Sad news for Wildcats fans tonight. Former Kentucky basketball player Desmond Allison has been found murdered in Columbus, Ohio today, according to SBNation.com.
Allison may sadly best be remembered as the only UK player ever to be a casualty of the fortunately short-lived "no tolerance" alcohol policy at UK. Matt Jones at KSR remembers the details:
The explosive athlete and shut-down defender, often looked lethargic during his Sophomore season at Kentucky and issues followed him throughout the season. Then, Desmond Allison was caught driving with an open container of alcohol and a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit in Lexington. If Allison were in a normal circumstance, he likely would have been suspended, but allowed to remain at Kentucky. But his incident followed the enactment of UK’s short-lived "no-tolerance policy" that followed the Jason Watts tragedy, where one UK footballer was killed. Allison was thus dismissed from the team, the only basketball player who lost his career due to the policy, and ended up transferring out of Lexington for good.
It is said that bad facts create bad law, and in this case bad policy. Read the rest of Matt's post for more on Desmond's time at UK and the events here that changed his life.
Eric Lindsey at UKAthletics.com has more, and WKYT has a brief reflection by J.P. Blevins.
This is a time of sadness for the Big Blue Nation. One of our own has been taken from us too early, and wrongfully. May God grant his family peace, and Desmond, justice.