LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – I got nothing.
I’m sitting here, trying to roll some kind of clever column out of Louisville freshman Ty-Laur Johnson’s reluctance to play in the first half of Wednesday’s 73-68 win over Bellarmine because the team didn’t have the kind of compression tights he wanted, but I can’t find it.
I know there’s a line. A hook. Something. What would Jim Murray do? Tony Kornheiser? Anyone.
It's a tight spot. (Sorry for that.)
Let’s start with the story. Johnson played only three minutes in the first half and Louisville trailed by five at the break. As soon as he came into the game, the Cardinals’ fortunes changed. Asked why he didn’t play more in the first half, Louisville coach Kenny Payne opted for brutal honesty.
“I probably shouldn't tell you this,” Payne said.
That’s when you know that whatever comes next is going to be good.
“We didn't have the tights that (Johnson) wanted. So, he didn't know if he wanted to play,” Payne said. At that point, you can hear on the tape, an incredulous “What?” That was uttered by one Rick Bozich.
“Oh, yeah. You heard it,” Payne said. “We didn't have the tights that he wanted, that we've never had for him. And he decided, ‘I don't feel like I can go.’ That's what young people do. “
At halftime, with some encouragement of a type Payne would not elaborate on, Johnson decided he was good to go. And he was. With him running the point, the offense ran better, and Louisville opened a 12-point lead midway through the half, which it would squander by reverting back to a stale, jump-shooting offensive attack.
“Listen at the end of the day, here's the deal,” Payne said. “This is a new day and age, a new generation of young people. They are learning what it means to be a part of a team. They are learning what it means to be kids of character. They're learning. They're learning. All of them are learning. We want them to think -- like in your mind, you're looking like I can't believe he just said that -- that's what it is coaching young people. That's what it is. There's a generation of these young kids now that think, you know, I don't feel good today. I can just shut it down. Well, that affects a whole lot of lives. Ty-laur Johnson is a great kid. He is learning for the first time in his life what it is to be held accountable, to be on time, to be a part of a team and have his responsibility to the team. I'm proud of him for fighting through. But I also know that I cannot ever take my foot off his neck. I know that.”
Well, there’s a lot to unpack here. And wouldn’t you know, it’s a suitcase full of tights!
One the one hand, I’m surprised that if there were a type of tights that Johnson said he needed – especially on the heels of a groin strain he suffered in New York – that somebody wasn’t hustling over to LuLu Lemon or wherever to get them, or that whatever adidas rep supplies the team didn’t have them sent to the complex via next-day air.
We’ll do a lot of joking, but if you need some kind of extra support or compression, it shouldn’t be a difficult thing to obtain.
I’m also surprised (not upset mind you, I appreciate the copy) that Payne would talk about this publicly. His message, I’m sure, was, “I know we need Johnson on the court, and this is the kind of stuff I have to go through to get him on the court.”
But now you’re bound to have people trashing Johnson, which I also don’t think is fair.
“We’ve all been freshmen before,” Lousville’s Skyy Clark said, and amen to that.
Johnson is no different. He puts his tights on one leg at a time like the rest of us.
Here's the problem. The basic rule of being on a team is that what the team needs you to do, you do. What the coach tells you to do, you do.
If a player feels like he doesn’t want to follow that on a given day for whatever reason, it’s a little bit easier to understand why a team would build a 12-point lead, then completely abandon the kind of play it used to build the 12-point lead to let an undermanned opponent close to within a single score in the final minute.
Conversely, if a player needs tights for a medical or playing comfort issue, and nobody takes care of it, that’s a lack of attention to detail. And if everybody, from coaches to trainers to equipment staff to managers isn’t paying attention to detail, then it shouldn’t be a surprise if players don’t.
Just observations. I know. I’m old and out of touch. But that’s what I think.
They asked Bellarmine coach Scott Davenport if he could comprehend a player not wanting to go into a game because he didn’t have the right tights.
“No,” Davenport answered.
Asked to elaborate, he said, “Well, it’s a yes or no answer. . . . I just coach my own guys. I will say, I’ve coached a lot of basketball at every level, and that’s a new one on me.”
I don’t know. I believe it was Bill Russell, or maybe Carrie Bradshaw, who famously said, “If the tights don’t fit, you have to sit.”
I remember Wiley Brown’s prosthetic thumb and there have been various equipment issues that have escaped my memory but which, I’m sure, did not impact a player’s availability.
So this episode is a different story, and it doesn’t lend any confidence to the notion that Louisville basketball is running a tight ship.
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