John Calipari says he shouldn't have played TyTy Washington

After suffering a lower leg injury vs. Florida on Saturday, TyTy Washington wanted to give it a go tonight at Tennessee. Unfortunately, the freshman guard was not 100%. TyTy finished with four points, three assists, and three turnovers in 12 minutes. He started the second half but after taking an awkward step, limped to the bench 45 seconds in. For the remainder of the game, Washington watched from the sidelines, looking frustrated and miserable.

“If I had to do it over, I would not play TyTy,” John Calipari said afterward. “I shouldn’t have played him. I asked him twice, ‘Why don’t you just step back?’ He said, ‘I can do this.’ And then I was going to not play him in the second half and I did and I called him in and said, ‘Look, just–‘ ‘I can do it.’ I should have just gone with my gut.”

Calipari said he was unsure whether Washington reaggravated his injury and what his status is moving forward.

“I don’t know yet. I don’t know. We’ll have to see. We’ve got some time. We’ve got a few days before we have to play again so we’ll see if he’s going to be able to go.”

Jacob Toppin said TyTy’s willingness to play showed how much he cares about this team, but after his scare at the start of the second half, they want to make sure he’s 100% before he takes the floor again.

“It means a lot. He’s a strong player mentally and physically. That just shows how much he wants to win, just to go out there and sacrifice his body and play for this team, to help us try and win. But at the end of the day, he was frustrated. I went up to him, our teammates went up to him to tell him to keep his head high. ‘You can’t do anything about injuries; they happen. Just get healthy.’ We need him for the long run so we’ve got to make sure he’s healthy before he comes back.”

Sahvir Wheeler also seemed to hurt his wrist late in the game, but Calipari didn’t have an update on his status.

“We don’t know. I just took him out. Wrist or how he was playing, I just took him out at the end of the game. Let’s finish the game.”

Get well soon, Cats.