John Calipari wants guard Sahvir Wheeler to develop a consistent floater. (Jeff Houchin/Nolan Media)
Junior point guard Sahvir Wheeler has quickly become a key player for coach John Calipari’s team just seven games into the season — and probably a fan favorite, too. The Georgia transfer consistently has drawn praise from teammates and coach John Calipari. Still, the UK coach has not backed off looking for ways to show Wheeler how can still improve.
“What did I tell him? ‘I know what you’ll do for us. Here’s what we have to do as a player.’ What was one? Disruptive defense,” Calipari said.
“‘If you play like you played a year ago where you backed off and died every screen and acted like you didn’t care, I’m not helping you. But if you’re disruptive defensively, you’re mixing it up, you’re diving, you’re playing, and our defense starts on you and you elevate things and everyone sees, it helps you too.
“You have to shoot a floater because you’re going to get shots blocked if you try to keep going. Shoot the floater. You got to add it to your game.'”
Considering how well Wheeler has played, one might think Calipari would have slowed down on Wheeler. Not a chance.
“Third thing I told him was, ‘You don’t have to make every 3; you can’t miss them all. So now, instead of 21 percent (from 3), let’s make it 30, 31, 33.,'” the UK coach said.
“Then, ‘Oh, he can make that 3. Oh, he’s got a floater.’ He’s not going to lose his layup, especially when he goes left. He also has it when he goes right. But he’s disruptive, he’s got floaters. Now we’ve helped Sahvir.”
Easy enough, right.
2 Responses
If Wheeler becomes our leading scorer, that could be bad for this team. His value comes in getting everyone else involved and being a defensive catalyst. If Wheeler starts shooting more than passing, the rest of the team will follow suite and that won’t beat the better SEC teams.
Coach needs to get out of Sahvir’s head. He had his worst game yet against Southern trying to do too much. It seems Coach is more interested in trying to groom a lottery pick instead of a winning team.