been through, was he expecting to simply crash as soon as he got home? That thought drew a chuckle.
“Yes, that’d be great,” Chandler said. “That’d be great. Get some more rest.”
