Jacob Toppin scored a career high 24 points in Kentucky's blowout victory over Louisville on Saturday. (UK Athletics Photo)
Jacob Toppin had his share of preseason hype after pulling out of the 2022 NBA Draft and welcoming an increased roll in Kentucky’s offense this season. However, this year hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing.
Toppin started the season strong, averaging 12.8 points on 12 shot attempts over the course of the team’s first eight games. Kentucky was 6-2 with the two losses coming to Michigan State and Gonzaga. Toppin was aggressive and had confidence even when the ball wasn’t always going in the basket.
But in the following four games, it was almost as if Toppin disappeared. He averaged just over three points on five shot attempts and his team suffered a 2-2 record during that stretch. There was a sense that Toppin wasn’t going to be much of a factor moving forward, but he may have very well just had his coming out party in Saturday’s 86-63 win over the Louisville Cardinals.
Toppin drew the start and answered the call, aggressive and looking to score early on. He was driving to the basket, making mid-range jumpers and even had a put-back dunk off of an offensive rebound. His energy was contagious throughout Kentucky’s lineup and sparked the Wildcats into taking a large lead early to never look back.
The veteran forward finished the day with a career high 24 points, matching star center Oscar Tshiebwe to combine for more than half of the team’s points. Toppin also grabbed seven rebounds and dished out two assists in the win.
His scoring was obviously impactful, but Toppin’s body language and mentality is what can impact Kentucky in the long run. At times the Wildcats can be challenged offensively and don’t have many players that can create their own shot. Toppin has the athletic ability to create space and is skilled enough offensively to make mid-range shots or finish at the rim.
He just has to want it.
Kentucky is 4-1 this season when Toppin leads the team in shot attempts, with the only loss coming at Gonzaga. Even if Toppin misses shots inside, his drives to the basket draw defenders off of Tshiebwe for better offensive rebounding opportunities.
The same applies to Toppin taking mid-range shots. It may not be popular with analytics, but Toppin taking mid-range jumpers keeps defenders honest and he’s proven that he can consistently knock them down.
Kentucky needs their veteran forward now more than ever as their schedule quickly becomes much more difficult than a Saturday afternoon matchup against a 2-12 Louisville team. The Wildcats face Alabama, Tennessee and Kansas in January (all ranked inside the AP Top-10) and an aggressive Toppin could very well be the x-factor in those games.
If Kentucky wants to make a serious push for the postseason, Toppin will undoubtedly be one of the key factors in making that happen. Fans can only hope that Saturday’s career performance was the turning point for Toppin and the rest of their team.
2 Responses
Well, this game was played better than the last 3 for sure, but this game was not played well enough to support talk of miracle tweaks or turnarounds, much less SEC competitiveness.
UK is currently the 5th strongest team in the SEC, and UK’s trend is downward not upward. A championship-quality UK would have beaten this UL team by 33 rather than today’s 23.
We need to be patient. The 1998 Championship team had four losses also, three of them at home! This team just needs more time to put it all together. Let’s be patient.