Kentucky freshman Terrence Clarke won’t play in SEC opener at Mississippi State
Kentucky freshman Terrence Clarke will not be available to play for the Wildcats in their Southeastern Conference opener against Mississippi State on Saturday night.
Clarke — a top-10 national recruit and UK’s second-leading scorer through the first seven games of the season — came off the bench for the first time in his college career last weekend at Louisville due to an ankle injury. He had a walking boot on his right leg during UK’s walk-through in Starkville on Friday night, according to photos released by the team.
John Calipari said after the Louisville game that he probably shouldn’t have tried to play Clarke through the injury. The 6-foot-7 guard played 12 minutes in the first half against U of L but just four minutes in the second half. He missed all four of his shots and went scoreless with no rebounds and no assists.
“I tried to see if we could steal some minutes with him, but it was a mistake,” Calipari said. “He’s playing at 80 percent, maybe.”
The UK coach also said that he had told redshirt freshman Dontaie Allen that he could get an opportunity to play if Clarke couldn’t go against Louisville. Allen, the state of Kentucky’s Mr. Basketball winner in 2019, did not play at all against the Cards and played only the final 69 seconds of UK’s loss to North Carolina the week before — once that game was already out of reach. Allen also didn’t appear in Kentucky’s previous game against Notre Dame — another loss — and played just four first-half minutes in the game before that, a loss at Georgia Tech. Allen committed three turnovers in that limited action against the Yellow Jackets.
Calipari said earlier in the week that he still had some injuries on the team and that others would get an opportunity to play Saturday against Mississippi State if those injured players weren’t available.
“I’ve told some guys, ‘OK, you’re gonna have an opportunity if this stays the way it is. And you’re gonna have to go and have some fun and do what you do.’ Next man up,” Calipari said.
UK freshman Cam’Ron Fletcher is also back with the team this weekend after missing the Louisville game after getting sent home to St. Louis by Calipari following an outburst on the bench toward the end of the North Carolina loss.
Fletcher and Allen are ninth and tenth on the team in minutes, respectively.
Clarke is averaging 10.7 points and 3.0 rebounds per game with 13 assists and 21 turnovers so far this season. He’s playing 31.3 minutes per game and led the Cats in playing time going into last weekend’s game at Louisville.
Freshman point guard Devin Askew replaced Clarke in the starting lineup in the U of L game and started again Saturday against Mississippi State. The rest of UK’s starting five remained the same: Davion Mintz, Brandon Boston Jr., Isaiah Jackson and Olivier Sarr.
Kentucky’s next game is Tuesday night against Vanderbilt in Rupp Arena.
This story was originally published January 2, 2021 at 5:08 PM.
