Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s win at Arkansas in regular-season finale
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Game day: No. 23 Kentucky 88, Arkansas 79
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Arkansas in Fayetteville, Ark.
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Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s 88-79 win over the Arkansas Razorbacks at Bud Walton Arena on Saturday:
1. With this team, what you think is going to happen …
We shouldn’t be surprised. Not anymore. Lose at home to South Carolina, then beat Tennessee on the road. Win six of seven, then lose at Georgia. Whip Arkansas, then lose at home to Vanderbilt. With this edition of John Calipari’s Cats, what we think is going to happen rarely does.
Saturday, rinse and repeat. Here were the Cats inside a buzzing Bud Walton Arena, without point guard Cason Wallace (leg injury), without backup point guard Sahvir Wheeler (surgical procedure), with a banged-up CJ Fredrick, playing an Arkansas Razorbacks team ranked 16th in the NET and had beaten Kentucky 88-73 in Rupp Arena just last month.
The Cats got it done anyway. Antonio Reeves got it done, scoring an eye-popping 37 points. (More on him later.) Jacob Toppin got it done with 21 points. Oscar Tshiebwe got it done, scoring 12 points and grabbing 13 rebounds while trading sharp elbows with various Razorbacks until UK’s big man fouled out with 4:53 remaining. Short-handed, UK’s bench got it done with 24 minutes from Adou Thiero, 17 minutes fro Lance Ware and 15 from Fredrick, who started in place of Wallace and gutted out 15 minutes.
“We wouldn’t have won this game without CJ,” Calipari said afterward.
The morning after UK’s 68-66 Senior Night home loss to Vanderbilt, I was on Tom Leach’s radio show when the Voice of the Wildcats pointed out that for whatever reason this team seems to play better with its back against the wall. But I’m not sure even Tom thought what happened Saturday would happen. Story of the season.
2. Antonio Reeves ruled the day
First question to Calipari in the postgame press conference concerned Reeves’ performance. As his way, Calipari brushed off the query. He wants to talk about what he wants to talk about. And the Kentucky coach wanted to talk about Fredrick, who gave the Cats just enough minutes, while hurt, to help make up for the absence of Wallace.
“He was our Most Impactful Player,” Calipari said, referring to the award the team started this season, with a shiny belt going to the winner.
Later, as the presser was getting ready to close, Calipari started talking about the important three-pointers his team made. Four. He picked up the stat sheet to read the number. With a squint.
“I didn’t look at Antonio’s points,” said the coach, who was informed that Reeves had 37, three more than his previous collegiate high at Illinois State. “He had 37? He only had one turnover. That’s crazy. Wow, I didn’t know.”
Did Reeves know he was going to have that type of game when Kentucky needed him to have that type of game? No, he said. It did have a heart-to-heart with Toppin, the senior who implored to him that with Wallace missing the two scorers had to pick up their games.
After all, both struggled in the Wednesday loss to Vandy. Reeves was 4-for-17 from the floor, including 1-for-8 from beyond the three-point arc. Toppin scored just seven points, snapping a string of 12 straight double-figure games. He had also exchanged words with Calipari at the end of the first half, and unnecessarily blamed himself for the loss. He rebounded Saturday.
To say that Reeves rebounded would be a drastic under statement. Forced by circumstance to handle the ball more — finally, Calipari’s position-less basketball — Reeves created his own shots. Made those shots, plus his usual catch-and-shoot missives. By game’s end, the Chicago native had scored 15 points in the first half, 22 in the second. He ended up 12-for-17 from the floor, 2-for-4 from three and a perfect 11-for-11 from the foul line.
It was the second time this season that a UK player had scored 37 points. Tshiebwe scored 37 in the Cats’ victory over Georgia at Rupp. You have to flip the record book back to December 17, 2016, to find the last time a Wildcat scored more than 37 points. That was Malik Monk’s 47-point tour de force in UK’s wild 103-100 win over North Carolina in the CBS Sports Classic.
Another superlative: Reeves’ 37 points was the most ever by a single player against a college team coached by Eric Musselman.
Said a smiling Calipari, “Maybe we had co-impactful players.”
3. Finally, it’s time for the tournaments
I would say that this Kentucky team has some momentum heading into Friday night when the No. 3 seed Wildcats play their first game in the SEC Tournament. That begins Wednesday night and runs through Sunday afternoon.
But then I thought the Cats had momentum before the UCLA game on Dec. 17 in New York and lost. I thought UK had momentum before the Kansas game Jan. 28 and lost. I thought the Cats had momentum before last week’s loss to Vanderbilt.
What I do know is that Kentucky needs a healthy Cason Wallace to make a tournament run, be it in Nashville or points unknown when the NCAA Tournament starts. Saturday’s game was a gritty win by a team that overcame adversity. It was not something you’d want to make a habit of doing.
Will Wallace be available in the Music City? As usual with injuries, Calipari said he had no idea. He said last week that Wheeler would be out for (at least) two weeks. And the unlucky Fredrick appears to be a game-to-game, if not day-to-day situation.
To win the SEC Tournament, the Cats would need to win three games in three days. That’s a daunting scenario for a short-handed team. The timing of the NCAA Tournament gives you a bit more breathing room. Still, the best chance for Kentucky basketball to make March Madness noise to have its best players healthy and playing at their best. And we all know that Cason Wallace is one of Kentucky’s best players.
This story was originally published March 4, 2023 at 6:46 PM.
