Loge Level

Well, I guess the answer to the question I posed a couple posts back can be answered with a resounding YES. If you hadn’t heard by now, then you must live in Mammouth Cave, but freshman guard Alex Legion has decided to transfer.

Can’t say I’m shocked that a player is bailing on Billy G already. It wasn’t any different under Tubby Smith, who had a much more motherly approach. It was only a matter of time before Billy finally broke a player into quitting with his no excuses style. The players have two choices: submit or quit.

But I am surprised that Legion’s the first to go. I expected somebody like Jared Carter, Mike (sorry, bud, I’m not making the effort to learn how to spell your given name) Williams or Perry Stevenson might break first. I wouldn’t have even put it past a lazy Joe Crawford to wuss out in his senior year.

But I figured Legion and Patrick Patterson would be among the first players to buy into Billy’s style. Find out how this is nothing new for Patterson, after the jump.

I wouldn’t expect Legion to be the last. UK fans just have to hope that Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson aren’t straddling the fence. There are rumors out of Lexington that the parents of several players have met and that some are trying to get multiple players to quit.

It must seem like a little de’ja’ vu for Patterson. Patterson experienced his fair shair of team turmoils in high school even before O.J. Mayo became his teammate.

The one that must ring most familiar happened during his junior season at Huntington High.

A teammate, senior reserve guard Vinny Cheeks, was kicked off the team late in the season after the team had opened with an 18-0 record. Cheeks was a decent point guard but playing behind an assistant coach’s son whom he was marginally better than. Cheeks hadn’t spoken up to my knowledge, but in the midst of the 18th win and the team ahead by double digits and less than one minute left in the game the head coach directed Cheeks to enter the game for only the second time all game. Cheeks was slow to get to the scorer’s table and was called back, and the player responded by throwing his warm-ups on the court and mumbling uner his breath.

The coach responded by kicking the player off the team. But two teammates — starters Heath Thomas and Jamaal Williams – responded by threatening to sit out the next game. And they tried to get Patterson and Mike Taylor to join them in protest. There was a parents and players team meeting in which they called for two coahces to resign. Taylor resisted the urge to protest because he feared how the decision might be perceived by college coaches.

Patterson played and was a monster, scoring 28 points and grabbing 16 rebounds, but his team lost its first game of the year. It was the first game I ever saw him play mad, and he’s much better when he plays with emotion. But he played because his parents told him he wasn’t sitting out.

The end result was all three players were welcomed back to the team and the team never spoke about it again. It was the three most miserable weeks of my stint in Huntington, W.Va. I was actually chastised by a 300-pound principal because he was “protecting 17-year-old kids.” Nevermind the fact that 3,000 people paid him $5 apiece to see those three players play and got short-changed. Those people and my readers deserved answers.

The next game was even worse: Patterson was ejected after an outburst that he said was the result of an opposing player repeatedly calling him the n-word and referees turning a deaf ear, but I’m sure a week’s worth of frustrations contributed also. Incidentally and coincidentally, the accused player’s father was a friend of Bob Huggins.

The point: Patrick’s been through this before. We can only hope he and his parents take the same stance as they did two years ago, but knowing his mother she can be every bit as involved in her son’s life and activities as Alex Legion’s mother. She can rush to judgements like all great and concerned parents do. I’m sure she’s not pleased right now.

But Patrick’s cool-headed and soft-spoken father often becomes the calming voice of reason in family matters of these sorts. And both parents welcomed the demading workmanlike approach of Billy because they think it will benefit Patrick’s NBA future. Let’s just hope things stay that way.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Blue Goggles, College Basketball, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.