Another injury leaves Kentucky even more shorthanded for game against Utah Valley
Kentucky played with just seven scholarship players in Monday night’s 82-74 victory over Utah Valley.
UK announced about an hour before tip-off that sophomore forward EJ Montgomery remains sidelined with an ankle injury sustained in the victory over Michigan State two weeks ago. Montgomery also missed Kentucky’s games against Eastern Kentucky and Evansville.
It was also announced that sophomore guard Immanuel Quickley would miss Monday night’s game with a chest injury that was sustained in practice. He is the Wildcats’ second-leading scorer with 14.0 points per game and the team’s third-leading rebounder with 5.7 boards per game.
UK Coach John Calipari said Quickley, who was on the bench with the team Monday night, was hurt on the final play of Sunday’s practice.
“He’s one that, if he could have played, he would’ve. No question,” Calipari said, noting that he didn’t know if Quickley would miss any more games.
Freshman forward Dontaie Allen is also still sidelined as he continues to recover from a torn ACL suffered last December.
The injuries meant that UK had — among scholarship players — only Ashton Hagans, Tyrese Maxey, Johnny Juzang, Kahlil Whitney, Keion Brooks, Nate Sestina and Nick Richards available for the game against Utah Valley.
Hagans has also been dealing with a leg injury, and Richards was questionable for the start of the regular season due to a sprained ankle suffered in the Cats’ first exhibition game. Hagans was clearly hobbled in the Wildcats’ shocking loss to Evansville last week.
“I said to him, ‘If that’s who you’re going to be, you shouldn’t have played this game because you’re hurting yourself and you hurt us.’ We may not have been able to win it anyway but we would have tried to get by with six guys and just said we’ve got six. Please don’t foul people out,” Calipari said Sunday. “He’s a great kid and he’s trying. He’s a little bit beat up, a few nicks and bruises and stuff.”
Calipari lamented Sunday that his players were already stretched thin in the absence of Montgomery, who has played just 14 minutes this season.
“Nick is playing too many minutes, so now all of a sudden guys are playing more minutes than they’re capable of playing, which means you have mental lapses, which means you have game slippage, which means all of a sudden we start not trusting each other because we’re breaking down,” Calipari said. “Now you have a team that’s tentative because they can’t be aggressive and they can’t attack because they don’t trust. And they don’t because some tired players are breaking down. And now all of a sudden you don’t know — is a guy going to be there, is he not going to be there?”
Quickley, Maxey and Sestina have all averaged at least 30 minutes per game so far this season, and Richards is averaging 26.0 minutes per game going into Monday night.
Richards played 35 minutes against Utah Valley, going for 21 points and 10 rebounds. Hagans and Maxey played 37 minutes each, and Sestina played 34 minutes.
Kentucky’s next game is Friday against Mount St. Mary’s in Rupp Arena, and Calipari said Sunday that he didn’t expect Montgomery back this week.
“He’s not on the court with us but he’s doing some stuff. My guess is a week away. I don’t know. Maybe longer,” he said. “It’d be nice to get him back and have a roster. The other side of this is it’s hard to practice when you’re down to seven, eight guys. Like, how do you really scrimmage to get after each other the way you need to? So we’ve been dealing with that.”
As a result of Quickley’s injury, Maxey made his first start as a Wildcat on Monday night. He was joined in the starting lineup by Hagans, Whitney, Sestina and Richards.
This story was originally published November 18, 2019 at 6:16 PM.
