Jacob Toppin stars against Louisville. ‘And now he’s gonna do it against better teams.’

Whether the overall result of Kentucky’s latest game — an 86-63 victory over archrival Louisville on Saturday afternoon — matters much in the grand scheme of things remains to be seen.

The Cardinals are arguably the worst high-major team in college basketball, and just because the Cats were able to manhandle them in Rupp Arena doesn’t mean they’ll be able to do the same against better competition as the year progresses.

What this game might bring, however, is the turnaround of Jacob Toppin’s season.

Toppin came into this 2022-23 campaign with high hopes for himself and his team. There was plenty of preseason talk of a breakout campaign for the senior forward — now in his third year at Kentucky, his fourth in college — as well as a possible ninth national title for the Wildcats.

Up until Saturday, neither plan was panning out.

The No. 19-ranked Cats came into Rupp reeling from an embarrassing 14-point loss at Missouri, bringing an 8-4 record with no marquee victories and three double-digit defeats, perhaps just days away from slipping out of the Associated Press Top 25 altogether after starting the season ranked No. 4 nationally.

Toppin’s own season had gone much the same way. He’d had some good moments — a couple of double-doubles against lesser competition, some fine stat lines against quality teams — but his overall play was a far cry from the preseason expectations.

And the worst moments were the freshest in his memory.

The 6-foot-9 forward from Brooklyn had scored just 13 total points over UK’s previous four games, his playing time decreasing with each subsequent outing. In the middle of that run, he’d lost his starting spot, with John Calipari putting Lance Ware in Toppin’s place after an especially poor showing in a loss to UCLA.

Three days before Toppin took the court against Louisville came the low point: 13 scoreless minutes off the bench at Missouri.

Before that game, Calipari called Toppin into his hotel room.

“I hugged him and I said, ‘Do you know how much I love you and how much I want you to do well? But I can’t do this for you, and you’ve gotta get in a different frame of mind,’” Calipari recalled Saturday. “And we talked about it.”

And then Toppin had perhaps the worst game of his season.

Calipari searched for the best way to describe that performance.

“What’s the word above awful?” he asked. “So then it became, ‘All right, where do we go with this and how do we do this?’”

Calipari reflected on that meeting just a few minutes after Toppin turned in what might have been the best game of his college career. He scored a career-high 24 points. He went 10-for-15 from the floor. He grabbed seven rebounds, dished out a couple of assists. But, beyond those stats, he came out and took it to the Cardinals from the start, attacking the paint on both ends.

He looked like the Toppin that was promised in the preseason.

What changed? It’s a simple question with a complex answer.

“Some of it had to do with self-confidence,” the 22-year-old said after his career day. “But I was messed up mentally. I wasn’t thinking right. Even when I was on the court, I wasn’t fully on the court. So it was really hard for me. But, like I said, I got through it. I had talks with people, and it helped me. So I’m moving forward from it.”

Toppin spoke at length after Saturday’s game of battling “mental struggles” and trying to stay focused amid hard times. He called the Missouri game “rock bottom” from a basketball perspective, but breaking out of a funk like the one he’s been in isn’t as easy as flipping a switch. It takes work that goes beyond basketball.

In Toppin’s case, he credited his coaches and teammates with helping him through what he described as a “rough patch” on and off the court. He also said he spoke to people outside of Kentucky’s basketball program, including Dr. Bob Rotella, the renowned sports psychologist that Calipari has turned to for decades for help with his teams.

Toppin said he was advised to find his “happy place” before stepping onto the court, to hold onto that feeling once the basketball began. For Toppin, that place was being “back home” and playing the game with his friends growing up.

“Whether that’s in the park, in the gym — I really focused on just being around my friends, hooping,” he said. “Because that’s when I’m carefree. That’s when I’m worried about nothing. I’m just playing with my friends. So I really just focused on fighting out how I can get there during the game. And that’s where I went.”

Toppin’s turnaround

It was Toppin who set the tone for Kentucky’s 23-point victory over its biggest rival. He hit double figures midway through the first half and had 15 points at halftime. He did it not by settling for easy shots but by attacking the rim and playing smart, assertive basketball.

Afterward, U of L Coach Kenny Payne described seeing the Jacob Toppin that anyone who’s watched him play had been waiting to see.

“He is a high-level player and he is capable of dominating a game,” Payne said.

The former UK assistant coach knew Toppin had been struggling, and his plan was to go at him early with 6-10 forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield.

“And I think what Brandon found out is that he is an elite athlete with the way he moves,” Payne said. “He’s quick. He can handle the ball well enough to get to spots on the floor. He can shoot decent enough. He is relentless and on top of his stuff. And he can get offensive rebounds.”

Calipari had been imploring several of his players, not just Toppin, to be more assertive. He’d questioned their “mental toughness” on multiple occasions. He wanted to see his Cats respond when things got tough on the court.

“They got to get in a good frame of mind and then get hit in the mouth,” Calipari said Saturday. “And are you fragile or do you keep playing? Today, he kept playing. And now he’s gonna do it against better teams. You watch.”

Toppin said his meeting with Calipari before the Missouri game ended up being a “great talk,” but he knew then that the results wouldn’t be immediate. Obviously, they weren’t, but Calipari decided to return him to the starting lineup against Louisville anyway.

“Well, we’ve done a lot of work,” the UK coach said. “And it’s not been on the court. …

“He did some things. He talked to some people. I watched him practice and I loved what I saw.”

Calipari called Toppin into his office and said he was going to start him Saturday.

“OK,” Toppin replied.

Calipari didn’t like the tepid response. “I said, ‘No. No!’” and the coach explained that he wanted more enthusiasm. He told his player to come back later and see him.

“So before practice he came in, ‘I really want to start!’” Calipari said, finishing his story.

Asked if — after such a bad showing against Mizzou — Toppin was surprised that Calipari would put him back in the starting lineup, the veteran player answered immediately.

“Was I surprised? No. Because he was the first person who was looking out for me when I was down,” Toppin said. “He actually asked me to come to him. I didn’t go to him. He told me to come to him so we could talk. And we had a great talk. And he was very supportive.”

Toppin said several teammates were there for him, too, specifically mentioning Sahvir Wheeler, Cason Wallace and Ware as fellow Wildcats who checked in on his mental health.

“I was just trying to be a great teammate and make sure he kept his spirits up,” Wallace said. “He’s one of the leaders on the team, so his energy has an impact on the rest of the team. … We’re going to follow after him. He’s a leader. So just trying to be there for him and make sure that he knows that it’s still going to be OK.”

Toppin couldn’t put his finger on what got him in such a bad place.

“I really don’t know how to explain it,” he said. “The mind is a strong muscle that can take control of your body, so you have to try to fight it every single day. And I was fighting it. And I had people around me who supported me. So I thank everyone who supported me.”

Going through personal struggles — on or off the court; or both — is a difficult thing, even more so while doing it in the fishbowl that is Kentucky basketball.

“I don’t want to put anybody out there, but we have some people struggling,” Toppin said. “And I’m always looking out for one another, because — me, personally — I’ve been through mental struggles. And I know there’s a lot of people who go through mental struggles.

“So, even if they’re doing well, I still check up on everybody’s mental every day.”

Getting to that “happy place” that Toppin found Saturday is difficult, too. Staying there, as well.

“One hundred percent, it’s harder to maintain. It’s easy to lose it,” Toppin said. “But understanding that there are people around you who support you, who believe in you. And understanding yourself that there’s gonna be downs, there’s gonna be ups — you have to find a way to stay mellow. That’s what you have to figure out, and it’s a life thing.

“So moving forward, I have to understand that there are going to be bad games, there are going to be bad shots, bad plays — I have to just keep moving forward. And have that next-play mentality.”

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