According to coach John Calipari, CJ Fredrick told the UK coach to keep freshman Chris Livingston in the game and not play him. (Vicky Graff Photo)
There are so many perplexing things about Kentucky basketball this season but to me the most confusing is what has happened to CJ Fredrick.
He is a player who made shots in high school at Covington Catholic and then at Iowa before transferring to Kentucky. Now he’s suddenly not making shots — or even taking shots — at Kentucky.
Fredrick is 15 of 42 from 3-point range this season — a respectable 35.7 percent mark. However, in the last six games he’s 4-for-17 from 3-point range. In the last two games — Yale and UCLA — he played only 15 minutes total and did not take a shot. He scored 11 points against Bellarmine but had three against Gonzaga, two against North Florida and three against Michigan before not scoring in the last two games.
That’s a brutal six-game offensive stretch for a player known as a shot-maker.
“What happened today, and he was great about it, Chris (Livingston) was playing so well that at one point I wanted to put him in for Chris, and he said leave him in,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said after Saturday’s loss in New York to UCLA.
“That’s a helluva teammate. I haven’t lost any faith in him. I just think this is going to play out over a period of time, and the guys that should be on the floor will be on there.”
Then Calipari does what he often does — he turned the Fredrick question into a Livingston answer.
“That’s why my respect for Chris is off the charts and it’s been because he’s never stopped working in practice. Other guys were having the first opportunity, and now all of a sudden, he has the opportunity,” Calipari said.
“He’s not pouting. He just showed you what he was. Had a couple plays, one-handed rebounds, which is a habit he has, which we needed those balls. But what he did to help us stay in the game and then get up, incredible.”
Incredible but not as incredible to me as Fredrick suddenly not being able to make a shot.
5 Responses
What has happened to Fredrick? Well, he is not the first so-called shooter to join a Calipari roster and discover he cannot throw it into the ocean from the wet sand. There is a long list of these so-called sharpshooters. But, never fear, Calipari is here to protect us from such players, by proving to them, before they ever have an opportunity to enter real games and ruin everything with their incessant attempts to actually make long shots during games.
Yes, thank the maker that we have Calipari to protect this program from such dangers as players who believe they can and should shoot the ball from outside that stupid half-circle that changed the game of basketball forever about 35 years ago.
Fredrick is simply the latest of these fraudulent shooters to try to horn into Calipari’s UK program. There will be more!!!!
Never Fear, Super-Calipari is here!!!!!!
John Calipari is what happened to CJ.
Have a golf buddy whose an Iowa grad – he was just sick when Frederick transferred. He said “ the kids the best shooter we’ve had in many, many years. Go figure.
Assuming he is 100% healthy, then he is just trying too hard, once he manages to relax some he will get into the flow.
This is not about this player, it is about a litany of great shooters who have their confidence stripped away by this coach.
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