Kentucky’s CJ Fredrick playing through the pain. Again. ‘He’s got the love of basketball.’

This was supposed to be the season that CJ Fredrick could finally play and not have to worry about the pain. That hasn’t been the case.

Instead of an injury-free first season on the court for the Kentucky Wildcats, the senior guard from Cincinnati has been in and out of the lineup once again. Five years of college basketball, and none of them played at anything close to full health.

A quick recap of what Fredrick — a former Kentucky state champion at Covington Catholic — had been through before this season began:

First year at Iowa: a cracked rib suffered late in the preseason led to a redshirt.

Second year at Iowa: played much of the season on an injured ankle.

Third year at Iowa: after summer surgery to repair a fracture in his right foot, he played through plantar fasciitis in his left foot.

After that, he transferred to Kentucky, was almost immediately diagnosed with a stress fracture in his shin, and — while still recovering — he suffered a torn hamstring that cost him the entire 2021-22 season.

A few weeks before this season began, Fredrick said it was the best he’d felt as a college player. And then came a finger injury on his shooting hand in the Southeastern Conference opener at Missouri — a setback that cost him most of that game and all of the next three. When Fredrick returned, he played the next seven games with a protective wrap over that finger, something that surely affected the sharpshooter’s touch. He was 10-for-39 from deep (25.6 percent) in those seven games.

And in his first game without that wrap, Fredrick went 3-for-6 on three-pointers and helped lead Kentucky to a 72-67 victory over Florida. On that same night, he was fouled on a play at the basket, went barreling out of bounds, and slammed right into a courtside cameraman.

The result: two cracked ribs.

“Honestly, I didn’t really know what was happening,” Fredrick said. “It kind of like knocked the wind out of me. But when you’re in a game like that, you don’t immediately think, ‘Oh, I might have cracked my ribs.’ So, I just went on and played. And the next morning, I was really feeling some discomfort.”

Uncomfortable but still intent on playing, Fredrick gave it a go the following night against Arkansas. He was 0-for-4 from the floor in 21 minutes. Kentucky lost 88-73.

After that, he went in to get a closer look at his ribs, and the injury was discovered.

“I mean, it’s really unfortunate to land on a TV camera,” he said. “But that’s the game. You’ve gotta deal with it.”

While Fredrick was giving that answer, a wry grin creeped in and he let out a brief chuckle. “What else can go wrong?” said the look on his face.

“It’s tough. And it’s frustrating,” Fredrick said. “I can’t do a lot of things I want to do. But, like I said, I gotta play through pain. People gotta play through pain. Everyone’s a little dinged up right now. The medical staff and training staff’s doing a great job with trying to avoid any contact or hits before games. And in the games, just go out there and do what you can do.”

And that’s what he’s been doing.

After sitting out four games following the diagnosis of the two cracked ribs, Fredrick returned to the lineup in UK’s win over Auburn on Feb. 25. But playing through the pain obviously doesn’t help the healing process.

With Sahvir Wheeler sidelined and Cason Wallace injured earlier in UK’s final home game, Fredrick played 28 minutes on Senior Night, ultimately ending with a 68-66 loss to Vanderbilt. Three days later, Wallace and Wheeler — the team’s only two point guards — were both going to miss the regular-season finale at Arkansas.

John Calipari asked Fredrick — a high-IQ veteran known for taking care of the basketball — if he could give him five or six minutes in Fayetteville.

“I’ll do whatever I can,” Fredrick told him.

The 23-year-old guard played 15 minutes that afternoon. He didn’t make a shot from the field, but he dished out four assists, committed no turnovers, and UK pulled off an 88-79 upset.

Afterward, Calipari rewarded his grit by naming him the most impactful player of the game (on a day when Antonio Reeves scored 37 points).

“He didn’t care about stats,” Calipari said a couple of days later. “… He said, ‘I’ll give you whatever I can.’ That’s what he said. And that’s what he did.”

It didn’t feel great.

Fredrick said that heavy load against Vanderbilt a few days earlier had taken a toll. Vandy sets a lot of screens, and Fredrick is the type of player who fights around screens on defense and runs through traffic while trying to get open on offense. He got hit with a screen toward the end of that game, and it set him back from a soreness perspective. The Arkansas game was less than 72 hours later, and by the end of his run against the Hogs, he could barely breathe.

The effort did not go unnoticed.

“What it says about him is that he has grit,” Reeves said. “He wants to play for the team. He loves us. Him just being able to get out there on the floor — even though he’s injured — it means a lot.”

Kentucky star Oscar Tshiebwe felt the same.

“He was hurting,” Tshiebwe said. “I like CJ — he’s got the love of basketball. And he loves and cares about this team. That’s why he came out and did what he did. I will be praying for CJ. I know he’s a person who’s been through a lot in life. But every story — beyond the pain, there’s always something good that happens.”

Fredrick is just 2-for-14 from the field and 1-for-8 on threes since suffering his latest injury. He’s wearing a protective vest over his torso. You don’t have to stare long to see him grimace in pain. He says the injury doesn’t affect his shooting, but he’s also known for not making excuses. Running and absorbing contact at game speed is tough, he concedes. When a reporter joked that he probably wouldn’t be taking a lot of charges from here on out, Fredrick replied with a straight face and a serious tone.

“I’ll do whatever I gotta do right now,” he said.

That’s where he’s at. And with every game from now on — starting Friday night against Providence — being a win-or-go-home contest, Fredrick knows what’s ahead. He hopes it’s a long NCAA Tournament run, six more games with this team.

And then he can recover.

“It really only heals with rest,” he said. “And there’s not a lot of resting right now. So it’s just going to be one of those things. You just gotta deal with it. There’s really nothing else you can do.”

Friday

No. 6 Kentucky vs. No. 11 Providence

What: NCAA Tournament first round

Where: Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina.

When: 7:10 p.m.

TV: CBS

Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1

Records: Kentucky 21-11, Providence 21-11

Series: Kentucky leads 3-0

Last meeting: Kentucky won 58-38 on Nov. 30, 2014, in Lexington

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