Kenny Payne: Louisville didn't have tights Ty-Laur Johnson wanted, so 'he didn't know if he wanted to play'

Wednesday night, as Louisville took on Bellarmine at the KFC Yum! Center, Ty-Laur Johnson only played three minutes in the first half. He finished the night with eight points and five assists in 18 minutes of action, but his absence for most of the first half was interesting since he entered the game fifth in scoring.

The reason Johnson didn’t play right away, according to head coach Kenny Payne, was apparently an issue with the type of tights the program had.

“Are you ready for this? I probably shouldn’t tell you this. We didn’t have the tights that he wanted, so he didn’t know if he wanted to play,” Payne said in his postgame press conference. “Oh, yeah. You heard it. We didn’t have the tights that he wanted — that we’d never had for him — and he decided, ‘I don’t feel like I can go.'”

Louisville ultimately came away with the 73-68 victory after outscoring Bellarmine 51-41 in the second half, but Payne seemed almost in disbelief when describing why Johnson didn’t play right away in the game.

“That’s what young people do. … I don’t even know,” Payne said. “But he figured it out in the second half. He accepted the fact that we didn’t have the tights that we’ve never had for him, and he played. And he played well.”

Ty-Laur Johnson entered Wednesday’s game averaging 9.0 points and 3.5 assists per game through the first six games of his freshman season. A product of Our Saviour Lutheran School (N.J.), he was a four-star recruit and the No. 88-ranked prospect in the nation from the 2023 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

Johnson’s biggest game came on Nov. 14 when he had 14 points in Louisville’s 81-80 loss to Texas.

Louisville’s 2023 recruiting class ranked No. 9 in the nation, according to the On3 Industry Team Recruiting Ranking, with four-star center Dennis Evans coming in as the biggest piece of the group from the high school level. Illinois transfer Skyy Clark leads the Cardinals with 16.8 points per game so far, and he had a game-high 21 points against Bellarmine.

With the victory Tuesday night, Louisville is now 4-3 through the first seven games of the year. The Cardinals will now turn their attention to an ACC opponent this weekend when they take on Virginia Tech on the road on Sunday.