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The Kentucky Wildcats pulled off a gusty win over LSU, and it came with several players battling an illness.
During John Calipari’s post-game press, he revealed that the flu bug has been running through his players. The players that had the flu during this game included Hamidou Diallo, Sacha Killeya-Jones, and Nick Richards.
“We had the flu. Hami (Diallo), Sacha (Killeya-Jones) and Nick (Richards). They all could play about a minute-and-a-half and they were so winded they couldn’t even stand,” said Calipari. “So, we were just trying to figure out what would work.”
Each of these guys had a pretty rough game. Diallo finished with just seven points on 3-of-8 shooting and four turnovers.
Sacha may not have scored much, but he made some pretty big plays throughout, and he managed to grab five boards.
Nick barely played, but that is a continuing trend over the last few games, so we’ll have to see if he can recover and earn his minutes back. Hami just never got in a rhythm. He took some bad shots and played flat.
Even so, Calipari was happy with the fight his team showed in the face of adversity.
“The biggest thing is they got fight,” said Calipari. “It’s hard to fight when you have the flu. We told them after, this is not personal, we’re just trying to win. I appreciate you trying to play.”
Hopefully, these guys are able to get home and rest up for Saturday’s game against Texas A&M. Kentucky is going to need them to compete with the top-25-ranked Aggies.