Cason Wallace, Sahvir Wheeler Excel Late in Wildcats' 73-69 Win Over Michigan

The backcourt pairing propelled the Wildcats to a big win in London on Sunday night.

Since the beginning of the season, all of the talk surrounding Kentucky's guard play has been a matter of choosing Sahvir Wheeler OR Cason Wallace. 

The performance by the pair of guards in the Wildcats' 73-69 win over Michigan on Sunday didn't answer that question, but instead proposed a different query: 

Why not both? 

While it wasn't always pretty, the guard combo totaled 25 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists in the Basketball Hall of Fame London Showcase, propelling the Cats to their biggest win of the early 2022-23 season. 

After a ho-hum first 20 minutes, Wallace came out of the locker room guns blazing, scoring the Wildcats' first eight points of the second half, building a decent-sized lead for UK to work with. 

Kentucky had to fight tooth and nail to maintain a points advantage down the stretch, as Hunter Dickinson and the Wolverines battled on both ends of the court. While he continued to make an impact, Wallace would add just three more points to his second half total. Luckily for UK, it came via a monumental catch-and-shoot 3-point bomb to pad the Wildcats' lead to five with just over one minute left in the game. 

"We've been in practice stressing the inside-out threes," Wallace said. "We get it to the paint, we kick it out, we gotta shoot those, they're open ... it was one of those moments where it was inside-out, I had to shoot it, cause if I don't, I would've been a selfish teammate. So I shot the ball and it went in." 

One of the lone reasons Kentucky held the tiny lead up to that point was a late surge from Wheeler. The senior point guard went on a 6-0 run across two and a half minutes of game time, giving the Cats their final late scoring burst before the trey from Wallace and a few game-icing free throws. 

Along with those six points, Wheeler also added five second-half assists while turning the ball over just twice. 

Wallace was a perfect 3-3 from deep in the back 20 minutes while totaling a pair of assists, a block and four rebounds, three of which came on the offensive glass. 

"The young fella knows how to play," Michigan coach Juwan Howard said post-game. "I've seen what he's capable of doing, he made some big shots when they needed it." 

What makes the effort across the pond even more impressive is the fact that he's dealing with injured fingers, per head coach John Calipari: 

"He's had fingers that have been hurt, it's effected him a little bit," he said. "But he does a little bit of everything. He's a player who doesn't care about scoring."

The freshman sensation is averaging 11.0 points, 4.6 assists, 4.1 rebounds and 2.6 steals through his first eight games in blue and white.

Wheeler on the other hand, is adding 8.9 points, 7.2 assists and 2.6 rebounds-per-game. Not too shabby, right? 

Kentucky is very clearly still figuring out the correct rotations to use for the correct situations in-game. One thing that became clear on Sunday night, however, is both Wallace and Wheeler will be in the game during crunch time...together. 

Why pick and choose, when you can have both? 

For more on the win over the Wolverines, click here. 

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