How Kentucky is preparing for Scotty Pippen Jr.

Kentucky heads to Nashville looking for its first true road win of the season; to get it, they’ll have to contain one of the league’s top scorers.

Scotty Pippen Jr. is now a junior at Vanderbilt, electing to return for a third year after testing the NBA Draft waters. The Preseason SEC Player of the Year is second in the league in scoring with 18.3 points per game on 41.3% shooting. Kentucky is 4-0 vs. the ‘Dores during Pippen’s career, but he always plays well vs. the Cats, averaging 16.0 points over the four contests. Last year, he had 18 points, 8 assists, and 8 rebounds in Vanderbilt’s loss in Lexington and 21 points in the rematch in Nashville.

As Kentucky assistant coach Jai Lucas noted this morning, Pippen’s three-point shooting percentage is down slightly, from 35.8% in 2020-21 to 30.7% this season, but limiting him is still a big ask for a backcourt that could be without Sahvir Wheeler.

“It’s a big challenge. [Pippen] is a really good player. He’s kind of the engine to their team…He’s not shooting the ball as well numbers-wise if you look at it, but you know what he’s capable of doing.”

Kellan Grady has faced Pippen twice before as a red-and-black Wildcat. In December 2020, Davidson beat the ‘Dores by 20, with Pippen scoring 24 and Grady 19. The year before, Vanderbilt beat Davidson by five in Nashville. Grady had 16 points, Pippen 18.

“He’s a good player,” Grady said of Pippen today. “I’ve played against him, this will be my third year in a row. We played Vanderbilt my junior and senior year at Davidson, so I’m a bit familiar. He’s pretty versatile, he’s got a lot of stuff to his game but we’ll prepare for him like we prepare for any elite guard. We’ll have a game plan to hopefully limit his effectiveness.”

Kentucky’s plan to contain Pippen

What is that game plan? According to Jai Lucas, keeping Pippen inside the three-point line.

“They run a lot of good stuff for him and put you in situations or predicaments where you have to make a lot of decisions so the big thing for us is trying to eliminate his open looks and making him play inside the line. Kind of pressuring him to wear him down a little bit early and things like that. If we can make him shoot contested twos the whole night, we’ll feel pretty good about the job we did.“

Last year, Davion Mintz hit the game-winning three with 24 seconds left to give Kentucky its third win of the season. Jacob Toppin was also instrumental vs. Pippen in Lexington. With Wheeler potentially out of tomorrow’s game due to a neck injury, Lucas said the Cats may turn to Mintz to help shut down Pippen.

“In the second half [vs. Georgia] Davion did a great job of picking up the ball and pressure. I think that was the biggest difference being without Sahvir and we’re going to have to ask Davion to do it because we think he’s the next most capable one. We’re going to of course push TyTy [Washington] to do it but he’s a freshman and defense isn’t the first thing on your mind when you’re a freshman so we’ll try to get him to play up to that level as well. Davion did a great job in the second half vs. Georgia and that’s something this is going to be big going into Vandy. It’s the Preseason SEC Player of the Year so we’ve got to do our job on him.”

Reminder: Kentucky was Pippen’s “dream school”

This could be Pippen’s last shot at Kentucky in Memorial Gym; for a kid that grew up dreaming of being a Wildcat, that is more fuel for the fire. After Vanderbilt’s loss to Kentucky in Lexington last season, Pippen was candid about how much he wanted to beat the team that didn’t recruit him.

“I have a chip on my shoulder every time I step on the court. Kentucky was my dream school. I was not heavily recruited. I was a three-star, four-star coming out of high school, at most. I’m trying to prove everyone wrong, coming out with a chip on my shoulder and show that stars don’t matter and that college is the best players on the court competing.”

After that game, Jerry Stackhouse predicted Pippen would get revenge in Nashville. That obviously didn’t happen, but now he’s got two more opportunities.

“I came here and he had already committed, so I think it was a situation for him where he had the smarts to be able to get into Vanderbilt and hopefully stick it to Kentucky, a team that didn’t recruit him. It was the way he probably felt. That he could’ve been recruited. Scotty played in a lot of big games in high school. It’s like the stage isn’t that frightening at all. I know he’s going to get them back, like I said, I thought we had a good chance to get them tonight, but we will see them again at our place and hopefully that chip on his shoulder will be even bigger.”

Cats better be ready.