SGA Bests UGA: UK Turns to Gilgeous-Alexander Again
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had played the best game of his college career 48 hours prior. He’s a true freshman, so it wouldn’t have been a surprise for him to take a step back the next time out.
Instead, he stepped up.
“He’s competing, he’s coming out there with a different mindset and he’s really helping our team,” Hamidou Diallo said. “He’s been the best player on the floor the last two games and he’s really been helping us.”
Kentucky was floundering in its Southeastern Conference opener, with talk of a post-Louisville hangover running rampant on social media. Somehow, the Wildcats stayed within a point of visiting Georgia at halftime, but the visiting Bulldogs extended their lead to eight points early in the second half.
Enter Gilgeous-Alexander, the big point guard who had sparked a blowout win over the Cardinals on Friday with 24 points. A little more than two days later, he came off the bench and saved No. 16/15 Kentucky (11-2, 1-0 SEC) in a nail-biting 66-61 victory over Georgia (9-3, 0-1 SEC).
“I think it was a really good win for us,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We fought through adversity, obviously, in the first half and I think we showed a lot of guts for a team mostly with freshmen. I think it was a good learning experience to go back and watch film and stuff and really build on this win.”
Gilgeous-Alexander scored six points to key a 13-4 run that erased Georgia’s lead, plus another eight points the rest of the way as UK survived. For the game, Gilgeous-Alexander scored 21 points and added five rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks.
“Shai’s one of our best playmakers,” Wenyen Gabriel said. “So, he goes in the game, he can get into the lane, he can pass the ball out there, he’s great at making free throws. We’re very comfortable with the ball in Shai’s hands. He’s crafty so when he has the ball at the end we can just play off of him.”
With UK shooting a season-low 31.5 percent for the game and a staggering 20.7 percent in the first half, the Cats were desperate for any kind of offense. Gilgeous-Alexander obliged, in spite of missing four of his first five tries from the field. He did so by attacking with the dribble and drawing foul after foul. He made 12 of his 13 free-throw attempts, totals that marked highs for any UK player this season.
“He’s got good size,” Georgia head coach Mark Fox said. “He’s able to sustain his dribble and draw fouls. We lost the game by five. We lost the free-throw line by 14 and he made a bunch of them. He’s good and he sustains his dribble and put himself in position to draw fouls.”
Then, when it came time to hit the dagger, he did. Gilgeous-Alexander calmly drilled a 3-pointer with 4:39 left to give UK a lead the Cats would never relinquish.
“He’s started to understand his role on the team more and his value on the court,” Gabriel said. “I think he’s one of our best players right now. So when he goes out on the court he plays his heart out. The things he does at practice, he just sees the opportunities in the game for him to do those things. He’s just playing great right now. He’s on a roll. We just have to help him keep that up.”
Gilgeous-Alexander lacked the five-star rankings of many of his point-guard predecessors under Calipari, but the 6-foot-6 Hamilton, Ontario, native is starting to play an awful lot like them.
“Bigger guards just — they create havoc for you,” Calipari said. “They can score on your bigs, they can — and like I said after, he’s our best player. And I said the greatest thing about him, he’s coming off the bench and not saying anything. Doesn’t worry about his shots or anything, he’s just playing. Smiles the whole game.”
With praise rolling in from his coach and teammates as UK’s best player at the moment, Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t paying it much mind.
“I don’t really worry about it too much, honestly,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I know Coach is a good coach and he’s going to put all of us in the position to be successful as a group and as individuals, so I’m not too worried.”
That’s spoken like the player who smiles his way through pretty much everything, according to Calipari’s description.
“Personally, I just know that I’m blessed amongst a lot of people in the world,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I’m just thankful for the opportunity, so I have no reason to worry about what everyone’s saying on the outside or the expectations for me. I just want to play basketball and do the thing that I love.”
