Kentucky Potentially Facing Minor Injury Issues Ahead of Regular Season
Kentucky men's basketball will open its season in 19 days, taking on the Howard Bison inside Rupp Arena on Nov. 7.
On Wednesday, head coach John Calipari spoke at SEC Media Days, addressing reporters and discussing his upcoming 14th season as skipper of the Wildcats.
Kentucky will play five seniors this season, which if you've followed Wildcats hoops for long enough, you'll know that that's an unusually high number around Lexington.
"We have more veterans than i've had in a long time," Calipari said. "Those veterans are speeding up practice, like we're doing more than we normally do in the first couple of weeks."
While the freshmen are outnumbered for once, they're still packing a punch on the court:
"Our young kids are good," Calipari said. "Cason (Wallace), Chris (Livingston) and even Adou (Thiero), the young players are playing good."
Calipari also noted on Wednesday that the renewal of UK's rivalry with the Indiana Hoosiers is indeed in the works and is currently "agreed in principle."
One currently minor, but potentially major takeaway from what the head coach said on Wednesday, is the fact that the Cats are already dealing with some injury issues.
On Oct. 11, Calipari announced via Twitter that reigning unanimous National Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe was set to undergo a "minor 15-minute" procedure on his knee to "clean some things up."
Tshiebwe did not participate in Big Blue Madness and is not expected to take part in the upcoming Blue-White game, though Calipari had a positive update on the big man on Wednesday:
"He's walking around, not swelled already," he said. "He's not human, he's a little different than the rest of us."
In addition to Tshiebwe, two other players are currently dealing with some minor knocks. Senior forward Jacob Toppin was set to travel down to Birmingham to SEC Media Days with Calipari, but didn't make the trip after getting hurt in practice on Tuesday.
"Nothing crazy," Calipari said of Toppin being hurt. "I just said 'stay back."
Veteran forward Lance Ware filled in for Toppin, though he's been dealing with a "muscle pull."
With less than three weeks away from the regular season beginning, the Wildcats were practicing with just seven players on Tuesday. It's not an ideal spot for a team when getting ready to begin a season, but hey, since when has Kentucky been a fast-starting team?
"We had managers, walk-ons and a coach on the floor with us. Hard to get better that way but sometimes stuff happens," Calipari said.
It sounds as though the Cats will still be full strength when they take on Howard to open the 2022-23 campaign, but the injury bug seems to be biting early, and that could take a toll at any point throughout the season if things begin to pile up.
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Wildcats Today will have updates on scheduling, injuries, updates and more on Kentucky Basketball as the Cats near the start of their 2022-23 season.
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