Ulis injury not serious, provides opportunities

By: LARRY VAUGHT

Sophomore point guard Tyler Ulis did not practice Sunday because after hyperextending his elbow in the first half of Friday’s win over South Florida, but Kentucky coach John Calipari thinks he should be fine even if he does not play tonight against Illinois State.

“You’re concerned about his health. Right now it’s just early. He won’t practice today just for the fact that I don’t want to have him banged up in a practice,” said Calipari Sunday. “Knowing him he’ll want to play, but we’ll just have to see. I mean, we’re playing a good team. Illinois State, I watched their Maryland game. They had Maryland beat. They’ve got their quick guard, (Paris) Lee; I’m not sure what we’ll be able to do with him. They’ve got a kid (DeVaughn Akoon-)Purcell that’s scoring 16-17 a game.

“Will be a tough matchup for us depending on how we play. They’ve got some veteran guys. They run. It’s not Princeton (offense); it’s more like a five-out where you’ve got to play it like you’re playing Princeton. But they do good stuff. So we’ve got a hard game. And without Tyler now, you have to understand the last six minutes of that half (against South Florida) and what we did the first five or six minutes of that second half, that was without Tyler. We were really good. It’s just they couldn’t sustain it.

“That’s what Tyler does. Tyler just keeps coming and he does not stop and he’s not going to make mistakes to let another team get back in the game. That’s the difference. That’s the experience.”

Junior Dominique Hawkins says all knows is that Ulis’ injury is not serious and that’s good news.

“He’s very important. He basically runs our offense really well. Better than most of us on the team. We actually have other guys as well that can play point guard as well. So if we don’t have Tyler in our next game, we also have other guards that can run point as well,” Hawkins said. “I feel like we have a great depth. Bigs to point to guards, me, Derrick (Willis), Isaac (Humphries), Alex (Poythress), Charles (Matthews), Mychal (Mulder). We have so many players that can play any position, and if somebody is having a bad game, somebody can come in and play for them.”

Freshman center Skal Labissiere called Ulis a “tough kid” tha the expects back soon.

“He’s very important, his leadership. I think he’s the best point guard in the country. Obviously he runs our team, so he’s very important to us,” Labissiere said. “I think we did good without him, but obviously we’re going to need Tyler for the whole season. He’s very important to us. We are going to need him on the court. We expect him to be back soon.”

Freshmen Isaiah Briscoe and Jamal Murray can play the point along with Hawkins like they all did against South Florida.

“They don’t have the experience that he (Ulis) has so you don’t know how they’re going to respond if stuff gets hairy. The way this team plays, Illinois State will come down – and they play a little bit like Arkansas. They’ll just trap you from different areas of the court. Well, first of all we haven’t played against it yet. Now, Tyler has, but none of these other guys have. That’s one thing,” Calipari said.

“The second thing is they spread the court and they play five men out. So, all five guys are out, which means everybody can get beat on the dribble. That’s an issue for us because we have a couple of guys who have yet to keep a guy in front of them. So they may find that guy and that’s who they go after. We’ve got to figure out how we’re playing. So it’s not that I’m worried about Isaiah and Jamal and how they’ll play or Dom. It’s not that. It’s that we’re playing a team that plays a little different that Tyler would have no problem with. These guys, they may.”

He said having to play without Ulis last week gave him a “clearer picture” of how to help Briscoe.

“He could have had almost a triple-double, but he was flipping balls, he was avoiding (contact). He threw passes away for no reason. He could have looked at a guy, dropped it to the guy and he would have laid it in. He would have had 10 assists,” the UK coach said. “So he played a little bit, like, casual, and he’s got to understand that you can’t play that way and be a lead guard for us. You can’t. Too much at stake and every game is someone’s Super Bowl.”

What about Murray?

“We need him to get to the foul line more. He should be at the foul line at least six times, maybe eight. He’s not getting to the line, which means he’s either avoiding contact or he’s taking all jumpers, and I think it’s a little combination of both. You have to drive to get to the foul line. ‘I’m getting fouled. I’m going to go.’ When you’re 6-5 and you’re like – he and Isaiah both. Isaiah, I asked Isaiah to put a card on his mirror so he wakes up every morning and that card would read, ‘Make a ridiculously hard play look easy,’” Calipari said.

“See, he flips that the other way. Make a really easy play look ridiculously hard. And so I’m saying this is what you’re trying to do. You’ve got this backwards. And I told him, there’s not many players that can do that. He’s one of them. He can. He can make a play, an and one, a guy fouls him and make a layup and you think and say, ‘What did he just do? Wow.’ At the time he made it look easy. But he’s not doing that right now so.”

And why not?

“Because of playing in high school and AAU. It’s just how they play,” Calipari said.