Briscoe's Hard Work Yielding 3-Point Results

With his free-throw shooting now stabilized and solid, there’s just one bugaboo left to plague Isaiah Briscoe: his 3-point shot.

Naturally, he’s asked about it frequently. Most recently, he was quizzed about it in the lead-up to Kentucky’s Southeastern Conference opener last week.

He professed confidence in himself.

“It’ll get there,” Briscoe said last Wednesday. “I’m sure it’ll get there.”

It turns out there was something much more than Briscoe’s typical self-assuredness behind those words. Briscoe, you see, has been doing everything in his power to make it happen.

“He’s in the gym working,” John Calipari said. “He got away from it for a while, and his shooting went south. Now, he’s in there after every practice. He stays after at the shoot-around.”

All that extra time is why Briscoe was so certain his outside shot would come around. He couldn’t promise immediate results, but they sure have come. Since he said his 3-point shooting would come around, Briscoe is 4 of 4 from beyond the arc.

In a dominant 100-58 win for No. 6/6 UK (12-2, 2-0 SEC) over Texas A&M (8-5, 0-2 SEC), Briscoe buried all three of his 3-point tries en route to a 13-point, seven-assist performance.

“I’ve just been working on my jump shot, period,” Briscoe said. “Like I said, I knew how hard I worked. I was due for a good shooting game and today was one of them. I hope I got some more.”

Opponents surely don’t.

Surrounded by Malik Monk and De’Aaron Fox – who combined for 41 points Tuesday night – Briscoe is supposed to be the glue that holds UK’s backcourt together, not a dynamic outside scoring threat. When he is, it makes for a nightmare scenario like the one the Aggies faced.

“When he is making shots, that’s what we game-planned to live with,” A&M head coach Billy Kennedy said. “When he’s doing that, they can win it all. I know Coach Cal doesn’t want to hear that, but when he’s a weapon offensively like he was today, I don’t know how you defend it.”

Nonetheless, opponents aren’t likely to change their game plans and start guarding Briscoe on the perimeter the way they do Monk. Nor are people likely to stop saying a player who hit 5-of-37 3s last year can’t shoot even though he’s made six of his last seven 3-point tries and is now shooting 9 of 22 (40.9 percent) for the season.

That doesn’t bother him one bit.

“It’s all good,” Briscoe said. “It’s all good. I’m doing what I gotta do. I’m doing what I gotta do for my team to win. Whether people say it, that doesn’t really bother me. It never did. They can say what they want. I’m just out here trying to help my team win.”

That attitude is what makes Briscoe such an indispensable part of this Kentucky team.

“He’s one of those kids you want to have on your team because he plays on both ends of the floor,” Kennedy said.

And if that hard work on his shooting continues to pay off, look out.