Chris Livingston unleashing inner "beast" key to Kentucky's growth

“My dad used to tell me, ‘A beast is still a beast no matter who they’re going against. You just have to be a beast and go fight.'”

Oscar Tshiebwe took his father’s message to heart, becoming college basketball’s most dominant force over the past two seasons. It’s impossible to look at what the 6-foot-9, 265-pound center has done during his time in Lexington and say he hasn’t been a beast. He earned consensus national player of the year honors as a junior after averaging 17.4 points, 15.1 rebounds, 1.8 steals and 1.6 blocks per contest. And then he followed it up by averaging 15.8 points, 13.0 rebounds, 1.6 steals and 1.0 blocks per game as a senior.

Freshman forward Chris Livingston was a similar beast in high school. The five-star recruit averaged an absurd 31.1 points, 15.8 rebounds, 6.1 assists, 4.7 steals and 4.0 blocks as a junior at Buchtel High School in Akron before transferring to the prestigious Oak Hill Academy for his senior year. There, he averaged 18.2 points, 9.1 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.9 steals per game en route to 2022 Gatorade Virginia Player of the Year honors while being named to the McDonald’s All-American Game and Jordan Brand Classic.

Livingston was a beast, a mismatch nightmare capable of dominating games thanks to his unique combination of size, strength, athleticism and skill.

He expected to be that same player in college, a walking double-double drawing comparisons to his idol, LeBron James — the definition of a living, breathing mismatch. So it’s fair to understand his discontent when he opened his Kentucky career playing no more than 19 minutes the first nine games of the season and at least 20 minutes just four times until Jan. 31. In that span, just two games of double-digit scoring, one being vs. South Carolina State (13 points in 17 minutes) and the other vs. No. 16 UCLA (14 points in 25 minutes).

“I’d be lying if I said I was just happy-go-lucky all the time,” Livingston said following Kentucky’s win over Tennessee on Saturday.

It’s never easy having dreams of stardom and overwhelming team success, and then having to fight for minutes on a group losing games at an alarming rate. It sucks. Of course you’re going to feel you could be helping with more minutes or a different role, be part of the change that everyone so desperately craved.

“You gotta be mentally tough to go through what I went through and what a lot of our players go through being at Kentucky,” Livingston added.

And then, a breakthrough. It started with a dominant first-half effort vs. Kansas, racking up eight points, two rebounds and a block in 17 minutes. Then, six points and seven rebounds in 31 minutes, a win at Ole Miss.

After a 19-minute outing vs. Florida — Cason Wallace, Jacob Toppin and CJ Fredrick combined for 49 points — Livingston has hit the 32-minute mark in four straight games. During that stretch, he’s scored at least 12 points on three separate occasions while pulling down an average of 5.8 rebounds per contest. This past week alone? 13 points (3-6 FG, 6-6 FT), five rebounds, three assists, two steals and a block in a win at Mississippi State, followed by 12 points (4-5 FG, 1-1 3PT), 10 rebounds, one assist and one block in a win vs. Tennessee.

It was a two-game effort that saw him earn SEC Freshman of the Week honors, his first award of the season. 12.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game, his first career double-double against a top-10 foe, two wins. He deserved it.

It’s how he’s impacted games, though, that is turning heads. It is not hyperbole to say his growth has changed the season outlook moving forward. Why? He hasn’t gotten hot with fluky makes from three or found easy mismatch opportunities to inflate his numbers, what many experience against lesser competition during the non-conference schedule.

Instead, Livingston is taking what SEC defenses are giving him, attacking and finding holes to exploit. Playing with instinct, but not at the cost of being reckless. He’s taken and made open shots, crashed the offensive glass for putbacks, found mismatches on post-ups — thanks to a coaching tip from Tyler Ulis on the bench — and made plays for others. Defensively, he’s showing off his versatility and making plays on the ball while being a terror on the glass. The player who used to count the minutes in his head and focus on making a statement in the limited time he had on the floor is now trusting his natural ability to be the statement.

Slowly but surely, he’s becoming the player we all saw in high school. And it couldn’t come at a better time for the Wildcats.

“Coming in as a freshman, they think if you dominated in high school, you’re going to come in and — I’ve been in college for four years. You think you’re going to come in and dominate right away? You’re not going to do that,” Tshiebwe said of Livingston. “Chris at the beginning struggled because he thought it was going to be like high school in college. But he figured out you have to build muscle, you have to be a beast to compete at this level.

“He struggled at the beginning, but now, he’s seen how college is. He’s seen he can be a beast. And now he’s working as a beast, trying to go out there and dominate. He’s doing his thing.”

Unleashing his inner beast is translating into tangible growth beyond the box scores. Over the last ten days, Livingston is ranked No. 9 in the SEC in Bayesian Performance Rating change, the ultimate measure of a player’s overall value to his team when he is on the floor. BPR translates to the number of points per 100 possessions better than the opponent is expected to be if the player were on the court with nine other average players, as EvanMiya.com so eloquently describes it. Over the last 30 days, Livingston sits at No. 9 in the SEC in offensive BPR, incorporating efficiency stats, on-court play-by-play impact, offensive strength of on-court teammates and defensive strength of opposing players on the floor. Both best on the team in those respective spans.

“I just waited my turn, stayed with the process, trusted the process, and here we are right now,” Livingston said.

The five-star freshman’s individual breakthrough has gone hand-in-hand with the team’s overall growth. Kentucky has climbed up to No. 16 in the country and No. 4 in the SEC in overall BPR. Offensively, the Wildcats are now No. 7 in team efficiency since the head-scratching loss at home to South Carolina.

“I love what Chris is doing, he’s a beast right now,” Tshiebwe said. “We really need that from him.”

That beast is the difference between Kentucky being inside the NCAA Tournament field and on the outside looking in. And yes, the team’s superstar center is right: the Wildcats need that version of Livingston the rest of the way.