Sahvir Wheeler Breaks Through in New Role in Kentucky's 69-53 Win Over Vanderbilt

The polarizing point guard totaled 22 minutes off the bench in Kentucky's road win over the Commodores on Tuesday, signifying a new role for the senior.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Senior point guard Sahvir Wheeler has surrounded the biggest talking points of the season for Kentucky basketball. 

Just one year after finishing as a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award, Wheeler became the scapegoat of the Wildcats' 2022-23 roster and a catalyst for some polarizing conversation. 

When things weren't going well for the Cats in the first half of the season, he was often at the forefront of where the blame was placed — after coach John Calipari, of course. The offense wasn't clicking, and the combinations of lineups that often included Wheeler looked like Calipari was trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. 

Everything that was wrong with the Wildcats came to a roaring boil when South Carolina left Rupp Arena with a 71-68 win on Jan. 10. Kentucky felt broken beyond repair. Big Blue Nation felt gloom, as did the program. Changes had to be made. 

Change did come — sooner rather than later. The Cats somehow clawed their way to a monstrous win over No. 5 Tennessee in Knoxville just four days after the loss to the Gamecocks. That performance came without Wheeler in the lineup, as he was out due to a shoulder injury. 

A six-man rotation of Cason Wallace, CJ Fredrick, Antonio Reeves, Chris Livingston, Jacob Toppin and Oscar Tshiebwe emerged as the group that could take Kentucky to the promised land. Calipari acknowledged that the proof was in the pudding, as demonstrated by who played a bulk of the minutes in UK's following two games. 

Wheeler would return from injury the following Tuesday to play against Georgia — his former school — on his birthday. All that would amount for the Houston native, however, was 10 minutes of PT, two turnovers, three assists and zero points. Not a great present.

After the game, Calipari told reporters that it "wasn't brain surgery" and that the game dictated itself in a way that UK didn't benefit from having Wheeler on the floor. 

It wouldn't be a one-off, either. The following Saturday against Texas A&M, Wheeler saw even less time, playing just seven minutes, again failing to score. Wallace and the new starting group were clicking — and winning games. Wheeler seemed to have lost a truly meaningful spot in the lineup. 

Opportunity — as it always does — eventually arrived again on Tuesday night in Nashville. It just didn't come to Wheeler the way things traditionally have throughout his college career. He opened UK's win against Vanderbilt on the bench, but eventually totaled 22 minutes, adding four points and five assists to the stat sheet in a true spark plug manner. 

After the game, Wheeler gave a mature response when asked about learning to accept what could be his new role moving forward for the rest of the season: 

"Those guys who've been playing the past couple of games are the guys who've been winning games. That's the group that went and popped Tennessee. At the end of the day we're at Kentucky, I'm playing with some really good players. Sometimes that's okay. You gotta learn to live with that and learn to grow from it and be mature about it, because those guys deserve to play as much as anybody else. Those guys are fighting in practice, working their tails off, paying attention to details, they deserve that. Today it was just my turn to kind of give us some energy. I did that, but you got to give all of the credit to these guys cause they were the ones who were in there when I wasn't."

The latest win over the Commodores improved UK's winning-streak to four games, but also unlocked a new niche for the veteran point guard. After struggling through a brunt of the season, his teammates and Calipari were overwhelmed with joy to see a bit of a breakthrough on Tuesday:

"Sahvir was great tonight," Fredrick jutted in to say after Wheeler's aforementioned answer. "He comes in every single day with the leadership mentality, and he's been ready to go and he was ready tonight. He's gonna continue to do that. You know, he's our guy. We have tremendous faith in Sahvir. That's just the kind of guy he is, every day he brings it. Great in practice, today he was the reason that we got up so big ... he was that ignite we needed today."

"I kissed him, I said 'I'm about ready to cry.' I know what he's been through. You don't. Some people out there that threw stuff at this kid. You don't know what it does," Calipari exclaimed. "Everybody respects who he is as a player and respects that he's taken on another role. And he's being an all star at that. It didn't change anything about his game. He gets to watch the game for a few minutes before he steps in."

It wasn't just Wheeler, as Kentucky had chemistry issues as a team for the first stretch of the season. The mixture of new players with veterans didn't see immediate dividends, as the gelling process took much longer than everyone — even Calipari —  expected. 

"A natural progression is they worry about themselves first," he said. "Because they're trying to establish who they are. Which means you're thinking more inward, so you're not doing the team outward stuff you need to do. We couldn't even do a scatter reporter we couldn't because everybody was worried about themselves. It's natural. I'm not downing anybody or but it is a natural progression." 

As Calipari's declared a million times before, UK isn't for everybody. The highs are high, but the lows are low. Wheeler is someone who's been at the top and bottom of the mountain, playing through plenty of cheers and jeers. 

"Being at Kentucky, really hard being here. You struggle, it's an avalanche. It is, and it's personal and it's nasty," Calipari said. "It's okay, because the other side of it is, there's no better place to go if you want to build yourself, get yourself mentally tough and strong and present yourself on the biggest stage, which is Kentucky basketball. But the other side, it's hard. It's a difficult road, but I'm so proud of them."

The evolution of Wheeler's role is ever-changing, but the time to buy stock appears to be now. 

More on the win over Vanderbilt HERE.

Game notes from the victory can be found HERE.

Four of UK Basketball's 2023 signees are McDonald's All-Americans. 

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