Nerlens Noel (3) is carried to the training room by teammates after injuring his knee in the second half of a loss to Florida Tuesday. (copyright/Victoria Graff photo)
By LARRY VAUGHT
Losing to Florida was not that unexpected for Kentucky, but the way the Cats were physically dominated most of the game was a bit of a surprise as the Gators were the dominant team for the final 35 minutes.
But Tuesday’s game is going to be memorable for another reason — the knee injury to potential No. 1 NBA draft pick Nerlens Noel. He’s the heart and soul of this team, the one player who always seems to play hard no matter what happens.
His injury even came on a hustle play not every teammate would have made. A Julius Mays turnover led to a Florida runout but Noel hustled down the court to block Mike Rosario’s shot. However, he hit his knee on the basket support when he came down and immediately crumpled to the floor. He was motionless on the court — and moaning so loud it could clearly be heard on TV. Once he did get up, he had to be carried off the floor by a bevvy of teammates.
Later he was taken out of the arena in a wheelchair and coach John Calipari said “we don’t know yet” on his postgame radio show about the extent of Noel’s injury.
“But it didn’t look real good,” Calipari said.
No, it didn’t and that is scary both for Noel’s future and UK’s season.
Kentucky had threatened to get back into the game before Noel’s injury with 8:03 left in the game. After that, UK’s energy was gone — and maybe its season as well. The Cats still have road games at Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee as well as home games with Florida and Missouri. Without Noel — the nation’s top blocker and UK’s leading rebounder as well — the Cats could be in trouble in all of those games and in danger of dropping out of NCAA Tournament contention.
“I think we didn’t give enough effort as we should have,” Kentucky guard Jarrod Polson said on the UK Radio Network after the game. “Any time you see a teammate go down, it is kind of sad. We had a little run going, but we just couldn’t hit enough shots. We usually hit them, but we didn’t make them tonight.
“That was probably the best defensive team we have played all year. You have to give it to Florida. But one game can’t ruin the season for us.”
One game shouldn’t ruin a season and ordinarily wouldn’t. But Noel’s injury changes that.
Kentucky went from being in position to survive the Florida loss and put together another win streak to move into a No. 7 seed possibly in the NCAA. Now UK will be lucky to make the tournament.
This team struggles enough with Noel on the court. Take out his rim-protecting skills and UK could be abused by good offensive teams — or even ordinary teams. Florida’s older, experienced players were way too physical on both ends of the court for Kentucky. UK struggled to get off shots and then struggled just as much to keep Florida from scoring.
Great teams can sustain losing a top player. But Kentucky is not a great team. As ESPN analyst Dick Vitale noted during the game, UK fans have to face “reality” about this team — and that was before Noel went down.
“This is just a good basketball team literally in many areas. Last year was a great team,” Vitale said while admitting he was one of many who didn’t factor in how much the lack of experience would hurt Calipari’s team.
No one could have known that this team wouldn’t have that competitive fire that Calipari’s first three teams had. There’s no Patrick Patterson, DeAndre Liggins or Michael Kidd-Gilchrist on this team.
“We didn’t battle. We had too many guys who were tentative and didn’t want to battle. Probably have to make our practices rougher. They were so physical on us in the post we couldn’t get a ball to the basket. The game got physical and it’s obvious how people are going to play us and we have to make our practices more physical,” Calipari said.
But no matter what Kentucky does, if Noel’s injury is as bad as it looked or Calipari seemed to think it might be, it’s hard to find a scenario where this team can find enough punch to win consistently and stay in NCAA contention.
24 Responses to Cats lose to Florida but also lose Nerlens Noel to knee injury that Calipari says “did not look real good”
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I am just heartsick. I hope and pray that the injury to Nerlens was not as bad as it looked and sounded.
no statement yet from UK. would expect one mid-day on Wednesday. But fearing this is going to be first serious injury of Calipari era at UK
Very sorry for Noel. Hope it is nothing serious for his sake. Wish the other players could play with his effort and heart.
Saw Cal’s post game interview. I am surprised he has not pulled his hair out. I just really feel for him, I know he is trying to find answers. From what I heard, it is a tendon to the patella. Does not sound good. I just hope he will be OK, I hope this does not ruin his future. He has given 110%. Prayers for him tonight.
I’m one of many, many fans who just felt terrible as Noel lay on the floor moaning. Just hope that his injury does not alter his career in any way. He deserves the best in his life. We’re praying for you Nerlens.
I wish I could go and hold Cal’s hand and tell him every thing is going to be ok. I wish I could give Nerlens a hug and tell him the same. Nerlens needs a mama to lean on right now.
Cal keeps saying the same thing….game after game, after game. I am past feeling sorry for Cal. He and his coaching staff should have this team much further along than they do. What do they do in practices?? We will end up losing more games than we win for the remainder of the season and in the mean time will make all of our opponents seasons.
Really Mike? NOT COOL brother.
I agree with King. ANY of you, who think you can do the job better, need to get your resumes in to UK RIGHT NOW. Cal won’t coach forever and it will be better to have your foot in the door early and let them know how much you want the job. Just ask Coach Stoops.
I don’t see this season as a “Cal problem”. I see it as a group of kids who can’t get on the same page and who have a few members that aren’t exactly “team oriented”.
The truly unfortunate part is that I have to agree with your last sentence, because the team just lost the only player who gives 100% EVERY second of EVERY game. That will not be a loss that this team will recover from, in their present make-up. It doesn’t make for a pretty finish to an already ugly season.
I have always believed that coaches should get the praise when things go well and that they are responsible when they don’t. Clearly this year has not produced the results of the three previous great years. So, Calipari gets a great hand for the great 8, final 4 and the championship…a hand for establishing a system, for recruiting great players, and for getting them to play together and reach toward their potential. That is not happening this year. Therefore the responsbiliity goes to the coach, and he, far more than the fan base, has accepted the responsibility. Coaches are not gods. Calipari is not perfect. Next year we have another number one recruiting class. Watch the Cats roll, and if that happens, the praise will go to the caption, Caption Cal.
If you can’t be there in the bad times, find another team. I’ll take this team with it’s down sides, I’ll take Cal and I’ll take being blue and blue through and through for ever and a day. Sometimes you just can’t get through to a kid, sometimes no matter what you do it just does not work. They HAVE TO WANT TO WORK AND BE BETTER, Cal cannot make them want that, that is inside them. He has done all he can, all the other coaches can, all the money in the world won’t make things happen if you yourself do not have the motivation. LIVIN’ BLUE AND LOVIN’ IT.
This is where BBN comes into play…pray for Nerlens’ recovery and continue to back our team–Go Cats!
AMEN.
Mike maybe you could get the job and do it better. What I think is that you don’t know the day to day workings of this team and that you don’t know why the team isn’t where it should be. Sometimes it’s just a matter of a lack of talent and sometimes players just can’t learn as fast as they need to in a system like this. But to think Cal is somehow lacking is beyond the pale. Have you noticed his record at UK? You know I often deride people who say UK fans expect to win every game. Sometimes it’s hard to do. Vitale and his UK fans need to “face reality” crap is right in the same vein. Did he take a poll and ask if UK fans expect to win the title this year? Why does he make a comment portraying UK fans as having unrealistic expectations? How many titles did he win? I faced reality about his lack of ability to understand the game long ago. But I thought I’d ask you Mike since you saw fit to bash Cal on the night our star player went down. How many coaches win it all every year? Are you the one Vitale is talking about facing reality or are you both speaking of someone in particular? Or do both of you just like to kick a great man and a great fan base when they’re temporarily down? I really want to know if you missed the 2000′s? I often wondered if a certain coach paid people to post on UK boards to make him look good. I wonder if he still isn’t doing it sometimes.
If the players don’t listen you can’t coach them. You don’t know if that isn’t the problem. It’s that simple. The Cats just won a title too. And there’s a real good chance they could win another soon. I just don’t see how anyone could complain about this team especially on a night like this. And Vitale can go face himself in the mirror if he can figure out which side is the front and which is the back.
King: I cannot agree with Mike. Calipari has proved himself here. He deserves credit for all that he has done. But, King, he is the coach. He recruited these players. It is his responsibility to teach and coach these kids. You say, “if the players don’t listen, you can’t coach them.” That’s part of a coach’s job, that is to make them to want to listen. This has nothing to do with wanting to “kicking a great man when he is down.” It has everything in accepting the fact that not every coach is going to do great things every year. Some of us expect that from Calipari every year and that is unfair to him. Calipari often says “it’s on me.” He is right. It is also on him when the Cats roll. As far as Vitale. Many UK fans were down with him the past three years when he heaped praise on the Cats. They did not care much for him when he told the truth about the Billy Gillispie era. I do not know what he said this time, but we must remember that he and the other TV guys simply make comments. Vitale cannot really hurt or help UK sports. Why wear our feelings on our sleeve and get upset when they say something that we don’t like?
I completely and totally disagree that Vitale can’t help or hurt UK. Let’s talk about Cousins. From the word go the very first game called by Vitale featuring Cousins he was labelled by Vitale as a thug. Talk about monumentally unfair. So from then on the refs looked for Cuz to be a thug. The other teams tried to get him ejected by riding him like a borrowed mule. He got punched in the groin for pity’s sake and not once did Cousins respond in kind to those jerks. Still when contract time came around for the NBA Cousins lost out on big money because he didn’t get the endorsements other players get. That’s real money taken from a UK player because Vitale wanted to report a scandal. It was pure yellow journalism from the start and it did what yellow journalism always does – it unfairly hurts people. Cousins is still pegged as a trouble maker while other, far worse players get away with far more. How is that fair? Metta World Peace comes to mind. Look at his record and look who gets called a thug. Cousins is a tremendous talent but he will not get his just reward because of one guy – Vitale.
I saw Cousins endure more than any 3 players took in college. He was punched, gouged, kicked and elbowed every time he turned his head. But he was the one who got in foul trouble. And the SEC refs let this stuff happen because they are tired of a one team conference. That’s a lot of the reason we see our star out for the season IMO. The refs have been letting teams ride him like crazy and he was no Cousins. He got hurt. I’m sick of the bias in sports to be honest and yes UK even gets screwed at home in the SEC.
I don’t see why you’re coming down on me for what I said about Cal. You said the same things. He shouldn’t be expected to walk on water. Yes he is a great coach but everyone makes mistakes and filling a roster every year is no easy job. It just can’t be done at times. And this is one of those times IMO. I could give reasons I think that but I don’t put down UK players. They are great kids doing their best and I’ll be darned if I will do what Vitale does. And Vitale tried to run UK in the ground by campaigning for Smith to keep his job. Vitale knew the team would never be back on top with Smith as the coach. But he preached what a great family man blah blah blah until I wanted to puke. Smith was a selfish jerk and he still is. Did you ever hear him say, “It’s all on me”? Not once ever. He was too busy blaming the fans for being racists.
If Cal fails to win better than he has this year then I’ll be down on him too. But he just came off a title year and some players haven’t panned out IMO. I can’t blame Cal for that. I gave Smith 3 years before I really got down on him and it was way more obvious he wasn’t suited for the job. I’m justy saying Cal deserves to get to make mistakes sometimes. I sure won’t like it if the team looks this way every year. It will be like Smith came back. But I seriously doubt that is going to happen.
At any rate this is the wrong time to talk about anything except the future of a great player who came to UK to be a part of the BBN. Bashing the coach now is piling on IMO. It isn’t fair and it isn’t right.
Larry, thanks for being perfectly honest about the future of this team IF the injury to Nerlens turns out to be season ending. We all knew for awhile that this team had issues and now this had to happen which will be hard to overcome. Who knows, maybe this will be the galvanizing happening which pulls these guys together and all the guys finally “get it” as Cal has been hoping for all year.
Not sure how anyone can think about anything other than Nerlen’s well being. Get well soon!
Exactly.
This team will be OK. W C-S will step up and this entire team will step up and play for Noel. If this is a season ending injury, guess what…we more than likely have NN back next year and maybe a couple of the others. With that recruiting class coming in next year, this could be the greatest team of all time. Have faith BBN.
This is validation of the one and done system. If a kid is good enough to play in the NBA then he needs to do that before a serious injury threatens his future.
It was just announced that Nerlens suffered a torn ACL. He will have surgery in two to three weeks and be out 6 to 8 months. Best wishes, young man, from a grateful BBN.
Last year’s team was something special. Remember! There were two second year players who were important to the team and they were drafted along with the rest of the team. The coach has done everything possible to bring the team along. I have been watching Kentuck since 1952 and this present team is very good to watch. They are playing much better then they were two months ago. They are not as skilled as last year’s team. Thank you coach and team for trying so hard.
Well said Ken.
The Cats’ will be fine. First up the big orange in KTown, lets take care of buisness. We can do this. Do it for NN.