John Calipari says he had COVID over summer; gives injury update on CJ Fredrick

If you followed John Calipari on the recruiting trail this summer, you probably noticed he was oddly absent during the final weeks of the summer evaluation period. He also wasn’t at the 2021 NBA Draft, marking the first draft he’s not attended during his Kentucky tenure.

That’s because Calipari contracted COVID-19, he revealed during today’s meeting with the media. Thankfully, he had been previously vaccinated, and his symptoms ended up being fairly mild.

“My symptoms were so mild that I was good,” Calipari said. “I had some aches and pains. Never got a fever (or) headache.”

Calipari added he didn’t tell anyone at the time because he didn’t want to discourage people from getting the vaccine since he was vaccinated but still caught the virus.

While Calipari is healthy now and back to work, the same cannot be said for CJ Fredrick. The Iowa transfer underwent what was called a minor procedure in mid-July (but was initially reported to be a broken leg). The belief was he’d be back in action sometime in August, but he’s apparently still not able to fully practice.

“CJ has not started. My hope is that within the next two weeks he’ll be back on the floor with us,” Calipari said.

Calipari added that another Kentucky player is injured but would not reveal the severity or who said player is.

Watching the dunk highlights Kentucky posted Monday on Twitter, the only players I didn’t see were Fredrick and Jacob Toppin. The fact that it’s a video highlighting dunks but doesn’t include Toppin makes me think he’s the injured Wildcat, so hopefully it’s not something that will sideline him very long.

A Sea of Blue comes loaded with Kentucky Wildcats links, news, analysis, and some other fun stuff, so ‘like’ our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter.