Kentucky staff working to address Aaron Bradshaw's foul trouble

ZGeogheganKSR

Aaron Bradshaw was one of the top shot blockers in all of high school basketball before coming to Kentucky. With a 7-foot-1 frame and an equally long wingspan, he ate up shots in the paint like candy. But outside of his performance against Penn earlier this season, his rim protection has left plenty to be desired.

Part of the reason why is he can’t stop fouling long enough to stay on the floor.

Bradshaw has recorded at least three fouls in six of his eight games played this season, including three outings with four fouls. He’s picking up 5.5 fouls per 40 minutes of on-court action, which leads Kentucky’s top eight rotation players by a decent margin. The freshman center struggles to keep his arms straight up when an opposing player — whether it be a big or a guard — goes at him, and it usually results in foul after foul.

Kentucky’s most recent outing — a tough overtime loss to Texas A&M on the road — put this on display more than any of his previous games. Bradshaw played just six minutes against the Aggies due to non-stop foul trouble. He was tagged with his first personal just 15 seconds into the contest. Less than three minutes later, Bradshaw was already sitting on the bench after failing to keep his arms vertical against a driving Texas A&M player, which resulted in an and-one finish and his second personal foul.

Brashaw would sit for the remainder of the first half, only to get pulled once more just 24 seconds into the second after picking up his third. He returned again at the 11:05 mark, but was hit with his fourth personal less than a minute later and again went to the bench. Three of his four fouls were a direct result of poor defensive discipline.

Bradshaw’s inability to go straight up on defense is not only hurting his own play, it’s hurting the team’s. Head coach John Calipari had to bring in Ugonna Onyenso and played him for a career-high 31 minutes against Texas A&M. While Onyenso finished with seven points, 10 rebounds, and five blocks, the film shows a handful of mistakes on defense. After playing 35 minutes against Florida and then nearly all 40 against Missouri, Tre Mitchell was gassed by the time he played 44 minutes against Texas A&M.

Kentucky simply can’t afford for Bradshaw to find himself in foul trouble this often, especially with sophomore wing Adou Thiero still recovering from a back injury. The coaching staff is working to make sure it doesn’t.

“I think it’s doing his work a little bit sooner, positioning-wise,” Kentucky associate coach Orlando Antigua said Tuesday about Bradshaw’s foul troubles. “Some of it is protecting his body, which is why his hands were going out that way. We had a couple of good film sessions with him so he can see what we’re seeing and try to help him to improve that.“

The main issue, according to Antigua, has to deal with adapting to the college game. The same shots Bradshaw was blocking in high school aren’t as easy against multi-year SEC players weighing 200-plus pounds. The discipline to stay strong and be vertical just isn’t there yet for a freshman center with less than 160 college minutes under his belt.

“Initially, when you’ve got guards that are coming downhill, you want to go vertical,” Antigua added. “Sometimes that becomes a little more difficult than it sounds. Dealing with other bigs, you try to wall up and be strong and hold your core and be big. And then allow for the weakside defenders to come and block shots.

“We just want to contest those shots. We want to block everybody else’s shot but when you’re guarding the ball and your man, we just want to contest those shots, not leave our feet, not put them to the free throw line, and that takes a little bit of time when you’re entire life your instincts have been to leave your feet to try and go block it.”

It’s not going to get fixed after just a couple of practices, but something needs to change soon. Bradshaw is a key piece in raising Kentucky’s ceiling to national championship contender. It’s lowered when he spends more time on the bench than in the game.