What Zvonimir Ivisic did Tuesday night in Starkville didn’t match the electric scene of his Kentucky basketball debut or the statistical excellence of his performance three days earlier.
Not even close.
But for Ivisic, what happened over the course of UK’s 91-89 victory at Mississippi State might go down as the turning point in his season.
The 7-foot-2 freshman from Croatia scored only two points and missed four of the five shots he put up. Yet, there he was at the end, on the court during the final minute of a toss-up game after huffing and puffing his way through the second half.
By the end, Ivisic had played 21 minutes, a new career high. In a two-point win, the Wildcats outscored Mississippi State by 17 with Big Z on the court — the best plus-minus on the team, six points better than star of the night Reed Sheppard and 11 better than anyone else in blue.
“It’s telling you that he’s getting better. He’s getting more confident,” John Calipari said the following night on his weekly radio show. “And most of his confidence — where it’s gotta grow — is on the defensive end. And he physically fought.” And that last bit — at this point in Ivisic’s first and possibly only season of college basketball — is what his coach cares about the most.
Anyone who watched his scintillating debut against Georgia on Jan. 20 already knew that Ivisic could put the ball in the hoop. In the two and a half minutes starting with his first shot attempt as a Wildcat that day, Ivisic nailed three 3-pointers (plus a long 2), an unbelievable flurry in front of the Rupp fans.
And then, he largely disappeared.
Z emerged a couple of weeks later with 11 points in 12 minutes in a 109-77 rout of Vanderbilt, but everyone got in on the action that night. Afterward, Calipari made no promises. He said, seemingly annoyed, that Ivisic had missed a whole bunch of practice with a long list of excuses. “Things that I didn’t even realize could happen. And, I just (said), ‘Kid, do you ever want to play here?’”
Ivisic played 11 minutes in UK’s next game — a loss to Gonzaga — and then largely disappeared for another two weeks.
The day before Kentucky played Alabama last weekend, Calipari said he had a hunch.
“I made a decision yesterday that I was going to play Z,” the UK coach said after that 117-95 win. “And I did get some pushback. But I said, ‘Nope.’ When I wake up and my gut says that’s what I should do, then I’m doing it. He’s waited his turn.”
That day, Ivisic wowed again. He scored 18 points, grabbed five rebounds, blocked four shots and found himself on the court for 20 minutes. It wasn’t the offense that impressed Calipari.
“It’s all physical play,” he said. “Are you physical enough to stay in games?”
On that day, he was.
But there were still questions.
