What will Cason Wallace do for Kentucky basketball? It probably depends on the day.

More than a year later, John Calipari still vividly remembers the game where he decided that Cason Wallace needed to be a Kentucky Wildcat.

It was the “OK, we gotta have this kid” moment — in Calipari’s words — and it happened at Nike’s Peach Jam, the biggest stage in grassroots basketball. The competition on that day? Shaedon Sharpe, mega Kentucky recruit and soon to be the No. 1 player in every 2022 ranking.

Wallace was on UK’s recruiting radar, too, but he didn’t have a scholarship offer from Calipari, who still needed to see more from the Texas guard before he was ready to pull the trigger.

The Kentucky coach saw enough on that day.

“He went against Shaedon, and he went right at him,” Calipari told reporters in the Bahamas a few days ago. “No fear. And really — physically, and every other way — was like, ‘I’m gonna prove I’m better.’”

Wallace scored 20 points despite taking only 10 shots. He dished out nine assists. He grabbed seven rebounds. He led his team to a 28-point victory over Sharpe’s squad. Calipari watched it all, looked toward the future, and thought it would be “a great thing” if the two could share a backcourt this season. He wanted to see them battle every day in practice. Iron sharpens iron, as he often says.

Obviously, that plan didn’t work out quite the way Calipari envisioned. Both players committed to the Cats, but Sharpe — no UK fan needs reminding — enrolled at Kentucky early and ultimately bolted the program before ever playing a game.

Wallace is here, though. And Calipari is thankful for that.

“I got a player that’s even better than I thought,” he said.

Calipari called up Jeff Webster, who was Wallace’s coach on the Nike circuit, to tell him just that.

“I told you! I told you!” Webster replied, according to Calipari. “He’s a warrior man, this kid.”

Webster is no stranger to Kentucky basketball. He was a coach and mentor to Julius Randle a decade ago, before the five-star recruit ended up at Kentucky and played for Calipari, leading the Cats to the national championship game as a freshman.

Webster is also a former college standout himself at Oklahoma. He was a second-round NBA Draft pick. He’s long been a coach at the highest level of grassroots basketball, overseeing some highly touted prospects early in their development. He doesn’t dish out false praise, and he doesn’t hold back when it comes to Wallace, a player he thinks will have an “instant impact” on Kentucky’s fortunes this season. A player he thinks will thrive no matter what Calipari asks of him.

“Because everything is about winning,” Webster told the Herald-Leader. “Regardless of where you play him and what you expect, he’s going to perform. That’s just what he does. … The kid’s a winner, man.”

Wallace led his ProSkills team to a 12-1 record at Peach Jam last summer, the only defeat coming to the eventual Nike champions. He led his Richardson High School squad to a 32-2 record this past season, the only losses coming to the Arkansas state champs and the Texas state runners-up.

Often, he was tasked with different objectives in different games to get the job done.

“The reason why Cason fits wherever he is is because of that,” Webster said. “It’s not about him. He’s going to do what it takes to win. And, of course, all these kids are inspired to get to the next level, which is the NBA, but Cason has never tried to just skip steps. The steps that he takes is always: if you win, everything else takes care of itself. And as far as looking for personal accolades, that’s never been who he is. His deal was, if he does his job, everybody wins.”

Wallace at Kentucky

What will Wallace need to do for the Wildcats this season? It’s likely to change on a game-to-game basis.

He should be among this UK team’s most gifted scorers. He can pass. He can play on or off the ball. He rebounds well for his position, and he earned the reputation as perhaps the best perimeter defender in all of high school basketball last season.

The stats from these four games in the Bahamas — against lackluster competition — shouldn’t serve as much of a barometer for the upcoming Kentucky season, but Wallace’s ability to show up just about everywhere was impressive nonetheless.

Wallace ended up fifth in points, fifth in rebounds, second in assists, fourth in blocked shots and led the team in steals by a wide margin. He and Jacob Toppin were the only Wildcats to finish in the top five in all of those categories. Wallace also shot 40 percent from three-point range, made 55 percent of his twos, and committed only five turnovers in 89 minutes despite playing plenty on the ball.

This season, he’ll share the backcourt with returning starter Sahvir Wheeler, who should once again play the majority of the minutes in the lead guard spot. Wallace, meanwhile, was viewed as perhaps the best floor general in the 2022 recruiting class, and he’s projected as an NBA lottery pick.

There’s no sign of any sort of power grab for the point guard position, however.

“Cason is a two-way, do-it-all player. He’s been really great in practice,” Wheeler told the Herald-Leader. “He’s getting better. He’s being attentive. He’s picking up on things. I mean, this is Kentucky. Every year — year in and year out — you’re going to get great players and great guards who kind of do everything. So I just can’t wait to get out there and us actually compete against other teams, so we can rack up wins and compete for a national championship.”

Wallace has been just as go-along-to-get-along about the situation, and he says he’s getting better by matching up with Wheeler every day in practice.

“It’s fun going against him,” Wallace told the Herald-Leader. “He’s quick, fast — he does pretty much everything. So I feel like guarding him in practice will help me be able to guard almost anybody that we play against.

“We both can play on the ball or off the ball. So, whoever gets it, pushes it up the court. And we throw it up to one another, and that’s easy points or easy plays for us to make.”

Having two talented players with true point guard skills should give Kentucky’s coaches plenty of options. Calipari has had success with that formula in the past, and it’s likely that Wallace will still get plenty of opportunities to lead the UK offense with the ball in his hands.

One thing the UK coach already knows about Wallace: there won’t be any drama from the 18-year-old who plays and acts much more mature than his age.

“The best players I’ve had have been like this with their emotions,” Calipari said, holding his hand out flat. “He’s like that. Whether he makes shots, misses shots. Whether you’ve passed him up, whether he’s defending. He doesn’t change.”

Defensive stopper

Wallace’s reputation as a lockdown perimeter defender preceded him to Lexington.

Asked a couple of weeks ago if Wallace is really as good on defense as everyone says, UK associate coach Orlando Antigua smiled and replied with one word.

“Yeah,” he said, chuckling to himself.

“He takes a lot of pride in his defense. He takes a lot of pride in being physical,” Antigua continued. “And he is so mature, mentally, for a kid his age.

“It was one of the things that we liked about him in the recruiting process. It was one of his calling cards — his toughness and his desire to defend and match up against and guard the opposing team’s best player. That mentality is special.”

Asked if it was “rare” for a college freshman to take that approach, Antigua took it a step further.

“It’s very rare,” he said.

That defensive effort and ability was apparent from the beginning of this Bahamas trip. Wallace might have missed some shots early on, but he was constantly smothering opponents on the other end. His size, length and athleticism makes him a nightmare for point guards, and he relishes getting up into ball-handlers to force mistakes far away from the basket. He hounds the ball, attacks passing lanes, and fights for loose balls. And he doesn’t care who he’s asked to defend.

“He’s all about winning,” UK assistant coach K.T. Turner said. “You ask him to guard the center, he’s gonna go out and guard the center. With no complaints. He’s a winner.”

And that approach that Calipari noticed during the recruiting process — a rare mentality he’s always looking for in prospective Kentucky players — is showing up every day in practice now, three months before Wallace actually takes the basketball court for games that matter.

Once that time comes, it’ll be difficult for Calipari to keep him off the court.

“The kid is just a blue-collar type of kid,” Webster said. “Regardless of how hard it is, he’s just going to come every day, and bring it. That’s just what he’s going to do. He’s going to bring it. He can take coaching. You can be honest. We always had a thing, ‘Hey, I’m not gonna tell you what you want to hear. I’m gonna tell you what you need to do.’ … He’s just going to do what he needs to do.”

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