Although his team learned of a third stress fracture this season, Kentucky Coach Billy Gillispie rejected the notion that he’s pushed too hard.
Patrick Patterson learned on Friday that he’d sustained a stress fracture in his left foot. That followed stress fractures earlier this season to Jodie Meeks (pelvis) and Ramon Harris (foot).
[[ Watch an audio slideshow of Patterson’s season, and hear comments from Billy Gillispie, Ramel Bradley and Perry Stevenson. ]]
Patterson, who sprained ankles at Houston and then against Georgia earlier this season, was leading the Southeastern Conference in minutes played with 38.9, on average.
“I push all the time,” said Gillispie, who has noted in the past that his earlier teams did not suffer stress fractures. “If I had Patrick last year, he’d have played 38, 39 minutes, and we had a pretty good team.
“Next year, he’ll play 38 or 39 minutes. You play your best players as much as you can.”
To the thought of pushing too hard, Gillispie said, “Absolutely not.
“We never put a player in jeopardy. He was never in jeopardy.”
He noted another factor: the roster he inherited that was short on talent, necessitating more minutes for the better players. Ramel Bradley (37.5) and Joe Crawford (36.5) rank third and fifth in minutes played in league games.
“A lot of teams have injuries,” Gillispie said. “We need to be better equipped in the future to handle whatever injuries come our way.”
Jerry Tipton of the Lexington Herald- Leader has covered Kentucky basketball since the 1981-82 season. That time includes five coaches, five Final Fours, four athletic directors, two interim athletic directors and many memories. Before coming to Lexington, Tipton worked eight years for the Huntington (W.Va.) Herald-Dispatch. He covered Marshall’s basketball team for two seasons before coming to the Herald-Leader.
“We never put a player in jeopardy.”
Uh….say what? Hmmmm…..let’s revisit some events from the year…..
(1) Brought back Jasper well before the typical healing time for his injury. (Sprained MCL in January? Related to early comeback?)
(2) Played Meeks for almost the entire 2nd half of the game against Houston, despite EVERYONE being able to see that he was already completely gassed and had nothing left to give. (thus, more susceptible to re-injuring his pelvic fracture or sustaining a new injury….the fact that he hasn’t looked like his “old” self since the first half of that Houston game hasn’t gone unnoticed!)
(3) Brought the aforementioned Meeks (still injured) into the Vandy game with less than 10 minutes left and down by 40!?
Hmmmm….sounds like he may want to rethink his statement. As for Patterson, who knows? Maybe he just injured it the other day….maybe it was something that he did weeks ago….maybe it could have been prevented with a little more rest along the way? (i.e. was it really necessary for Patterson to play 28 minutes in the Vandy game and come in-out of the game 187 times in the 2nd half!?)
Well, unfortunately Patrick’s season is over but there’s always next year. He would have been NCAA Freshman of the Year. One of the small percentage players to make the transition from high school to college and have an immediate impact on the team.
Where does it say that a player cannot play the entire game? Is playing a guy 40 minutes “pushing too hard?” Hell, Oscar Robertson averaged almost 39 minutes/game FOR HIS CAREER at UC!
KY Alum -
Move to Minnesota. (Hmmmmmm - lol)
The injured players were only allowed back because the trainers gave an ok. Every coach in the country with our roster would have let Jasper and Meeks back on the court as soon as they were given the ok. Injuries mappen (most of the time) due to a way a guy lands or is hit, not because of being over worked. Let me guess, Bradley’s concussion was because he played to many minutes as well huh?
I’ve never been so fed up with one of our coaches. I like the way Gillispie can make a group of players play together as a confident team and some players even learning to pass and pass well under him….but that is it.
However…………. Gillispie’s total lack of communicaton on explaining his many strange coaching moves to the fanatics who are Ky basketball is inexcusable as is his coaching progress calender that allows losses early to unheard of teams to prove his points to his players. I’d rather listen to QVC (ugh) after a game than Gillispie - you learn as much (nothing).
And now to break down his 3rd player with a stress fracture in one season is totally unforgivable to the players, the team, the school and the fans. Have 3 stress fractures ever happened to any one basketball team. He would be fired in the horse industry and he should be in basketball. I sure can see why our players weren’t buying into Gillispie’s treatment early on.
Gillispie has some good points about him but his overall package is terribly flawed & he was much too quick a hire. Kentucky did not have to gamble handing KENTUCKY BASKETBALL to such a flawed coach.
I tell you what. Why don’t you investigate all the other seasons he has coached. See how many injuries his teams had. Just like injury free seasons sometimes there injury riddled seasons. Stress fractures happen all the time. Did Joe Hall overwork Sam Bowie? The DR.’s gave Jasper the go ahead to play. So you can’t blame the coach on that one. Meeks was cleared and probably told the coach he was fine. He probably was just trying to give him minutes to get the rust off. We can sit here until the cows come home and play the blame game. The fact of the matter is the injuries happened and it is what it is.
Today the Courier-Journal published a similar story about Patrick Patterson’s injury, except Brett Dawson actually interviewed a doctor, who stated “It’s an overuse injury, but the difference between playing 28 and 35 minutes a game isn’t enough to cause it,” he said. “It’s more the pounding that you do day after day after day.” This doesn’t resolve the entire question of what caused Patterson’s injury, but I’ll take actual reporting over idle speculation any day.
What’s the track record for Gillispie at Texas A&M? Did Acie Law average 39 minutes per game? The last few years, what kind of minutes did his starters (i.e., his best players) average?
I think the point has been mentioned way too much. Remember when Rick would put trash cans at the baseline so the players could puke in them and not miss a lap? Did we question him then? No.
Please get off the negative soap box of too hard of a practice.
i hope jerry is not seriously asking this question, he is more knowledgeable than that. you want to see what a soft coach does for you look at A&M, Turgeon took top talent and turned it into a mid of the pack team. bc took questionable talent and took it to upper level of SEC, there is your fact. all this whining over tired legs is nothing but bs. the way that team played sunday against vols should take all doubt away as to what kind of coach bc is.
It is totally ridiculous to blame Gillispie for injuries that have
occurred this season. The man has taken the lowest talent level team
that i can remember at Kentucky in the past twenty years, and has them playing as good as any team in the country at this point and time. No other NCAA coach in America could have done what coach Gillispie has done with this team. Tennessee is one of the top four teams in the NCAA this year, and we were playing without our two most talented players, and still give them all they could stand. If Tubby Smith was coaching this same team, our record would be below .500. Tubby knew what he was doing when he left the way he did, he knew if he stayed things would continue to get worse because of his lack of recruiting. He left while his stock as a coach was still respectable. If he stays another year or two it drops like lead in water. Billy Gillispie is one of the best young coaches in America, and you will see big changes starting next year. We are very lucky to have him at Kentucky.
this is ncaa basketball, billy may not be pushing hard enough goof balls