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Freshman Justin Edwards made it clear Friday that he was hoping to play against Tennessee tonight after missing Wednesday’s loss to Florida with what coach John Calipari said was a knee-related injury.
Not surprisingly, Edwards said that was not exactly the injury he was dealing with.
“My quad, I hurt my quad. We were playing five-on-five in practice,” Edwards said Friday.
He did not start for the first time a week ago when UK won at Arkansas because of the “injury” but he did come off the bench to play nine minutes with no points, one rebound and one assist.
Edwards was expected to play against Florida until he was ruled out just before the start of the game.
Kentucky could use Edwards and his size even if he’s not had the big season many expected. Tennessee is led by Dalton Knecht who is averaging 20.1 points per game and has been on a roll in SEC play. Edwards could have the size and athleticism to at least try to stay with him if he’s able to play.
Through 19 games (18 starts), the Philadelphia native is averaging 7.7 points on 44.6 percent shooting from the field, 3.7 rebounds, and 0.8 assists in 21.8 minutes per game.
“I’m doing better,” Edwards said. “I’ve been doing everything recovery-wise, trying to get back out there. I plan on practicing (Friday).”
He has used his time on the bench to watch and learn.
“Something I do when I’m not playing, I view the game as me playing to see what I would do. I feel like I could use it a lot. I’ve seen a lot of stuff that we can do better,” Edwards said.
Ironically, Edwards picked Kentucky over Tennessee and now he will hopefully get his first chance to play against the Vols.
“Just off the relationships I have from Tennessee, I feel like there’s going to be a lot of tension in this game. It’s a rivalry game but it means a little bit more because I picked Kentucky over Tennessee,” he said.
Kentucky is a slight underdog in tonight’s game despite the game being in Rupp Arena.
3 Responses
Well here is another game where calapari speaks highly of a player who has a 6 point 2 rebounds 1 assist performance in 27 minutes where half of the minutes should go to Burks or Thiero. He’s going to have a 30 point game eventually lol its never going to happen he doesn’t have the motor to score 24 points.
Nat sure he has the "want to" either.
It appears that our bigs are tired of not being more involved in the offense, but that is the Calipari way.