Kentucky guards Sahvir Wheeler and CJ Fredrick are OUT for Georgia game

Well, Kentucky’s backcourt will be pretty depleted today as they take on Georgia in Athens. UK head coach John Calipari announced on the pregame radio show that point guard Sahvir Wheeler (ankle) and shooting guard CJ Fredrick (rib) will both miss today’s game, KSR’s Tyler Thompson reported to Twitter.

According to Coach Cal, that “means Adou (Thiero) has got to step up.”

Concerning news for the ‘Cats, who are coming off a 15-point home loss to Arkansas where they also didn’t have Wheeler. However, Fredrick’s injury is a new one and he hadn’t missed a game due to a rib injury yet, although he was out with a finger issue earlier this season.

The ‘Cats are light on guards as is and will have to rely heavily today on Cason Wallace and Antonio Reeves, as well as freshman reserve Adou Thiero, who hasn’t played major minutes since the Tennessee win, where he also played a lot because Wheeler was absent.

A must-win game on the road just became a dangerous challenge for Kentucky now that two of their four primary guards are down and out.

Previous report on Fredrick injury

The injury occurred last week when Kentucky took on Florida. Fredrick hit a camera operator on his way to the floor, but stayed in the game and worked through the injury on Tuesday when the Wildcats lost to Arkansas.

Fredrick has appeared in 21 games this season and is averaging 7.3 points per game. The plan is for Fredrick to play through the injury “at some point” before the season ends, sources told Pilgrim.

After the Arkansas game, Kentucky head coach John Calipari confirmed Fredrick was playing through a rib issue. However, he didn’t provide a timetable for his return.

“He had rib problems today,” Calipari said. “His ribs were bothering him. … He’s another one that probably shouldn’t have played and you can see he was hurting the whole time but he was giving everything that he had.”