Why CJ Fredrick became Oscar Tshiebwe’s favorite Wildcat to team up with in practice

Before the basketballs started bouncing at Kentucky’s annual Pro Day event last month, John Calipari grabbed the microphone and addressed the dozens of NBA scouts in attendance.

Calipari laid out how the night was going to proceed, and he noted that veteran guard CJ Fredrick had recently rolled his ankle and would be unable to participate. Fredrick wanted to go, but Calipari wouldn’t let him. No need to risk further injury at this stage of the preseason. The UK coach did sing Fredrick’s praises, however, calling him the most confident player on Kentucky’s team and dropping another nugget regarding his time in practice to that point.

Oscar Tshiebwe — the reigning national player of the year — wanted Fredrick to be placed on his team in every scrimmage. The reason, according to Calipari? Fredrick is a tremendous post-feeder.

Simply put, Fredrick gets Tshiebwe the ball. And when you’re a 6-foot-9, 260-pound center and the biggest star in college basketball, the ball should probably go through you just about every possession.

Fredrick brings plenty of experience in that area.

Before coming to Kentucky last summer, the Cincinnati native spent three seasons in the Iowa Hawkeyes program — one as a redshirt, two as a starter. And who was the star on those Iowa teams? Luka Garza, who scored 2,306 career points and swept the major national player of the year awards following the 2020-21 season, Fredrick’s final campaign with the Hawkeyes.

“Playing with Luka, I’m a smart enough player to realize, you know, he needs the ball,” Fredrick told the Herald-Leader. “And I knew that if I got him the ball, then I would get open. So I got really good at finding ways to get him the ball. … And I knew that if he got the ball, good things would happen for the team. And at the end of the day, you’ve got to sacrifice to win at this level. And winning cures all. So I knew — if we wanted to win — I had to get that man the ball.”

To Fredrick’s point, if the ball goes into the paint — or anywhere else on the court — to a player as offensively skilled as Garza, the defense will collapse or shift its attention to him. And that leaves others open. That dynamic surely helped Fredrick find the space necessary to be a 46.6-percent three-point shooter over two seasons with the Hawkeyes.

And a similar setup this season at UK should be just as mutually beneficial.

“It’s that same approach with Oscar this year,” Fredrick said. “We’ve got the national player of the year coming back. If he’s open, he’s getting the ball. So it was just little things like that in practice. I’d try to find ways to get him the ball, and every time he gets the ball, I told him — he likes to sometimes play around and bring it up and down — ‘If I throw you the ball, you do your jump hook or you go dunk the ball every time.’ And we just kind of started getting that down.”

Fredrick paused briefly to snap his fingers, signifying how he and Tshiebwe instantly clicked on the court.

“Throw it in, he’d just go right up. Throw it in, right up,” Fredrick finished. “And it started to work a little bit. And I think Coach started to like that a little bit.”

More than a little bit, it seems.

Calipari has been praising Fredrick and his basketball smarts the entire preseason, clearly enjoying the unselfish approach the 23-year-old guard has brought to this Kentucky team.

Fredrick witnessed his first season at Kentucky from the sidelines, of course. A torn hamstring in the layup line of UK’s first game spelled an end to his first year as a Wildcat before he even logged a minute of playing time.

And during that time on the bench, Fredrick watched and waited. There were plenty of opportunities to observe the nation’s best player, and — great as Tshiebwe was a season ago — Fredrick pinpointed ways he could improve if he did return to Kentucky.

Now, he’s seeing the sport’s biggest star add even more layers to his game. Tshiebwe, according to Fredrick, is seeing things differently this preseason, reacting more quickly and naturally to what’s going on around him. “The game is slowing down for him,” he said.

One area of improvement should be a boon to the team’s top shooters, like Fredrick, Antonio Reeves, and whoever else steps up as a three-point threat this season.

Tshiebwe is now recognizing when defenses are about to collapse on him, and he’s processing decisions before it’s time to make the corresponding action. This was on display during the scrimmage portion of the team’s Pro Day last month. If the ball was headed Tshiebwe’s way and a help defender or two went with it, the UK star noticed and immediately kicked the ball back out. There were times when he grabbed an offensive rebound, and — before even hitting the ground — passed it to an open player on the perimeter.

“He’s much more fluid as a basketball player,” Fredrick said. “When you watch him, he reads the game much better this year. He sees things that are happening before they’re happening. …

“That’s how he’s really going to take his game to the next level. He’s seeing double teams before they’re coming, and he’s able to make skip passes — opposite side of the court. That’s big-time. That’s where he’s made a huge jump in his game.”

Next game

Exhibition: Kentucky State at No. 4 Kentucky

When: 7 p.m. Thursday

TV: SEC Network Plus (online only)

Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1

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