John Calipari on Kentucky's shooting success in practice: "Do that shit in the game."

As a team, the Kentucky Wildcats shot 2-19 from three in their loss to Notre Dame in South Bend, good for a whopping 10.5 percent. It marked the fourth straight game UK shot 30 percent or less from deep and the sixth consecutive game they hit less than 33.3 percent.

Individually, Kellan Grady was the only player to knock down a shot from three, hitting 2-7 3-pointers on the day. Elsewhere, Davion Mintz went 0-5, Sahvir Wheeler and Bryce Hopkins were 0-2, and Keion Brooks Jr., TyTy Washington and Jacob Toppin were all 0-1.

John Calipari says you don’t have to make them all, you just can’t miss them all. Lately, though, Kentucky has gotten pretty darn close to missing all of them.

“Give Notre Dame credit and their crowd. Give them credit,” Calipari said Thursday. “We went 2 for 19 (from deep). When a team goes 2 for 19, they lose by 20. We had a two-point lead with 1:30 to go. Did not play well. Give the credit to Notre Dame. They did some things that kind of confused us.”

A significant part of the confusion? Sagging off of Sahvir Wheeler and forcing him to take jump shots, something the junior guard was clearly not ready for. When Notre Dame took Wheeler out of the game, it threw Kentucky’s entire offense out of whack.

“It was a surprise to him and the team, we didn’t know they were going to play him like that,” Jacob Toppin said. “At the end of the day, he can’t let that get to him mentally.”

“It messes with your head a little bit. You could see it in his face a little bit,” TyTy Washington said of Wheeler. “… It’s like he wasn’t mentally in it.”

Wheeler finished the day with three points on 0-5 shooting, 0-2 from three and 3-4 from the line to go with two assists, two rebounds and two turnovers. It was inarguably his worst performance as a Wildcat, something he took to heart.

“After the game, you could see it in him, like he felt he let the team down,” Washington added. “I told him it wasn’t just him, it was the whole group collectively.”

Wheeler’s teammates spoke with the 5-foot-9 guard after the game and told him to use it as a learning opportunity. If opponents are going to start playing off of him, find a way to produce elsewhere — or make shots.

The team has been working on scenarios for both in practice. And in recent days, Wheeler is converting.

“Right after the game, me, (Sahvir) and Davion were all talking on the bus back to the airport,” Washington said. “We said to him, ‘You’re fine. If they’re going to leave you like that, you’ve just got to find different ways to be productive with the ball or without the ball in your hand.’

“… We all know what Sahvir can do for us. He can actually shoot those elbow jumpers, it just wasn’t going in. I told him, ‘Today wasn’t your day. We’re going to get back in the gym. Keep working at it, keep shooting.’ This week in practice, we’ve been doing a lot of situations where his man is off of him and what we’re going to do when that happens.

“The stuff we’ve been doing to prepare for that, I feel like we’re going to be fine.”

Unlike what we saw in South Bend, the shots are starting to fall, something the entire team and coaching staff has noticed. It’s sparked optimism in a major bounce-back effort for Wheeler out in Las Vegas.

“These past few days in practice, he’s been getting his shot up, he’s been shot-ready, his shot’s been looking really smooth,” Washington said. “I have really high confidence in him. … He’s been shooting the ball really well, and we were like, ‘This is the Sahvir we all know.’ Everybody says he can’t shoot, but he’s been working on it consistently. You’ll have to see for Saturday, I have a really high confidence in him to make his shots.”

“He’s been in the gym working,” junior forward Jacob Toppin added. “These last three days he’s been shooting the ball very well, he’s definitely going to have a bounce-back.”

That’s the good news. The bad news, though, is that Wheeler told on himself. If he’s making these shots in practice, there’s no excuse for him to miss them in the games.

“He’s making shots yesterday and I stopped the practice and I look at the team and you know what they say?” Calipari said of Wheeler. “We have a comment that we make and excuse me when I, ‘Do that shit in the game.’ That’s what we say. Like they do something and it’s like, ‘Woah, woah, woah. Do that in the game.’”

If opponents want to disrespect him by letting him have open shots, use it as “fuel.” Let them realize they’re making a mistake, don’t prove them right.

“Fuel. Use it as fuel. Use it as fuel,” Calipari said. “You can’t come down and try to shoot every ball now, but you’ve got to say, ‘You’re playing me.’ … I have all the faith in the world in him. … We can figure this out together. At the end of the day he should be one of the best point guards in the country. Numbers indicate it. He should be.”

It’s not just Wheeler. Washington knows he needs to play better, as does the rest of the Kentucky backcourt. You can’t rely on Oscar Tshiebwe to score every point and grab every rebound and expect to win.

“We didn’t shoot the ball nearly as good as we can,” Washington said. “In practice, us guards have been keying in on making shots, getting the ball out fast, release quicker, being shot ready at all times. … If we’re in a shooting slump, you’ve just got to get in the gym. Once you get in the gym and see the ball go in a lot on your own working out, it builds up your own confidence. … Fall back to your training.”

Play how you practice and practice how you play. If you have confidence, you can thrive in both settings — not just in the Joe Craft Center, but under the spotlight in real games.

“You have to have confidence,” Calipari said. “You ready for the word? Com-pe-tence breeds con-fi-dence. You’re 0 for 8, it’s hard to be a confident player. Get in the gym. What are you working on? What are you going to do in the game? Well, then do it in the gym.’”