Kentucky trying to settle on guard roles

There has been a lot of opinions shared on social media that UK’s offense runs smoother with Wheeler working off the bench. Wheeler’s importance has been in pushing tempo and setting up scoring in transition. Wheeler can also be turnover prone, and his shooting has not been good overall.

Fredrick, Wallace, Reeves, Jacob Toppin and Oscar Tshiebwe seem to be a favorite lineup among BBN. That was UK’s best lineup statistically in the 63-56 win at No. 9 Tennessee, outscoring the Vols 30-15 in the 13:11 they were on the floor together.

That pattern continued in the win over Georgia. Fredrick, Wallace, Toppin, Reeves and Tshiebwe outscored Georgia 30-17 in the 11:47 they were on the floor together.

In the second half against Georgia, Wallace got in foul trouble early in the second half, but Wheeler struggled in the few minutes he was on the floor, and Wallace replaced him at point guard for the rest of the game. Wallace scored 17 points and made 7-of-11 shots from the floor.

“The game just dictated to me this is how you’ve got to play this,” UK coach John Calipari said of the more productive lineup. “It’s not brain surgery. We were all watching the same thing.”

Kentucky’s offense was particularly effective going through Oscar Tshiebwe in the second half when it eased out to an 85-71 win Tuesday night at Rupp Arena. Tshiebwe had a massive game with 37 points, 24 rebounds in pushing the Wildcats to that important victory.

Georgia coach Mike White got an up-close look at how effective UK’s offense could be with Tshiebwe going off.

“(Tshiebwe) just plays so hard and you don’t want those guys to complement his production with made threes,” White said. “With (Antonio) Reeves and (Cason) Wallace getting going, and CJ Frederick is an X-factor for those guys, so we just decided to go solo on (Tshiebwe) and obviously it wasn’t the right decision. We doubled him some more in the second half, got into some rotations and he continued to just go get it off the glass.”

Now, neither Reeves nor Wallace have been stellar shooting from distance in SEC play. Reeves is 8-for-27 on 3-pointers, Wallace is 9-for-31, and both of those figures are hovering at 29%. They have been finding ways to score.

“Space the floor, me and Fred (Fredrick), Cason, or Sahvir, we space the floor and try to find open shots for one another. That’s one of the things we’re trying to do,” Reeves said.

Wallace said he was comfortable running the point, but deferred to Wheeler, who had been the starter for UK except the last two games.

“I’m pretty comfortable at the 1 right now, but with Sahvir not playing that much, he’s helped me a lot,” Wallace said. “When he’s out on the court I feel like it’s more comfortable, he’s more smooth, he knows what he’s doing.”

Jacob Toppin was asked in a Thursday media session in Lexington how important was Wheeler for the team through the rest of the season. Toppin did a good job of defending Wheeler.

“Really important. I know a lot of people are talking bad about him, but this team is nothing without Sahvir,” Toppin said. “He does a lot for us, whether he’s starting, whether he’s coming off the bench. He brings a lot of energy to this team and he changes the pace of the game on the offensive end. He defends very well, even though he’s small, he fights he’s tough. All the negative comments about him could go out the window. We need him in order to do something special.”

Toppin said the criticism from media can get to a player’s confidence.

“It can take a toll on somebody’s mental and a lot of people don’t know what we go through behind the scenes,” Toppin said. “I just want to make it aware that’s he’s really important to this team. Without him this team wouldn’t be anything, so I just want everyone to know that.”