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Cason Wallace Is The Key To The Final Four?

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Jun 24, 2015
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By: Kyle Tucker/The Athletic

Cason's High School Coach - Lawson:

Ask anyone who has ever coached Wallace whether Kentucky ought to now effectively give him the ball and get out of the way, and they’ll all couch their response in the usual well, I’m a little biased way. But none can contain their opinion: Yes, the Wildcats should. That doesn’t necessarily mean demoting senior point guard Sahvir Wheeler, who is well on his way to leading the SEC in assists for a third straight season. It just means that when Kentucky badly needs a bucket, Wallace is probably that guy. It means that, for a team that has looked offensively challenged at times against top competition and is still struggling to define its identity, John Calipari could do a lot worse than handing Wallace the keys and letting him dictate who these Cats become.

Yes, Oscar Tshiebwe is the reigning national player of the year, a reliable double-double machine inside, but it’s no secret that guard play wins in March. See the 30-point, 16-rebound Tshiebwe performance in a first-round loss to Saint Peter’s last season. Kentucky’s leading man needs a co-star on the perimeter, and Wallace offers the best hope of giving him one.

“Every time that he’s aggressive and making plays, they’re better,” Lawson says. “You kind of know what you’re going to get with Oscar. You kind of know that your shooters are a little hit-or-miss, not as consistent as you’d like. But Cason is the guy who can take it to the next level, and he’s got even more than what we’ve seen. I think he’s really been trying to feel it out on offense while he’s killing it on defense and making a name for himself that way, but there’s so much more he can give them. If they ask him to, he can average 20 a game. So yeah, I think Kentucky’s ceiling is Cason.”

In his first college game, Wallace filled in for an injured Wheeler and flirted with a triple-double: 15 points, nine assists, eight rebounds. In his first high-level college game, against Michigan State in the Champions Classic, he tied a school record for steals (eight) to go with 14 points, five rebounds and five assists. He had 14 points on just nine shots and swiped four more steals at Gonzaga.

Can Cason Wallace lead Kentucky’s way forward? - The Athletic
 
Kyle tucker sucks. His take is horrendous. The ball needs to be in Wallace hand all the time so we are in less positions to need him with it down the stretch. This guy just needs to say it. Wheeler needs to be benched. He has zero self control. He’s gonna continue to wheeler. As long as he’s on the floor wheeler is gonna make it about wheeler it’s gonna be ugly and makes it difficult to win.

Wtf is wrong with Tucker? He says Wallace is the guy but wants a tiny guy who can’t shoot on the floor with him. It’s speaking out both sides of his mouth worse than cal honestly. You just can’t have it both ways here. You can’t all the sudden in a game let Wheeler do the work and expect Wallace to be ready in the last couple minutes. He needs to be running it all the time. That’s called consistency. Which is why we look terrible right now.

Who cares about assist totals if it comes with a ton of errors and erratic play. There is a flow to a game and if you think putting the ball on someone else’s hands late is going to fix things well it won’t. Wheeler has something on someone idk if it’s cal or who but cal and his media lackey are afraid of telling it how it is that wheeler needs to ride the pine. Wheeler will always revert to his dna. Saying the guy is a liability in the last few minutes and Wallace is the guy what is going on here it’s senseless. You’d think if that’s a realization then the other 37 min or so would be just as important. It’s one dumb take after another with these bozos.
Are they afraid to crush wheeler? Assists turnovers, playing faster than his team , bogging us down in the half court. Get that off the floor. Man Tucker is a moron.
 
75% Wallace and 25% wheeler is what you need to be doing. Wallace and Wheeler should only be in the game together 33% of the time.
Or less! It’s infuriating that Tucker spouts this garbage. He shouldn’t be analyzing uk basketball strategies just reporting. If he covered every team fine but he doesn’t. Just report kyle and shut your trap on your opinions. Or come on here and defend your trash the way decourcey did
 
“Yes, the Wildcats should. That doesn’t necessarily mean demoting senior point guard Sahvir Wheeler, who is well on his way to leading the SEC in assists for a third straight season. It just means that when Kentucky badly needs a bucket, Wallace is probably that guy. It means that, for a team that has looked offensively challenged at times against top competition and is still struggling to define its identity, John Calipari could do a lot worse than handing Wallace the keys and letting him dictate who these Cats become.”

Yea it does Kyle. Yes it does. You can’t play both at pg. why look offensively challenged with wheeler Kyle? What’s the point? Good grief this guy irritates me more than cal. “ hand Wallace the keys” “doesn’t mean demote wheeler”. Wth does it mean then guy? Kentucky needs consistency not droughts where you have to go find Wallace to end it. Go back to the Howard game. Not one drought the most complete game of the season.

And btw on this stupid wheeler leads the sec in assists” stat. Wheeler has won zero ncaa T games. That’s the only stat that matters. Oh and Wallace at pg he may lead the league in assists and steals probably top 10 in scoring with less turnovers. I’m done I feel like it’s crazy town in Lexington right now. Wheeler know how to play one way. He isn’t gonna change it. What is going on here?
 
“In his first college game, Wallace filled in for an injured Wheeler and flirted with a triple-double: 15 points, nine assists, eight rebounds. In his first high-level college game, against Michigan State in the Champions Classic, he tied a school record for steals (eight) to go with 14 points, five rebounds and five assists. He had 14 points on just nine shots and swiped four more steals at Gonzaga.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean demoting senior point guard Sahvir Wheeler,”


Come on kyle Tucker come here and defend this drivel.
 
No matter what you think or feel about this year's team there is more than one key to making it all the way to the final four and beyond. Without all the keys it's not going to happen.
 
Meh, Oscar is still the key. Without him, we don't beat anybody with a pulse.

We’re just way better when Wallace is on the court with him. You can't not guard Wallace at any point during the game. It's just that simple.
 
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Meh, Oscar is still the key. Without him, we don't beat anybody with a pulse.

We’re just way better when Wallace is on the court with him. You can't not guard Wallace at any point during the game. It's just that simple.
I WISH Oscar was the key instead of Calipari. Maybe he is . But then Calipari would be the “key holder” . And lately the dude has been misplacing his keys often .
 
I WISH Oscar was the key instead of Calipari. Maybe he is . But then Calipari would be the “key holder” . And lately the dude has been misplacing his keys often .
I don't have enough faith in Calipari to list him here. The team is going to have to overcome Cal's mission to erase everything that was built prior to his arrival.

So far, AD/MKG are the only ones to do it and they nearly didn't.
 
Cason needs to tighten his handle up before he gets the keys. He had turnovers late in the MSU and Michigan games that kept them in the games. I know Wheeler did the same thing but Cason has to take the point position away from Wheeler whether we like it or not. Once he does that and starts making his fts the sky is the limit. He's my kind of player.
 
Wallace is better than Wheeler. Everyone knows this.

However I am getting tired of people saying that means the ball needs to be out of Wheeler's hands and into Wallace's. Wheeler assisted on most of Cason's points against Michigan, including the dagger 3.

They both need to be on the floor and with 5 seconds left on the shot clock I would rather have an ISO for Cason than for Wheeler, but I feel like Wheeler is getting a ton of hate after Sunday and I'm not sure why because he is one of the main reasons we were able to win.
 
Wallace might be the key to not losing 10 regular season games this season, but it defines the delusion of this fan base to think the one thing keeping us from a final four appearance is just one player. I like Wallace a lot and find it infuriating watching Wheeler single handedly lose games sometimes. But the gap between where our team is now and becoming a final four team in March is made up of an anemic offense, missed free throws, perceivably zero in-game coaching, and a general lack of discipline across the board. There are probably only a handful of teams in the country that can say that their only Achilles heel is getting one player more involved, and Kentucky ain’t one of ‘em. Our basketball team has zero identity and have more things left to figure out than they have actually figured out.
 
For us to reach our ceiling, Wallace must be the main PG on this team. Wheeler is just way too erratic, puts up wild shots, terrible shot selection, drives into the paint with nowhere to go, etc. Wheeler is a good piece to have, but he’s just not a championship caliber PG. He just isn’t.
 
Wallace coming on and shouldering the O much in the way of SGA by the end of the year should happen.
 
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Kyle tucker sucks. His take is horrendous. The ball needs to be in Wallace hand all the time so we are in less positions to need him with it down the stretch. This guy just needs to say it. Wheeler needs to be benched. He has zero self control. He’s gonna continue to wheeler. As long as he’s on the floor wheeler is gonna make it about wheeler it’s gonna be ugly and makes it difficult to win.

Wtf is wrong with Tucker? He says Wallace is the guy but wants a tiny guy who can’t shoot on the floor with him. It’s speaking out both sides of his mouth worse than cal honestly. You just can’t have it both ways here. You can’t all the sudden in a game let Wheeler do the work and expect Wallace to be ready in the last couple minutes. He needs to be running it all the time. That’s called consistency. Which is why we look terrible right now.

Who cares about assist totals if it comes with a ton of errors and erratic play. There is a flow to a game and if you think putting the ball on someone else’s hands late is going to fix things well it won’t. Wheeler has something on someone idk if it’s cal or who but cal and his media lackey are afraid of telling it how it is that wheeler needs to ride the pine. Wheeler will always revert to his dna. Saying the guy is a liability in the last few minutes and Wallace is the guy what is going on here it’s senseless. You’d think if that’s a realization then the other 37 min or so would be just as important. It’s one dumb take after another with these bozos.
Are they afraid to crush wheeler? Assists turnovers, playing faster than his team , bogging us down in the half court. Get that off the floor. Man Tucker is a moron.
Heres the deal. No question Wallace is a stud that plays way beyond his years with maturity, toughness and smarts. He plays hard but under control, fast but not hyper which is the key to him being effective and efficient. Just watch him finish around the rim and it shows all of that. He drives hard but on his shots he always gathers himself and hesitates to find the rim before the release and thats why he finishes shots. Others play hyper and release the shot on the way up or out of a spin just looking for a fous before their eyes find the rim.

I'm not a Wheeler downer though and think that the reason he struggles is Cals offense plays against his strengths. If we played with more spacing and used the dribble drive to start our offense he would look much different. Just look back at how we and he looked mid season last year. He ignited our offense with the push. Now we're back the clogged middle offensive sets and he tries to be himself but it results in a lot of out of control forced stuff because there's no space for him to do what he's good at.
 
Wallace is better than Wheeler. Everyone knows this.

However I am getting tired of people saying that means the ball needs to be out of Wheeler's hands and into Wallace's. Wheeler assisted on most of Cason's points against Michigan, including the dagger 3.

They both need to be on the floor and with 5 seconds left on the shot clock I would rather have an ISO for Cason than for Wheeler, but I feel like Wheeler is getting a ton of hate after Sunday and I'm not sure why because he is one of the main reasons we were able to win.
He’s getting a ton of hate because he’s also one of the main reasons we easily could have lost the game.
 
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Heres the deal. No question Wallace is a stud that plays way beyond his years with maturity, toughness and smarts. He plays hard but under control, fast but not hyper which is the key to him being effective and efficient. Just watch him finish around the rim and it shows all of that. He drives hard but on his shots he always gathers himself and hesitates to find the rim before the release and thats why he finishes shots. Others play hyper and release the shot on the way up or out of a spin just looking for a fous before their eyes find the rim.

I'm not a Wheeler downer though and think that the reason he struggles is Cals offense plays against his strengths. If we played with more spacing and used the dribble drive to start our offense he would look much different. Just look back at how we and he looked mid season last year. He ignited our offense with the push. Now we're back the clogged middle offensive sets and he tries to be himself but it results in a lot of out of control forced stuff because there's no space for him to do what he's good at.
The only offense that works with wheeler is one that on defense is high press turnover fer out in transition. Once hes in the halfcourt hes half a player. He’s easy to beat, will get postes up, cant shoot to bust a zone, keeps the ball in his hands. He doesnt pass and move. Once the ball is out of his hands he’s no threat. Go watch any game with Wallace at pg. as soon as he gets in the halfcourt the ball is outta his hands and he moves until it comes back to him. Wheeler brings it up and will sometimes dribble out the clock then decide to take it himself. I implore everyone to watch that Howard game and then compare that game with any other outside SCstate. Watch the movement of the ball and flow of the offense. I agree cal cant coach an offense but Wallace knows how to if cal would just roll out the balls
 
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He’s getting a ton of hate because he’s also one of the main reasons we easily could have lost the game.

I've rewatched the game and I just don't understand why people are saying this based on Sunday's game. Yes Wheeler took a bad shot early on a possession and airballed, yes he missed 2 front ends of a 1 and 1, but other than that I didn't see any negative plays down the stretch.

He had to take a couple of last second shots because of the shot clock, which wasn't his fault, and he actually made a couple.

I do remember Cason missing 2 free throws at the end of the game and having his pocket picked for an easy layup when we were up 8 and about to put the game away. That one play by Cason did way more for us potentially losing than anything Wheeler did.
 
I've rewatched the game and I just don't understand why people are saying this based on Sunday's game. Yes Wheeler took a bad shot early on a possession and airballed, yes he missed 2 front ends of a 1 and 1, but other than that I didn't see any negative plays down the stretch.

He had to take a couple of last second shots because of the shot clock, which wasn't his fault, and he actually made a couple.

I do remember Cason missing 2 free throws at the end of the game and having his pocket picked for an easy layup when we were up 8 and about to put the game away. That one play by Cason did way more for us potentially losing than anything Wheeler did.
Wheeler also missed both Free Throws in a two shot scenario. Our entire team HAS to hit free throws. We have no room for failure in that area.
 
Right or wrong, good or bad... I suspect the OP is correct.

I think Livingston will/could factor in as well.

Their ceilings are the team's ceiling.
 
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