[I][SIZE=1]This pinky actually belongs to Shawn Marion, but you can pretend it’s Terrence Jones.[/SIZE][/I]
Happy Sunday! I’m tired, my back hurts, and apparently I have a whole load of Christmas presents to wrap, so let’s get right to it.
Kentucky won last night, and rather easily, beating Tennessee-Chattanooga 87-62. The Cats put 5 guys in double figures, and Kyle Wiltjer added 9 in 23 minutes. Kentucky moves to 9-1 on the season, with Samford coming to town Tuesday night to get a paycheck and a 30-point loss.
Of course, the big story from last night is TerrenceJones’dislocatedpinkyTerrenceJones’dislocatedpinkyTerrenceJones’dislocatedpinky.
The sophomore forward injured it about 3 minutes in, and played only 10 minutes on the night. He tried to come back in and fight through it, but the pain was apparently too much. Not that I could blame him. If I get a hangnail, I’m a whiny little baby. I could only imagine trying to play basketball with a finger bent at 30°.
So what happens now? Terrence is officially considered day-to-day, and with the Louisville game less than two weeks away, one would have to think the team will err on the side of caution when it comes to playing time and recuperation. Unfortunately for him, this leaves ample time for people to wonder aloud what is going on with his play as of late. As Mack mentioned [URL=”http://www.nationofblue.com/pinky-pain-uk-rolls-utc-87-62-10143/”]last night[/URL], Terrence has 4 points, 9 turnovers, 6 boards, and is 2-10 shooting in the last five halves of basketball. Granted, last night’s game was essentially played without him, but those are still shockingly low numbers. Count me among the many who think there is something going on with him, mentally if not physically.
Count me also among those who think the non-conference schedule is bullsh*t. Seriously, [URL=”http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/_/id/96/kentucky-wildcats”]look at this thing[/URL]. Kentucky will have been at home for more than a month when they travel to Auburn on Jan. 11. In 15 non-conference games, the team will have played away from home exactly four times, and only once as a true road team. I realize that next year’s Louisville and UNC games will be on the road, but that is still a low number for my liking. And for a team being called soft by its head coach, this lack of travel isn’t going to make them any tougher.
Hopefully, the SEC road schedule will provide some opportunities to sack up, although I’m not convinced this will be the case. In the West, only the trip to Starkville looms large. In the East, I only see games at Florida and Georgia proving difficult (Tennessee has fallen off the map and Vandy is looking like a fraud thus far). Even still, that’s a grand total of 9 true road games in a season, and only 4 of those could be considered hostile. Yes, it’s very early, but I’m going to officially voice my concern for how this affects the team in the postseason.
And with that, I’m going to leave you with this: a holiday edition of the Big Blue Mailbag is coming to you next weekend, so send us your thoughts, complaints, and peanut butter roll recipes. You can join in the fun one of three ways:
[EMAIL=”[email protected]”][email protected][/EMAIL]
[EMAIL=”[email protected]”][email protected][/EMAIL]
[URL=”http://twitter.com/#!/chris_minton”]@chris_minton[/URL][LEFT][COLOR=#3E3E3E] on Twitter[/COLOR][/LEFT]
I’ll be posting daily reminders all this week, so hopefully we can get a good response.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch Arizona attempt to win 4 straight for the first time in 12 years, as they host the Cleveland Browns. Cardinals running back (and Akron native) Beanie Wells grew up rooting for the Browns, and had this to say about our own Tim Couch [URL=”http://prod.www.cardinals.clubs.nfl.com/news-and-events/article-2/Johnson-Marshall-Fill-Rhodes-Void/da76fcc4-0f88-4247-9a4f-5fd5302232e2″]recently[/URL]:
“They had (quarterback) Tim Couch,” Wells recalled. “I liked Tim Couch. He just had a horrible offensive line. Drove him out of the league.”
I’ve been saying as much for years.
Have a great week.
