As the game wound down in Bloomington and the final score read a one point loss for the number one ranked Kentucky Wildcats, the emerging storyline wasn’t that Kentucky lost on a last second shot. It wasn’t the fact that the defensive scheme at the end of the game was bizarre to say the least. It isn’t even the fact that Kentucky didn’t foul Indiana when they had two to give, and could have very well iced the game. It was the fact that Kentucky’s preseason cover boy, Kentucky’s pre-season All-American. Kentucky’s NBA lottery pick that came back to school for an extra year, basically did nothing…Nothing to help his team in Bloomington against unranked Indiana.
It was not just the fact that Terrence Jones did little to nothing to help Kentucky stay in the game, but it was the fact how terrible his body language was. We’ve seen guys mouth off to Coach John Calipari on the bench before. We’ve seen guys get mad and leave the bench and go to the locker room. Heck, we’ve seen guys flat out refuse to go in a game before. I don’t think that I personally have ever witnessed the scene I watched in Bloomington as Terrence Jones just didn’t show up to play basketball.
Maybe his game was in Lexington, maybe he left it on the bus, but regardless, I’m perfectly right when I say that Terrence Jones was one of the top three athletes on the floor in Assembly Hall, several times Jones had a mismatch and didn’t take advantage of it, several times Jones just had his ball taken away, several times he just passed the ball off instead of attacking, with me along with a million other Kentucky fans screaming for him to take the ball to the hole, or just do something. I have some problems with Jones’s game but I’m not going to completely burry him because of his tweets yesterday, I’ll get into those in a minute.
The fact that Terrence Jones didn’t even pull down more than a couple of rebounds is beyond me. At one point, Jones had just as many rebounds as I did, standing up in the middle of my apartment and watching the game and screaming at the television. It just seems crazy to me that Calipari said that Jones had a “bad game” and that these players “aren’t machines” and while I agree with him to a certain extent, I don’t see how you could write this off as a bad game.
A bad game is being frustrated by the defense and being forced into bad shots, a bad game is being blocked out on the defensive end and not being able to pull down rebounds. Did you see Jones on the bench? On the bench Jones wasn’t even cheering or clapping when his teammates scored, he wasn’t doing anything, he was sulking, and he was pouting. Everyone noticed, opposing fan bases noticed and so did Kentucky fans. It was pathetic, even from a huge UK fan, the lack of effort would make someone sick, it isn’t just having a bad game when you there is lack of effort and lack of “want to.”
But…There is hope…
I’m not going to bash Jones. I’m upset with his play and not a lot of people are going to forget his lack of effort, and some even say he left his teammates hanging, but his tweet earlier today gives me hope…Here is what he said in back to back tweets today:
“ Let my haters have they night last night buts still a lot of games my bros know that’s all that matters I don’t forget nothing”
And,
“To all our true fans in the #BBN who always have our backs thru thick n thin, both me and my teammates will make you proud again. #WeAreUK”
We can all sit and judge Jones and his game all we want, but nobody knows what was going on in his head in Bloomington, but let’s all be glad it was in December, and not March…That’s when it counts.