The Ole Miss Hoops Handbook: TJ Caldwell

OXFORD, Miss. — Welcome back. Today’s installment marks the third edition of “The Ole Miss Hoops Handbook.”  The first two editions took a look at two major contributors from last year’s team in Matthew Murrell and Jaemyn Brakefield. If you haven’t had the chance, you can take a look at those articles here. Today, we take a look at sophomore guard TJ Caldwell.

Editor’s note: This “Ole Miss Hoops Handbook” series is set to help the Ole Miss community get familiar with these players and help build excitement for the upcoming season. Every day, The Rebel Walk will highlight an individual player to breakdown his game and describe what you can look forward to and where we can look for more growth this season.

Each player’s breakdown consists of notes from both the summer scouting and some re-watch of film this fall. On top of game film, an analysis was then formed alongside a statistical breakdown from several different sources. I have watched multiple games for each player to help give an accurate picture of their game. In an effort to give a better view, I tried to watch one game where a player had larger success statistically and one where his impact may have been overlooked by the box score.

Let’s take a look at today’s focus player: TJ Caldwell

Last year and the offseason:

Prior to arriving to Oxford, TJ Caldwell was recruited by several high major schools. He chose to commit to Ole Miss on Oct. 1st of 2021. During his freshman season, Caldwell was one-half of a freshman guard duo that saw a good amount of playing time at both the 1 & the 2 spots last season.

Caldwell quickly found time in the lineup and started in two different stretches last season. On the year, he made 31 appearances with seven starts. In his first year, Caldwell averaged 4.7 PPG, 1.6 REB, and 1.2 AST per game and reached the double-digit scoring mark on five separate occasions. Some notable performances for Caldewell came against quality opponents in Oklahoma State (1/28) and Kentucky (1/31).

at Oklahoma State (1/28): 12 PTS | 2 REB | 1 AST | 2 STL | 5 -14 FG | 2 – 5 3PT FG

 vs Kentucky (1/31): 12 PTS | 3 REB | 2 AST | 4 – 13 FG | 1 – 6 3PT FG

After the season ended, Caldwell announced via social media his intention to stay at Ole Miss after the announced hire of new head coach Chris Beard. Recently at SEC Tipoff ’24, Cocach Beard offered high praise about the potential for Caldwell’s game this upcoming season.

Head coach Chris Beard

The Breakdown

Caldwell was one of the more intriguing players from this Ole Miss team last year. His physical gifts show up — we’ve heard Coach Beard talk about it, Kermit Davis did, and it shows when you watch his film. He has a good size with the length, quickness and ability to guard multiple positions. He can guard any position on the perimeter, adding another versatile piece to this Ole Miss roster.

At times last year, Caldwell and Amaree Abram both were called upon to be the lead guard for Ole Miss and to continue to keep things competitive which can be a tough call for any freshman guard. Add in the lingering injuries that Ole Miss suffered, and it makes things even more of an uphill battle for a young player.

Through all of that, Caldwell flashed instances of what makes him a unique player, and most importantly we saw consistent growth from him on the court. The ceiling for him and his game is high. As the season wore on, we saw Caldwell begin to string together better performances and saw an uptick in minutes. Most importantly, it felt like we saw his game start to take shape. With the gifts that he has physically and his budding shot, it was really about how Caldwell was going to put it all together.

The entire month of January and the beginning matchup of February produced a 10-game run where Caldwell logged 20+ minute outings in eight out of the ten games.

Now let’s get into what makes TJ Caldwell an interesting piece for this Ole Miss team. The team site has him listed at 6-foot-4 and 190 lbs. He provides good size for a combo guard who can slide into multiple slots in the lineup.

Caldwell excelled in transition last year where he had a 52.4 FG%. He has that extra burst to get going and can be somewhat of a blur, paired with incredible bounce with a vertical that hovers somewhere in the 42-45″ area. At times he tried to go a little too quick in transition, and it did lead to him trying to finish by beating guys to one side of the rim instead of finishing over guys.

I would love to see TJ work on exploding vertically more when he attacks; there are not a lot of people who are going to go up and challenge a guy whose head is at the rim when he gets a clear path to the hoop. Caldwell shot 38% on layups last year compared to 71% of his dunk attempts.

Once he begins to use his outlier verticality to the best of his ability, there is high-end potential for his game and how he can operate.

He is another player who should see more success in a Chris Beard-style offense. He and Brakefield were two players who were consistently moving around the court on offense and will find more opportunities with structure added to that.

In the halfcourt setting, we saw Caldwell make strides last year. Ole Miss let him operate and make more reads as the year went on, especially when he began to get more reps at the point guard position. I was pleasantly surprised to see him makes reads off of screens.

He really started to gain confidence in pull-ups in the mid-range out of these opportunities, which is a shot that he can rise up and get frequently. As the year went on, he also began to hit weak-side secondaries for looks, and this was especially noticeable in the Kentucky game. The offense converted at a 53% mark whenever the defense was forced to commit to him.

He is really smooth with the ball in his hands and has a fairly tight handle. Overall, Caldwell has good ball skills. His near 1:1 AST to TO ratio could have been a cause for concern, but rewatching film I noticed it wasn’t off him getting the ball stolen from but from errant passes in situations where he threw where his teammate was supposed to be or where he wanted them to be. I have it on good sourcing that things for Caldwell are slowing down and he’s seeing the game better this year, so I think this will be an area we see some dramatic improvement.

Caldwell’s shot mechanics are solid and we could see a slight uptick in his percentages. In his last year of high school, there was growth in his shot and he had good shooting indicators of touch where that trajectory may continue upward. There were a couple of instances of shot creation that were intriguing, including flashes of a turnaround jumper as the season wore on. As Caldwell begins to find more comfort on the offensive end, it will be interesting to see other instances of creation occur.

On the defensive end, there is a lot of excitement with Caldwell. Aside from the physicals, he’s very attentive on that end of the court, and he excels at staying in correct guarding position. He really was impressive later on in the season at maneuvering around screens and trailing around screens on the hip. He was ranked in the 88th percentile in isolation defense last season where he held opponents to 14.3% from the field.

I would like to go back to that Kentucky game one last time to note this. In that game, Caldwell guarded Sahvir Wheeler, CJ Frederick, and Antonio Reeves. He guarded the first two mostly, and they are vastly different types of players. Wheeler is a true offensive force in running an offense, and CJ Frederick is one of the better perimeter shooters in the country. The duo went a combined 2-10 in that contest.

Overall, TJ Caldwell is very likely to take another step forward in his improvement this season. With unique tools on both ends of the court, he is a player who is figuring out how he can affect the game. We can look forward to seeing a more confident player who could really take that next step on the defensive end while continuing to show flashes of offensive potential with or without the ball.

Check back with us as we continue “The Ole Miss Hoops Handbook” as we work our way to the first game of the season.