“The devil made me do it.” “I was hopped up on Twinkies.”

To this imaginative list of defense ploys, we must add, “The mop boy did it.”

How the mop boy contributed to the University of Kentucky Wildcats trailing for the final 29 minutes of the University of Tennessee game may be unclear to some, but if Coach John Calipari decrees it so, that’s all the proof I need.

Perhaps this could lead to the creation of a new staff position: mop czar. Or maybe the walk-ons could be deployed as a mop squad, attacking the floor at every break in the action. At the very least, UK’s coach has added a new weapon to his arsenal of excuses for the team’s premature exits from the Big Dance.