PHILADELPHIA — When Quade Green went down with a back injury in early January, missing a couple of weeks of action, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander stepped into the starting point guard role for the Kentucky Wildcats and never looked back.

However, even as the blossoming Kentucky star — who was just named the MVP of the SEC Tournament — has turned himself into a likely lottery pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, Green has continued to play a big role off the bench. Fortunately for coach John Calipari and the Wildcats, Green has some experience in that role, dating to his freshman year at Neumann-Goretti High School in Philadelphia, where he was coming off the bench behind another future Power 5 player.

Back then, Green was used by coach Carl Arrigale as an energy and defense guy off the bench, spelling starter Ja’Quan Newton, who plays for the Miami Hurricanes.

“He played his role well for us that year,” Arrigale said. “I’m sure, the competitor he is, it killed him to not be out there more, but he came back and was a three-year starter and had a terrific career for us.”

Green won four state championships in high school, but Arrigale said the star point guard wasn’t counted on to be the team’s primary ball-handler until his senior year.

“He’s kind of just playing his role,” Arrigale said. “He can make an impact in so many ways. In the (SEC Tournament) semifinal game (a big win over Alabama), he had eight assists, and that’s without the ball being in his hands a whole lot.

“He’d prefer to play with the ball in his hands, but he didn’t really have the ball in his hands a whole lot for us until he was a senior, so he knows how to play without the ball.”

Following Green’s eight-assist performance against Alabama, he had 10 points against Tennessee in the final, so he can affect the outcome of a game in a number of different ways.

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Understandably, Arrigale has caught quite a few Kentucky games this year (in addition to keeping up with some of his other former players at the Division I level). He said the key to Green’s game is confidence.

“They’re on TV all the time,” he said. “Unless we were playing or practicing at the time and I couldn’t avoid it — even then I’d tape it most of the time — I saw pretty much all of his games.

“When he’s played with confidence and purpose, he’s been really good. There were a few games where he was trying to figure out what coach wanted from him that he was a little tentative, at times.”

As the Wildcats prepare for a first-round game against Davidson on Thursday night, Green could play a big role. Arrigale is confident Kentucky can win the first game, but added that the Selection Committee made the path difficult for the Wildcats.

“They seem to be playing better at the right time of the year,” he said. “They finally got some things figured out. They seem to be in a good place right now. I don’t think the committee did them any favors though.”

Indeed, a tough Arizona team could be waiting for Kentucky in the second round. However, Arrigale will be rooting for Green to continue advancing. He won’t get a chance to see Green and Kentucky meet up with Newton’s Hurricanes in the Elite Eight; Miami lost its first-round game on a 3 at the buzzer earlier Thursday.

But Arrigale also coached Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree, who is at Villanova.

“It would be kind of neat if I could sneak two guys in the Final Four,” he said.

Arrigale said he doesn’t think Green is ready to leave Kentucky for the NBA just yet, so the former Neumann-Goretti star could retake his position as the Wildcats’ starting point guard after Gilgeous-Alexander likely heads to the 2018 NBA Draft.

For now, though, Arrigale is going to enjoy the tournament (while also trying to win Neumann-Goretti’s fifth consecutive state title) and watching to see what Green can do on Thursday night and beyond.