Kellan Grady out of sync against tight Tennessee defense

Kellan Grady, Kentucky’s ever-reliable sharpshooter, was nowhere to be found on Tuesday night.

During a 76-63 loss against the No. 16 Tennessee Volunteers, the former Davidson transfer looked more like the player from early November than the one who has been bending opposing defenses with the same type of gravity typically reserved for the likes of Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson. It wasn’t his worst overall performance from a production standpoint, as Grady still knocked in two triples, the eighth consecutive game he’s done so for UK.

But that was all he provided. Playing a game-high 37 minutes, Grady finished with just six points on 2-9 shooting, including a 2-6 mark from distance. He also picked up three personal fouls for just the second time all year. It was his first game since facing Texas A&M all the way back on Jan. 19 where he failed to reach double-figures in scoring. Grady was hesitant for most of the evening, passing up an open look early in the evening and refusing to take a single shot attempt until there was 4:19 left in the first half with Kentucky already down by 13.

To put it lightly, he looked completely lost and out of sync.

Zero shot attempts for Kellan Grady through 13 minutes.

— Jack Pilgrim (@JackPilgrimKSR) February 16, 2022

Plenty of credit is due to the Tennessee defense, though. The Volunteers came into the night with the sixth-best defense in the country, per KenPom, and built on that through the energy of its exuberant crowd. Grady was lucky to find a couple of inches of space coming off any screen as Vol defender was constantly attached at his hip. Opposing teams are shooting 33.0 percent from distance against UT this season. Kentucky shot just 5-16 (31.3 percent) for the evening as the Vols defense made it a focal point to prevent the ‘Cats, specifically Grady, from heating up.

“They were all over him. Even the one he had late, he wasn’t prepared to shoot it and they were flying at him. We were trying to get him free off of screens, he couldn’t get open. He could not get himself open,” UK head coach John Calipari said of Grady postgame. “And that is, he’s working harder than you. You’re working to get open and he’s working to stop you from getting open. You’re never open. What does that mean? Wish he would have shot a couple more balls.”

Grady managed to load up on some shots near the end of the first half, chucking up four triples over four minutes with just one falling. But coming out of the halftime break, he was lost once again. He didn’t attempt another field goal until missing a layup with 11:30 left in the second half. His first 3-point look of the half didn’t come until the four-minute mark, which he drilled, although UK was down by nearly 20 points at the time.

As Calipari said, Grady was outworked by a Tennessee team that was eager to smack Kentucky in the mouth out of the gate. The Vols had this matchup circled on the calendar ever since losing by 28 points on Jan. 15. Grady popped off for 16 points in that outing, canning four of his seven looks from deep. UT made sure that wouldn’t happen two times in a row, though.

Down in Knoxville, Tennessee had Grady’s number from the opening tip.