John Calipari on TyTy Washington, Sahvir Wheeler's injuries

TyTy Washington exited today’s game vs. Auburn after falling awkwardly on Oscar Tshiebwe’s foot at the 8:20 mark in the first half. At the time, Kentucky was up by nine. The Cats took a four-point lead into halftime but were dealt another blow in the second half when Sahvir Wheeler hit the deck after running into a screen by Walker Kessler at the 11:28 mark. Wheeler left the game and eventually returned, but went down again in the final minutes. Without TyTy for 32 minutes and Wheeler in stretches, the Cats couldn’t pull off the upset, falling to the No. 2 Tigers 80-71.

After the game, John Calipari had no updates on Washington’s ankle.

“Don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not going to deal with [scenarios without him] because I don’t know. I’m not going to do hypotheticals.”

While Calipari didn’t have an update on Washington, he did get a good look at Wheeler once he returned to the game. He even encouraged his starting point guard to sit the final four minutes, but Wheeler refused.

“I’m worried about Sahvir. I told him in the last four minutes, ‘Why don’t you just come out?’ He said, ‘No, I’m going to finish.’ Look, at the end of the day, I’m coaching someone’s child and if he can’t play this week and TyTy can’t play this week, they’re hurt. They can’t play. Now other guys have a chance to step up and show what they are or what they’re not.”

Washington and Wheeler’s impact

It’s unclear how long Washington will be out. What is clear is how much the freshman guard means to this squad.

“It hurts us,” Cal said of not having TyTy in the game. “He’s a playmaker. Whether he’s on the ball, off the ball, whether we run stuff for him. If he needs to go get a basket, he gets it. We don’t have those guys. Sometimes guys think they can do it and they’re in the game and they can’t do it and they say, ‘Well, it’s just.’ It’s just what? And that’s what he does, he goes and gets it for us.”

Kellan Grady and Oscar Tshiebwe echoed those remarks.

“TyTy is a playmaker for us, another scorer,” Grady said. “He’s our second-leading scorer. So in a big game like this, you take away 14 points per game, it’s as simple as that. We’ve got other guys who are able to step up but he made some nice play even in those nine minutes he was in there and I think that could have helped us. Even with me mentioning that it’s not an excuse. Like I said, I still think we had the potential to win this game.”

“Missing TyTy was big, big loss for us,” Tshiebwe said. “TyTy, he’s got a lot of different game. TyTy can really shoot the middle range, finish at the rim, make the pass so I think when he got hurt, that really hurt us a little bit. I think we had a chance to still win the game even without him. We just gave up some easy buckets, easy turnovers.”

Get well soon, TyTy and Sahvir.