{"id":647058,"date":"2026-03-08T12:29:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/647058\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T12:29:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:29:21","slug":"kentucky-did-a-poor-job-of-helping-collin-chandler-find-a-shooting-groove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/647058\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky ‘did a poor job’ of helping Collin Chandler find a shooting groove"},"content":{"rendered":"

Collin Chandler<\/a> came into Saturday\u2019s game shooting 47.2 percent from deep during SEC play. Florida held him to just six total shots, including an 0-3 three-point mark, in a game where Kentucky desperately could have used his outside shooting. <\/p>\n

Chandler finished with just two points against the Gators in 35 minutes of action. His first three-point attempt came within the first 60 seconds of the contest, an off-balance jumper to beat the shot clock buzzer that had little chance of falling in. He didn\u2019t attempt another one until early in the second half.<\/p>\n

Keeping Chandler from exploding was a major emphasis of Florida\u2019s gameplan in round two against the Wildcats.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Xaivian (Lee)\u00a0did a wonderful job on\u00a0Collin\u00a0in the first half,\u201d Florida head coach Todd Golden<\/a> said postgame<\/a>. \u201cHe got us at our place a little bit, made five threes, and\u00a0kind of kept\u00a0them\u00a0in the game.\u00a0That was a key part of our game plan today,\u00a0was\u00a0limiting his\u00a0three-point\u00a0attempts, which I thought X\u00a0did\u00a0a great job\u00a0from start to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in Gainesville on Valentine\u2019s Day, Chandler went 5-7 from distance. Golden wasn\u2019t going to let that happen again in Rupp Arena. The result was Chandler\u2019s lowest scoring output since January 7. <\/p>\n

But there are two sides to that story. Kentucky could have done a better job of finding ways to get its best shooter the ball. The three-point arc is one of the few advanatges UK had against Florida coming into Saturday\u2019s game. Both teams made eight triples apiece on the afternoon. The \u2018Cats just couldn\u2019t get into a flow on offense against a stout Gator defense. That made life tough on Chandler, who generates most of his shot attempts from the perimeter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just felt like we didn\u2019t initiate offense well at all,\u201d Head coach Mark Pope<\/a> said<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cI was surprised, it\u2019s actually been a strength of ours is kind of getting into early offense, and I thought we were poor in that.\u00a0That\u2019s space where it allows us to kind of, without doing a play call, allow Collin to run in some space.\u00a0I thought we did a poor job helping him as a team.\u00a0But yeah, he\u2019s a major focus.\u00a0He\u2019s the best 3-point shooter in the league.\u00a0So, he\u2019s always going to be a huge focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

For most of conference play, Chandler hasn\u2019t had much issue getting good looks from deep. He made multiple three-pointers in 11 of his 17 SEC games coming into the matchup with Florida, including six with at least three makes. It was just a week ago that the sophomore shot 6-8 from three in a huge win over a ranked Vanderbilt team. But then he went 1-5 against Texas A&M a few days ago, following it up with Saturday\u2019s poor performance against the Gators. <\/p>\n

With the postseason beginning next week, now isn\u2019t an ideal time for Kentucky\u2019s best shooter to enter a cold stretch. Chandler could probably do more to get himself into better scoring situations, but he\u2019s also a player who has taken 68 percent of his shots from distance this season. At some point, he has to be more aggressive in trying to find his shots. <\/p>\n

Knowing that he prefers to stay behind the arc makes the defensive scheme that much easier for the opponent. That was the case in another Florida win over Kentucky. <\/p>\n

Join KSR Plus! With a KSR Plus membership, you get access to bonus content and KSBoard, KSR\u2019s message board, to chat with fellow Cats fans and get exclusive scoop.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Collin Chandler came into Saturday\u2019s game shooting 47.2 percent from deep during SEC play. Florida held him to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,14351],"class_list":{"0":"post-647058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-collin-chandler-22-farmington"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}