Kellan Grady blames himself for loss but Keion Brooks says loss was on everyone

Kellan Grady was just 1-for-9 against Saint Peter's and says his lack of production cost UK a win. (Vicky Graff Photo)

The day before Kentucky was going to open NCAA Tournament play, Kellan Grady seemed confident that his shooting slump would end. He had blamed himself and his missed shots as the reason UK lost to Tennessee in the SEC Tournament semifinals when he shot like “crap.”

Grady did hit a huge 3-pointer with 48 seconds left in regulation to give UK a 71-69 lead before Saint Peter’s tied the game and then won 85-79 in overtime Thursday night to end UK’s season.

It was a shocking loss for UK, a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament and one of the favorites to reach the Final Four. It was also shocking to see Grady missed the other eight shots he took other than the one late 3 in regulation. He was 1-for-7 on 3-pointers, his speciality.

“If I bang a couple (of 3’s) and if I was myself the last couple games, we probably would have won them. I’m not trying to escape that accountability. I shot like crap again tonight. It’s unfortunate,” Grady said.

“If I could pinpoint it exactly, I wouldn’t have shot like crap. You know, I feel — this is such a close group and we have gone through a lot this year, and we’ve accomplished a lot, and today would have been — it would have been good for us to get a win, and you know, I feel bad that I couldn’t help in better fashion to help us win. But it is what it is.”

Teammate Keion Brooks was sitting beside Grady at the postgame press conference when he heard Grady blame himself for the loss and immediately defended him.

“Kellan does a lot for us shooting the ball. None of us really made shots, so I don’t think that’s something that you can put on him,” Brooks said. “He works extremely hard every single day, like, just tonight, they didn’t go.

“But even beyond him and then the rest of us not making shots, it was just some plays that we didn’t make that cost us the game. Even if none of us made any shots, there were still plays that defensive, or just execution-wise, that we — that we weren’t great on that cost us.”

Brooks was right. TyTy Washington, Brooks, Davion Mintz and Lance Ware were a combined 7-for-25 from the field. Kentucky also had a six-point lead late in regulation before allowing Saint Peter’s to rally and send the game to overtime.

Grady probably gave the best answer when asked what happened to the Kentucky team that destroyed Kansas and Tennessee, two potential Final four teams. Where did the Kentucky team that looked so good for so long go?

“I think that’s difficult to reflect on right now. The simplest answer is some of the things we were doing at a high level for a large part of the season we were not doing as efficiently and as well,” Grady said.

“And I think the biggest thing is we got away from guarding the way we were guarding at a high level. And like Coach said, there were pivotal opportunities to get stops down the stretch, and we failed to do that. That’s why we lost the game.”

And why a once promising season is over.