Kam Williams is back for Kentucky. What does it mean for UK’s postseason hopes?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- UK basketball sophomore Kam Williams returned for Wildcats in SEC Tournament win over LSU.
- Williams broke his left foot on Jan. 21 during Kentucky’s home win over Texas.
- After beating LSU, Kentucky will play 8 seed Missouri on Thursday in Nashville, Tennessee.
In Kam Williams’ mind, there was no doubt he was returning to play basketball for Kentucky this postseason.
Williams broke his left foot during Kentucky’s home win over Texas on Jan. 21, setting up a tight timeline for his potential comeback. Exactly seven weeks following that injury, Williams made his in-game return during 9 seed Kentucky’s 87-82 win over 16 seed LSU to open the SEC Tournament on Wednesday afternoon.
Williams played 17 minutes in the victory, tallying three points, two rebounds, an assist and a steal for Mark Pope’s team.
“I’m glad that I can basically — I’m not going to say play on one foot — but put my foot on the line for the sake of (Kentucky),” Williams said postgame from UK’s locker room. “I’m always ready to play.”
WIlliams’ return from injury was completed with 14:10 to play in the first half. That’s when he made his way to the Bridgestone Arena scorers’ table. The pro-UK crowd in attendance let Williams feel the love as he checked into the contest.
On his first offensive possession back, Williams nearly gave the crowd something more to shout about. After helping the Cats get a defensive stop on a missed 3-pointer by LSU, Williams flew down the court. He posted up in the left corner, a familiar spot for the celebrated 3-point shooter.
The ball found its way from junior forward Mo Dioubate at halfcourt to senior guard Otega Oweh on the wing and then into the hands of Williams, who was alone with plenty of space. An expectant roar filled Bridgestone as Kentucky backers implored Williams to let the ball fly.
Only he didn’t.
Williams reversed the ball back to Oweh on the wing. Kentucky still scored on that trip down the floor, with junior big Brandon Garrison connecting on a push shot for two of his 17 points. But Williams — considered one of the best 3-point shooters on this Kentucky squad — knew postgame he should have shot it.
Oweh knew in the moment.
“I didn’t want to shoot the first one. I had just checked in,” Williams said. “But (Oweh) got mad at me right after because I passed it up. He was like ‘Don’t ever pass it up again.’ I’ve got to listen to my leader.”
Williams didn’t have to wait long to make his first shot on his return, though. His lone basket of the game came at the midway mark of the first half. Williams punctuated a transition possession for the Cats by splashing in a triple from the left wing.
“It’s been a long time since we had him in the rotation. Going into the game, we talked about it a lot. We just felt like he was at a place where we could throw him out there,” Pope said. “... He has a unique ability to have a positive impact on the game.”
Kam Williams returns for UK basketball postseason run
Williams’ stat line Wednesday wasn’t the reason Kentucky won. He also wasn’t on the floor for UK’s second-half scoring burst, powered by Garrison, that decided the outcome.
But don’t mistake things. Williams’ return to Kentucky’s rotation means big things for these Cats.
In theory, Williams provides increased player depth for a UK squad that had rostered only nine healthy scholarship players for the 12 games before Wednesday’s contest.
In reality, nothing much changed on this front.
Pope still played only nine players against LSU. Oweh, senior guard Denzel Aberdeen and sophomore guard Collin Chandler all played more than 30 minutes. Freshman guard Jasper Johnson played less than three minutes. Sophomore forward Trent Noah didn’t play at all.
But the 6-foot-8 Williams offers on-court versatility. His reputation as a capable distance shooter allows UK to stretch the floor on offense. Prior to breaking his foot, Williams averaged 6.9 points per game while shooting 34.8% on 3-pointers, 44.9% from the field and 95.0% from the foul line. At the time he was injured, Williams had made 18 of his previous 38 3-pointers.
Defensively, Williams’ length is a plus.
“Just getting some extra minutes from another space is really important for us, especially when we’re going back-to-back to-back-to-back-to-back,” Pope said, acknowledging the five wins in five days UK would need to win the SEC Tournament. “It’s great to have him back. I’m very hopeful that his foot will respond well tomorrow. We’ll just see.”
Williams has less than 24 hours to recover before UK faces 8 seed Missouri in a second-round game. That one will start at 12:30 p.m. EDT Thursday.
It’s difficult to oversell what Williams’ return means to his teammates.
When it’s all laid out, what Williams did to get back on the floor this season is remarkable.
Williams underwent surgery for the injury Jan. 23. For the next week-and-a-half, Williams wore a boot on his left foot. At the two-and-a-half week mark, Williams began doing rubber-band exercises to restart movement in his left foot. He also used a blood flow restriction device on his left leg.
Williams was on an exercise bike at the three-week mark following the injury. Activity on the treadmill followed. In recent weeks, Williams began running and taking stationary shots. Pope said after Wednesday’s game Williams still hasn’t made it through an entire live practice following the injury.
“I was there from 9 a.m., left at 7 p.m., pretty much. Five days a week, sometimes six,” Williams said of the time he spent rehabbing. “Put in a lot of work because I told them I was coming back to play, right when it happened... I was working pretty hard to come back. I’ll do anything I can for us to win.”
Postgame, Williams’ teammates were emphatic about what his determination through the recovery process meant to them.
“Every time I walked in, he was doing a workout and the first thing (Williams) would say to me is ‘It’s all mental,’” freshman center Malachi Moreno said. “... That just shows his mentality and his resilience on trying to get back as quick as he could.”
“In practice he was trying to hop in drills and stuff, even though he wasn’t supposed to,” Garrison said. “Just having a teammate like that, that’s itching to get back. He could have shut down the year and thought like ‘I’ve got a couple more years.’ But that shows that he really wants to play for the teammates that’s in this locker room. That’s very special.”
“It could have been really easy for him to call it quits and to take a lot more time to recover and to take a longer time to ramp back up,” Chandler said. “But he wants to play, and that means the world to us. I think it’s inspiring for us.”
