John Calipari gives troubling injury update on CJ Fredrick, Sahvir Wheeler

According to a report from KSR‘s Drew Franklin, Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari gave some troubling injury news ahead of the team’s Wednesday night game versus Mississippi State. On his radio show, Calipari revealed that guards CJ Fredrick and Sahvir Wheeler both did not participate in the team’s practice on Monday.

The duo both did not play in Kentucky’s most recent game, a loss to Georgia, and their presence missing again would make the Wildcats’ backcourt thin once again amid their two-game losing skid.

Both Wheeler and Fredrick are averaging seven points per game for the Wildcats, and Wheeler’s playmaking presence would surely be missed once again, as he leads the team and the conference in assists per game with 5.6. Both Wheeler and Fredrick have been in and out of Kentucky’s starting lineup all season, but prior to missing the team’s last gave versus Georgia, Fredrick had made eight consecutive starts for the Wildcats.

Wheeler has been battling an ankle injury he suffered at practice that has caused him to miss the team’s last two games, while Fredrick injured his ribs on a layup attempt versus Florida that he played through for the rest of that game and the next versus Arkansas before being shut down versus Georgia.

Oscar Tshiebwe addresses late-season mistakes, who’s to blame

The final stretch of Kentucky‘s 75-68 loss to Georgia was far from the cleanest finish, and Oscar Tshiebwe knows his team made too many mistakes. He wasn’t the only one to make an error but he focused on himself when talking with the media after the game.

It was a 59-58 game with about four minutes to go before the Bulldogs closed on a 16-7 run to put the game out of reach.

“Even I myself fall asleep sometimes,” Tshiebwe said. “When it came to the end of the game that’s where you should just be active all the time because that’s when the people trying to win. There was a couple of mistakes we make on the ball switch, they make it threes. There was couple mistake I make, giving the big post me up again a little bit like it, but But we gotta get those things fixed.”

Head coach John Calpari was also disappointed in the defensive mishaps that led to baskets.

“We had two breakdowns defensively that led to six points. And they were critical,” Calipari said. “We get up four and I got to go back, because I thought we got great looks. We miss, they make. I call it a will to win. You can’t lose a 

On3’s Peter Warren contributed to this report