A crucial moment in the game arrives, the basketball finds its way into the hands of Collin Chandler, and the Kentucky guard rises up to let one fly.
What is UK teammate Malachi Moreno thinking during those times?
“That shot’s going in.”
Simple as that.
Moreno, typically one to expound on an idea, needed no further explanation on this topic. And those who have been paying attention to Kentucky basketball in recent weeks didn’t need to hear anything more.
The Wildcats have won eight of their past nine games and sit in second place in the SEC standings going into Saturday’s date with the league-leading Florida Gators, and Chandler’s ability to come up with a big play at the best possible moment has been a major part of that success.
“He loves it down the stretch, doesn’t he? I mean, my goodness, he just is putting together play after play after play,” UK head coach Mark Pope said. “I think it’s fun to watch him grow. It’s just fun to watch guys grow, and a lot of times we get stuck evaluating guys’ past and future and who they were before and who they will be forever, just in one moment in time. There’s such a hyper focus on every word a player says, or every play he makes, or everything he does, and then we make a grand evaluation on it. And that’s fun. There’s a funness to that. But what’s great is to watch guys’ growth trajectory. …
“And Collin is making strides. He just keeps getting better and better and better. And he loves the moment. He’s not afraid of the moment. He’s not afraid of all the pressure that comes with it. And he just embraces it.”
That’s what Pope had to say before Kentucky’s 74-71 win over Tennessee on Saturday. How about after the Wildcats completed a comeback from 14 down at halftime to knock off the Vols?
“Collin Chandler continues to be, like, ice in his veins,” Pope said late Saturday night.
The sophomore guard’s go-ahead 3-pointer in the final minute to beat Tennessee might have been his best moment of the season so far. But there’s major competition for that honor.
During this eight-wins-in-nine-games stretch, six of UK’s victories have come by single digits.
And in each of those six games, Chandler has played a major role in crunch time.
He was on the court for the final 12:28 of Kentucky’s 75-74 win at LSU on Jan. 14, coming up with a 3-pointer, two big rebounds that led directly to five UK points and two assists in that stretch. The final play of the game was perhaps the most memorable of the season, with Chandler throwing a length-of-the-floor pass to set up Moreno’s buzzer-beater.
Kentucky guard Collin Chandler smiles after hitting a 3-pointer against the Oklahoma Sooners last week. Ryan C. Hermens
Collin Chandler as Captain Clutch Amid this stretch of timely plays, SEC Network announcer Tom Hart graced Chandler with the nickname “Captain Clutch,” and that moniker has been spreading in UK basketball circles. “I think it’s great,” Chandler said with a smile Saturday night. He’s earned it. And it hasn’t come easy. Everyone who’s followed the Pope era knows Chandler’s story well. Highly touted as a high school recruit, he left basketball behind for two years to go on a Mormon mission and came to Kentucky two offseasons ago in need of a major ramp-up to get back into game shape. As expected, he struggled mightily in year one, going scoreless for a stretch of nearly two months during his freshman season and not making much meaningful contribution until the tail end of the 2024-25 campaign. There were higher hopes for year two — with a full offseason and preseason to prepare — and Chandler was seemingly living up to those expectations, perhaps even exceeding them, in the early going. He scored in double figures in eight of UK’s first nine games — shooting 44.0% from 3-point range over that time — before falling off considerably in early December. Chandler went more than a month without scoring more than seven points in a game. His timing looked off. His confidence appeared shot. Through it all, his coaches and teammates — especially those who had been with him the previous season — kept boosting him up. They told him to keep working hard and his game would fall into place. “It’s such a huge thing in basketball — confidence — and you see it in my teammates and in other people, but it’s also something I feel like you can’t totally do on your own,” Chandler said. “A lot of it you gotta do on your own. But a lot of it is also other people helping you. And that’s a group effort for all of us. And being aware of everyone’s confidence — and where that is, and how we can build it and nurture it — because it’s so important for a team.” Chandler isn’t the only Wildcat benefitting from a confidence boost over the past few weeks, but his big plays have turned him into one of the faces of this Kentucky basketball resurgence. For what seemed like the longest time, Chandler couldn’t get it going in games. But his teammates saw that work behind the scenes and watched those shots go in during practice. And whenever the UK guard got down, those other Cats were there to boost him back up. “You know, confidence is an interesting thing,” Pope said. “Because you don’t have confidence. No one gives you confidence. You go earn confidence.” That’s what Chandler has done. And that was most apparent Saturday night in Rupp Arena.
The defining play of the comeback win over Tennessee was drawn up for Oweh — with the Cats trailing by a point and less than a minute left — to get downhill and make something happen at the basket. The assumption was that the most consistent scorer in the SEC would take that big shot himself, but as he approached the rim and drew in the Vols’ defense, the senior guard saw Chandler on the wing and knew that would be the better shot for his team. “I’m just thankful that it was him, because you know he’s gonna make those big-time shots every single time,” Oweh said after the game. He probably wouldn’t have said that a month ago. Or maybe even two weeks ago. Back then, who knows what Oweh would have decided to do with that ball at that moment. By the time he was put in that situation Saturday night, there was really no other logical choice to consider. As Oweh was talking up Chandler’s big-play ability and celebrating UK’s “make plays for teammates” slogan after the win, Pope walked by nodding his head, a big smile on his face, egging on his star player. Oweh noticed him and shot a big smile back in the coach’s direction. A little while earlier, Pope said the lead-up and aftermath of Chandler’s shot — not necessarily the shot itself — were among his favorite parts of the game. The fact that Oweh let the big shot go spoke to what the Kentucky coach had been trying to instill into this team and the growing trust his top player had in the supporting cast. Afterward, Oweh had gone out of his way to boost Chandler up even more. “And when you earn that from your teammates, then you start to feel like, ‘We got the feel,’” Pope said. Chandler tried to downplay the shot. “What’s special about it is there’s nothing special about it. It’s in the flow of what we’re doing. It’s what we do, right?” he said. “I didn’t do anything special today. Otega got downhill and sprayed it for a 3 as the defense collapses. That’s what we do, right?” That’s what they’re doing now. That hasn’t been the case all season. And while Chandler tried to deflect the specialness of the shot itself, everything that led up to it — the months of hard work, the weeks of clutch play, the moment Oweh drove to the bucket and made that decision to kick it out — was impossible to ignore. The trust Oweh showed in Chandler? That’s what made the shot truly special. “It means the world. That’s something that means a lot, as a player, and it’s something that you fight to earn,” Chandler said. “And I think that’s how you become a great team is earning each other’s trust, because you can’t just trust people. You can say that you trust people automatically, but that’s not how it works. It’s earned. And I’m grateful to have earned that. And we’re continuing to earn each other’s trust and become a better team that way.”
