{"id":83774,"date":"2025-02-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/collin-chandlers-basketball-journey-has-been-full-of-frustration-but-patience-led-to-breakthrough\/"},"modified":"2025-02-20T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T06:00:00","slug":"collin-chandlers-basketball-journey-has-been-full-of-frustration-but-patience-led-to-breakthrough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/collin-chandlers-basketball-journey-has-been-full-of-frustration-but-patience-led-to-breakthrough\/","title":{"rendered":"Collin Chandler\u2019s basketball journey has been \u2018full of frustration,\u2019 but patience led to breakthrough"},"content":{"rendered":"

Collin Chandler <\/a><\/strong>was blunt about his first year in college basketball, especially at an eat-or-be-eaten program like Kentucky. Coming off a two-year mission trip, he didn\u2019t play competitively for two years and was forced to go through a tricky ramp-up process to not only get in game shape and find his feel again, but also test his mental toughness as a first-year hooper in the SEC.<\/p>\n

After a brief high stealing the show in the Blue-White Game, the freshman guard\u2019s season has come with many lows. He earned double-figure minutes in four games in November, then just one in December before sitting four games entirely in January to open SEC play. Chandler had a miniature defensive breakthrough at Tennessee on Jan. 28 before earning extended run vs. Arkansas on February 1, but followed that with a stretch of no more than five minutes in four straight games.<\/p>\n

Then came his breakthrough, going for a career-high seven points on 2-5 shooting while adding six rebounds, two assists and two steals in 15 minutes off the bench in the 82-61 win over Vanderbilt. The patience paid off \u2014 no matter how difficult it may have been.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve grown a lot mentally,\u201d Chandler said following the win.<\/a> \u201cI thought I was mentally tough coming in, but it\u2019s been a lot of learning, a lot of patience. Just coming in the summer and not being able to play right away, trying to get used to everything, it\u2019s been an experience that has been full of frustration. It\u2019s helped me a lot and I\u2019m gonna continue to grow. <\/p>\n

\u201cBasketball is a game of frustration, so I\u2019m gonna continue to try to respond to that. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned.\u201d<\/p>\n

His teammates have been watching the process unfold from behind the scenes, witnessing the hard work as Chandler fought for this day. They knew it was coming, a matter of when <\/em>not if.<\/em> <\/p>\n

It was an all-around effort with scoring, rebounding, playmaking and defense that directly contributed to winning.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe played great tonight,\u201d Amari Williams said of Chandler. \u201cYou talk about him at point guard, but on the boards, he was a menace, too. He was grabbing every board at the highest point. He brought a lot to us tonight, he really helped us. \u2026 Just the confidence he\u2019s had bringing the ball up the floor and his rebounding, that was very underrated. He was great tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m super proud of him, super happy to see how hard he works and everything,\u201d Andrew Carr added. \u201cHe wants to be able to step up and we knew it was going to happen for him. He\u2019s done a great job in practice for us, so being able to see those results on the floor was really special. I\u2019m really proud of him, he did an awesome job tonight. He\u2019s playing super hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was there a specific moment in practice that led to the breakthrough? Carr noticed a clear change after the holidays. Something had clicked with the freshman guard, Chandler finally starting to figure things privately before he was able to show it off in a live game setting. <\/p>\n

\u201cI could just see \u2014 everybody, especially as a freshman, they have those moments where you feel like you\u2019re really starting to figure it out,\u201d Carr said. \u201cCredit to him, he\u2019s continued to stick with it. That was a couple of months ago and we\u2019re just now getting to the tip of the iceberg for him now. It\u2019s been a long time coming for him. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen it, we\u2019ve known it. I\u2019m super proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chandler had his best game as a Wildcat against the Commodores, but his head coach believes there is more where that came from as February turns to March.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plays he made today, he\u2019s been making in practice,\u201d Mark Pope said. <\/a>\u201cHe is going to help us in a huge way as we move down the stretch.\u00a0I was really proud of him tonight. \u2026 The conversation we kept having was we know exactly where he\u2019s going to end up.\u00a0He\u2019s an incredibly special talent.\u00a0Like, he\u2019s a really special talent.\u00a0We know where he\u2019s going to end up. It\u2019s just a matter of \u2014 we don\u2019t know how the zig-zag path is going to get you there, right?\u00a0He\u2019s been working so hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welcome to the show, Collin Chandler. At long last, the top-35 recruit and Pope\u2019s very first high school signee after taking the Kentucky job has arrived.<\/p>\n

The post Collin Chandler\u2019s basketball journey has been \u2018full of frustration,\u2019 but patience led to breakthrough<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Collin Chandler was blunt about his first year in college basketball, especially at an eat-or-be-eaten…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}