CJ Fredrick's positive leadership helping keep Kentucky together

CJ Fredrick didn’t have the most productive game on the hardwood Tuesday night, but it’s everything he’s doing behind the scenes that helped power Kentucky past Georgia by 14 points after trailing by eight at halftime. Lately, the redshirt senior has stepped up as the Wildcats’ vocal leader both on and off the floor. The results have been favoring Kentucky.

“CJ leads, man, he just leads. He’s smart,” UK head coach John Calipari said after beating UGA 85-71.

“He’s been very positive, just keeping us all together and making sure nobody falls off,” Freshman point guard Cason Wallace added. “We all together and we got to keep winning.”

Fredrick, who is playing with a splint on the middle finger of his shooting hand, finished his night in Rupp Arena with just three points on 1-8 overall shooting. He only connected on one of his five shot attempts from beyond the arc, but didn’t turn the ball over once and constantly made the Georgia defense know where he was on the floor.

Even when Fredrick isn’t knocking down shots, his gravity as a high-level shot-maker still pulls defenders closer to him — you can’t leave a career 44.1 percent outside shooter open. He’s going to make those defenders chasing him around work, too.

After spending all of last season — his first at UK following two years with Iowa — recovering from a torn hamstring, Fredrick has taken on an important role in 2022-23. It’s been an up-and-down season on the floor, but Calipari has rolled with the Cincinnati, OH native through the good and bad, especially over the last three outings. Fredrick played 30 minutes in the loss to South Carolina, 37 in the monster win over Tennessee, and then 36 on Tuesday night.

In UK’s recap video from the victory against Tennessee, Fredrick was the one who broke down the final huddle in the locker room, telling his teammates how much he loved them and how it’s only up from here for this group. He said on Monday ahead of the win over Georgia that he sees himself as one of this group’s leaders, which is becoming more and more obvious from an outsider’s perspective.

Leaders have a tendency to step up when the people listening to them need it the most. Fredrick did just that against the Bulldogs, hitting arguably the biggest shot of the entire night. Lost in the spectacle of Oscar Tshiebwe‘s 37-point, 24-rebound video game-like performance was his only assist of the contest. Tshiebwe hauled in one of his 11 offensive rebounds and hit Fredrick at the top of the key for a wide-open triple, capping off Kentucky’s 12-2 run to open the second half with his only made shot of the game.

CJ 🔥🔥🔥🔥

7-0 run for the Cats. pic.twitter.com/yYiURAICbF

— Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) January 18, 2023

“The other play of the game was on the free throw miss. (Tshiebwe) got that ball and threw it out and CJ made the three. That may have been the play of the game. But those are effort plays,” Calipari said.

That shot lit Rupp Arena on fire. It sparked the beginning of Kentucky’s impressive comeback. He hit a similar shot in the win against Tennessee over the weekend in Knoxville — a contested triple that broke a 48-48 tie with under six minutes to go. UK never gave up the lead again to the Volunteers after Fredrick’s clutch shot.

Some players-only meetings, led by Fredrick and other team veterans, have seemingly changed the course of Kentucky’s season. Once thought to be a group that wasn’t all the way connected, has quickly synced up with each other. Frederick has played a significant part in that.

“CJ’s a very good leader,” Freshman guard Adou Thiero said on Monday. “On the court, he’s talking. If it’s not his man he’s still talking to you. He always made sure I don’t put my head down. After my first turnover (against Tennessee) he was telling me ‘you’re good, you’re good. Just calm down and stay focused, you’ll be fine.’ And I really needed that. That was just very helpful.”

Kentucky, not just Thiero, will need even more of that leadership from Fredrick moving forward to keep the good vibes rolling.