Kellan Grady hits 6 triples, drops season-high 23 points in win over WKU

Kentucky fans have been waiting for Kellan Grady to finally pop off. The graduate transfer from Davidson famously brought 2,000 career college points to Lexington but has needed time to settle into his new role. He’s not expected to score 17 points per game as he did the last four seasons.

Now, his role is to shoot the ball; and if he doesn’t, he’ll sit on the bench.

“He and I went in the gym and I worked with him and it’s me. Not really,” UK head coach John Calipari jokingly said of Grady’s improved shooting after beating Western Kentucky 95-60 on Wednesday night. “It’s I took him out against North Carolina and he passed up on two shots. You’re OUT. ‘I won’t pass them up again.’ How many has he passed up to step out of bounds in the corner? The other thing was, the reason you’re having to pass up a shot, you’re catching it like it’s H-O-R-S-E game and you’re dropping it. Now he doesn’t. If he’s open, wherever he catches it, he shoots it from there.”

Over his last two outings, Grady has dropped 18 points against North Carolina and 23 more against Western Kentucky. Those are two of his three highest-scoring outings as a Wildcat–the latter a season-high–and it’s no coincidence that Kentucky won both games by a combined 64 points.

On the season, Grady is shooting 47.5 percent (29-61) from beyond the arc, one of the top marks in the entire country. His offensive rating of 149.9 doesn’t sound real and ranks second in the entire country, per KenPom. In actuality, he’s been connecting from deep at that high of a rate all season long. The reason for his uptick in scoring? His shooting confidence is as tall as it was during his time at Davidson and Calipari made it perfectly clear what would happen if he doesn’t fire them up.

“At Davidson, we were a 3-point shooting team,” Grady said after the win over WKU. “But there were some shots where we would rather use some shot clock and I realized quickly in the first half against (North) Carolina that if I’m open, regardless of whether it’s 26 on the shot clock or six on the shot clock, I’m supposed to shoot it. So that was all I really needed to hear. Which I guess I should have known that already…”

Grady is a rare college basketball player who can make a significant impact simply by being on the floor. He doesn’t have to constantly have the ball to influence each possession, but when he does, good things usually happen. Think of the impact Klay Thompson makes for the Golden State Warriors when he’s at peak health. Thompson is one of the greatest shooters of all time, but he posts a staggeringly low usage rate because he has a job, knows how to execute, and doesn’t stray away.

Thompson runs around the court and hunts catch-and-shoot jumpers better than any of his peers. Grady is starting to do the same with similar efficiency.

Through 11 games, Grady has attempted just 24 two-pointers but 61 three-pointers. Catching and shooting is the name of his game lately. He went 5-7 from distance against UNC and 6-9 against WKU. Calipari told him that if he doesn’t shoot, he’s riding the bench. Grady took that to heart and hasn’t looked back since; 16 three-point attempts over a two-game stretch are easily his most this season.

If his head coach believes he can make every shot, why shouldn’t he?