Injury questions have to be answered once again for the Kentucky Wildcats, unfortunately.
The week began with Jacob Toppin rolling his ankle against South Carolina, and things have been quiet on his status moving forward. John Calipari gave the classic “I haven’t seen him,” response several times throughout the week.
Once shootaround started today, Toppin was nowhere to be found. You then could spot him on the bench with a boot on that injured ankle.
Then with about 13 minutes left in the second half of today’s win over the Florida Gators, TyTy Washington went down after a Florida player dove for a loose ball and ended up on the left leg of Washington.
In his postgame press conference Coach Cal was asked about Washington’s injury and his availabilities going forward.
For now, it sounds like Washington avoided a major injury based on Calipari’s remarks.
Davion Mintz also said it looks like Washington will be ok.
More from Calipari on TyTy: “There was an X-ray. So yeah. If it looked like something was there, I’d be like, oh. He still might be out a week or two. It could be a muscle, it could be something that separated.”
— Tyler Thompson (@MrsTylerKSR) February 12, 2022
Followed up with Cal on TyTy and he finally acknowledges a negative X-ray. “He still might be out a week or two.”
Kentucky fans will take that.
— Kyle Tucker (@KyleTucker_ATH) February 12, 2022
“Prayers to TyTy. I think he should be all right.” – Davion Mintz via radio
— Dylan Ballard (@DylanBallard_UK) February 12, 2022
Toppin has been solid once again this season, providing a consistent boost off the bench. Thankfully, this team continued to roll despite that energy boost, but it could be drastically needed at some point in this next week, especially if Washington is out.
With a trip to Knoxville on Tuesday, and a game against a dangerous Alabama team on Saturday in Lexington, his scoring and/or presence on defense will be needed.
For Washington, he’s been the go-to scorer at times for this team. A true three-level threat, if Washington is unable to go, these next 1-2 weeks just got a lot harder.
This team has been able to fight through quite a few injuries this season, so let’s hope that trend continues as we head into the home stretch of the SEC schedule.
If Toppin and Washington are both out this coming week, Kentucky will be lucky to go 1-1 against the likes of Tennessee and Alabama, both of whom will be going all out to avoid being swept by the Cats.
However, we’ve seen enough from the rest of this roster to know Kentucky can still very well go 2-0 next week.
We will update this post if any more details come out today.
