There are a number of reasons why a player might be unable to perform in a game – injury, illness, or some mental health issues. But Louisville Cardinals star guard Ty-Laur Johnson had a pretty shocking reason that almost kept him out of the game: tights.
During the postgame press conference, head coach Kenny Payne revealed that Ty-Laur Johnson nearly refused to play in Wednesday night’s game against Bellarmine because the team did not have the tights he wanted – which the team had never had for him before, either.
“Are you ready for this? I probably shouldn’t tell you this. We didn’t have the tights that he wanted, so he didn’t know if he wanted to play,” Payne said in his postgame press conference. “Oh, yeah. You heard it. We didn’t have the tights that he wanted — that we’d never had for him — and he decided, ‘I don’t feel like I can go.’”
Johnson played just three minutes in the first half, presumably due to the situation with the tights, but he ultimately decided to play in the second half, totaling eight points and five assists in 18 minutes of action.
“That’s what young people do. … I don’t even know,” Payne said. “But he figured it out in the second half. He accepted the fact that we didn’t have the tights that we’ve never had for him, and he played. And he played well.”
