Kentucky gets a lift from Wheeler at Vandy

That’s what Chin Coleman called it when he talked about the ball movement that Kentucky improved on with its win over Texas A&M last Saturday. The money side is where UK can get the best shots from on the floor.

Well, the UK assistant coach along with his colleagues on the UK bench must have been thrilled at what they saw Tuesday night.

Kentucky put on a clinic getting the basketball around the floor, making the extra pass for one easy basket after another, in a 69-53 win over Vanderbilt at venerable Memorial Gym.

It was Kentucky’s fourth straight win, and it was impressive and dominating enough that there were plenty of Go Big Blue chants going on from all the blue in the Vandy gym.

What was most impressive for Kentucky in the first half was its ball movement. Everybody looked to make the extra pass, notably the guys who were scoring.

Jacob Toppin scored on a jumper to give Kentucky a 2-0 lead, if you think about the recent starts for the Wildcats, this could’ve been construed as some kind of miracle.

It was a miracle of sorts for the Wildcats. They seem to be figuring out how to turn good shots into better shots in the halfcourt.

Kentucky saw five scorers reach double figures, led by Antonio Reeves with 16 points and Oscar Tshiebwe with a double-double of 15 points, 13 rebounds. Toppin had another double-double with 12 points, 10 rebounds. CJ Fredrick and Cason Wallace each scored 10 points, Fredrick had so much awareness he also passed for five assists.

Know who else had five assists? The guy who hasn’t been starting at point guard the last few games, Sahvir Wheeler.

Wheeler scored four points, but that wasn’t his job on this night.

“I’d talked for two days about we’ve got to rush the ball up the court,” UK coach John Calipari said. “I had to put Sahvir in, you’ve got one job, get this going, the game changed the minute he walked in. Then Cason saw it and he did it. Now all of a sudden the ball is whipping around.”

Once Kentucky got the pace where it wanted, it started whipping Vandy around and running the ball up and down the court.

“I kissed Sahvir, I said I’m about ready to cry, I know what he’s been through,” Calipari said. “I always go back to, if it were your son, how would you want him to be treated?”

Wheeler has been the focal point for criticism since the end of last season, and how he performed in the NCAA Tournament loss to Saint Peter’s.

During the preseason, one of the most interesting conversations about this UK team concentrated on whether Wallace would end up being the point guard over Wheeler.

When UK wanted to be a push, push, push team, Wheeler would be the guy with his foot on the accelerator. When pushing the tempo wasn’t effective as more games were played, and UK had trouble operating in the halfcourt, Wheeler got much of the blame.

Wheeler had an injured shoulder and missed the Tennessee game, then he played very little against Georgia or South Carolina. After that, it became apparent the lineup that worked best was with Wallace, Reeves and Fredrick on the floor together.

The concern then was how Wheeler would handle playing off the bench instead of starting.

What Wheeler said after this victory spoke volumes to his mindset going forward.

“That’s part of it, those guys who have been playing the last couple of games have been winning games, that’s the group that went and popped Tennessee,” Wheeler said. “The thing about Kentucky is you’re playing with some really good players, and sometimes that’s OK, you’ve got to learn to live with that, learn to grow from it and be mature about it. Today was just my opportunity to give us some energy, I did that.”

Fredrick was sitting next to Wheeler in postgame interviews and wanted to speak to Wheeler’s contributions as well.

“Sahvir was great tonight,” Fredrick added. “He comes in every single day with the leadership mentality. He’s been ready to go, and he was ready tonight and he’s gonna continue to do that. He’s our guy. He was the reason that we got up so big and in transition, he ignited what we needed today.”

With Wheeler performing well, and Kentucky looking better on the offensive end of the floor than it has all year, this seems a good time for UK to host No. 9 Kansas on Saturday. The Wildcats have a shrinking number of opportunities to get a big-time win to help their NCAA Tournament resume.

Now, finally, it appears Kentucky might be playing well enough to pull off that feat.