Calipari says he knows how Jacob Toppin can become a ‘special’ player. Will it happen?

A better Jacob Toppin would be a more assertive one.

That thought isn’t a new one to anyone around the Kentucky basketball program, least of all Toppin himself.

The senior forward has heard it from all angles. UK’s assistant coaches spent the offseason and preseason talking about it. His Wildcats’ teammates are more indirect — knowing, from a player’s perspective, that such transitions are always easier said than done — but they’ll acknowledge it when asked. Toppin has heard it — over and over and over again — from John Calipari. And, it’s worth making clear, Toppin knows his coach is correct.

Kentucky’s victory over Bellarmine late last month — that 60-41 slog in Rupp Arena — was perhaps the best illustration of this tale of two Toppins.

In the first half of that one, Toppin was in and out of the game and 0-for-4 from the field in the first half, often settling for shots that didn’t take much heavy lifting to find. In the second half, he was 4-for-5 from the floor and 4-for-4 from the free-throw line, with every one of his makes coming at the basket as he employed a more gritty style to cut through the Bellarmine defense.

Afterward, Calipari basically called those final 20 minutes a template for transcendent success.

Toppin is already a good player, his coach said. Playing like that is how he becomes a great one.

“It takes a grit to want to go in there and know you’re going to get bumped and pushed,” Calipari said. “And that’s where the only way you can get comfortable doing it is doing it. He’s got to just go in there, and there’s going to be some car crashes. … But the grit is between him being special. You want to be special? Be that guy.”

A few minutes later, those comments were relayed to Toppin, who briefly looked down and away, a smirk forming on his face as he listened to basically the same question for the umpteenth time.

Is he sick of hearing it?

“No,” Toppin quickly replied, re-establishing eye contact with a tone that said he’s taking this stuff seriously. “He’s absolutely right. That’s what’s gonna make me a special player. And I thank him for that, because he’s not letting me off the hook. He’s always going to be on my behind about it. And I’m starting to get it. I’m starting to take the contact. I’m starting to play gritty. And, once I get used to it, once I adapt to it, I’ll be a lot better.”

Again, this is a lot easier said than done.

Toppin, who turned 22 years old this past offseason, has always been more of a finesse player on the court and a fun-loving character within and away from the sport of basketball. Now in his third year at Kentucky, there’s a level of maturity around Toppin that wasn’t there when he arrived in Lexington. He’s the first to admit that. And it took time to get to that point. As he’s grown, so has his game — from fringe role player to starting power forward on a team with lofty expectations.

So far this season, his stats — 11.9 points, 6.7 rebounds, 28.4 minutes per game — are up dramatically, across all those categories and others. But there’s still something missing. Anyone who’s watched him play over that time knows there’s still more — perhaps a lot more — to his game. There have been flashes of it, but he’s never quite been able to sustain that “specialness” that Calipari talks about.

Toppin’s next step

For Toppin to fully unlock that potential, Calipari has made clear, he needs to be that gritty player every time he steps on the court. Not just for spurts here and there.

A good chunk of Kentucky’s preseason was spent talking about how this would be the breakout season for Toppin, who spent basically all summer in the gym, a work ethic that was applauded by his coaches and teammates and was shown off on the Cats’ August exhibition trip to the Bahamas.

During those four games, Toppin was arguably Kentucky’s best player. (And his teammate, Oscar Tshiebwe, the sport’s actual reigning national player of the year, said Toppin had been the most impressive Cat in the practices leading up to that trip).

The competition was subpar, but the results were impressive enough to realistically think Toppin could be an all-league-type player this season, perhaps a highly projected NBA Draft pick.

Toppin has been good. Just not great. And on a team still searching for a consistent source of offense behind Tshiebwe, his play has been frustratingly inconsistent.

In those Bahamas games, Toppin was 8-for-15 from three-point range, a skill that looked like it could be a key component to Kentucky’s offense once the real games began. Through nine games this season, he’s 3-for-18 from deep, and he’s missed 13 of his last 14 attempts.

His struggles there have been so glaring that opposing teams are apparently incorporating it into their game plans. Asked how Yale was able to limit UK in the halfcourt offense Saturday — before Tshiebwe finally busted open the Bulldogs’ defense in the second half— Coach James Jones explained that doubling off Toppin was part of the plan. “The ‘4’ man is not really a great shooter,” he said, adding that by sending his defender toward Tshiebwe, the Bulldogs were basically banking that Toppin wouldn’t hurt them too badly.

Toppin did have four assists Saturday — three in the second half, all on post feeds to Tshiebwe — and that delighted Calipari, but he finished with just four points on six shots. Three of his four misses were jumpers. And he never made it to the free-throw line.

“Again, we need Jacob to elevate his game, be more physical, go after more balls,” Calipari said. “If you jump 40 inches, how about — every once in a while — jump 40 inches! Like, go for a ball, jump 40 inches, go get it. How about go block a ball?”

Calipari is not going to let up on this. If he does, it’s a problem. As long as he stays on Toppin’s back, it shows he hasn’t given up on the veteran player taking that next step in his game. And it’s clear by this point that Calipari still thinks Toppin has a bright basketball future beyond his time at Kentucky.

Three days after that Bellarmine game, the Wildcats were practicing in London in preparation for a meeting with Michigan later that weekend. At one point of the UK scrimmage, Toppin took the ball from the perimeter and barreled into bodies in the paint, initiating contact with a couple of bigger teammates on the way to the basket and putting up a shot without backing down or fading away. That shot didn’t fall, but there was enough contact to call a foul in a normal game, and play was stopped.

“Big-time. Big-time!” Calipari yelled. “I love it!”

Toppin didn’t smile or even look particularly pleased with himself. He just kept his head down and got back to work once the ball was back in play.

He knows as well as anyone what he needs to do to take that next, special step in his college basketball career. At this point, he’s the only one who can unlock his own potential.

“It’s always tough to change, but I’m always willing to change — to be better. In any aspect of life.”