Calipari says Kentucky could be without two or three players vs. Alabama

Kentucky’s injury woes may extend beyond TyTy Washington. John Calipari just told reporters that Kentucky could be without two or three players tomorrow vs. Alabama. He didn’t list names, but Washington is obviously dealing with a left lower leg injury, Sahvir Wheeler was seen grabbing his wrist at the end of the Tennessee game, and Jacob Toppin has been working his way back from an ankle injury.

“We’ll see,” Calipari said this morning. “I don’t know. I haven’t been at practice yet so we could be a couple down. Two or three down. I don’t know yet.”

Washington initially suffered the lower leg injury last Saturday vs. Florida when Gators guard Brandon McKissic crashed into him while going after a loose ball. After looking at X-rays, John Calipari said Washington was day-to-day. He suited up vs. Tennessee and tried to give it a go, but was clearly not 100%. Less than a minute into the second half, Washington limped to the bench and watched the rest of the game from the sidelines, clearly frustrated.

“He wanted to play,” Calipari said of TyTy today. “He wanted to help his team win. It’s hard to do that at 75-80%. You can’t. When you watch what we did, we started how we wanted to start and I liked where it was going, but his fight to want to win, it’s how he plays. He’s not worried about stats and you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that. He doesn’t listen to it. He shuts his phone off. The guys that listen have the weight of the world on them. You’ve got the weight of the world on you. Blame it on whoever you want to blame it on but he doesn’t do that.

“But again, I’ve got to protect him at times from himself. His body language, he was mad it happened. Not mad at anything else. He knew he couldn’t go in because I wasn’t going to let him back in.”

Next men up: Bryce Hopkins and Dontaie Allen?

On his radio show Wednesday, Calipari hinted that he might sit some players for a few games to make sure the team is healthy for March. He expanded on that this morning.

“The first thing has to be about the players. If they need to sit, they need to sit, and then I’ll figure it out. It’s not resting them. It’s that they’re not capable of playing at 100% and why would you do that? To win one more game? To improve your seeding? Well, it’s about them. So, the decision was not — with TyTy, my gut said not play him because he didn’t seem right. At halftime, when I grabbed him, I said, ‘Why don’t you sit out. Are you okay?’ I said, ‘Listen. If I see you limping at all, I’m taking you out and that’s it.’ These kids want to play so bad so there are times as a coach you’ve got to make decisions that are in their best interest for them. Sometimes you’ve got to. And then it’s next man up.”

Those next men up could be Bryce Hopkins and Dontaie Allen, who Davion Mintz said both had a really good practice yesterday. Calipari said he had hoped to play the two more at Tennessee, but with how the game went, it didn’t happen.

“I think we have a full roster of guys that have practiced. I told you last game, Dontaie [Allen] and Bryce, it wasn’t fair, I didn’t get mad — I haven’t played them a lot of games. But now, alright. You’ve got a chance. You’ve got to help our team win.”

Last week, Calipari talked about the importance of fresh legs and fresh minds heading into March. Even though he doesn’t like to scrimmage a lot in practice this late in the season, the number of injuries Kentucky’s dealing with has forced his hand.

“Yesterday we practiced live. We went at each other and I’ll be honest with you, some of today I’m going to go live because some guys are going to end up having to play and I don’t want to hear — when you get your chance, you prove you should be playing more. Daimion [Collins] did it last time. Bryce is going to have opportunities — I believe. Unless something plays different. I don’t know.”

“At the end of the day, we still have a lot of time left. My concern right now is, alright, we’ve got to get healthy here. Let’s see how we do that.”