LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — I’m trying to figure out if I’ve gone crazy, or if everyone else has. I go back and forth. But today, I’m winning.
The way people are reacting, you’d think London Johnson had redshirted the country. ESPN pushed out a news alert like it was the moon landing: BREAKING: Backup guard opts not to play basketball.
Somewhere, John Wooden just looked up from his pyramid of success and asked, “Wait, what?”
I get it. Johnson has a passport full of G-League stamps and came to Louisville with enough buzz to drown out a chainsaw. "New" is a powerful drug. The pro coming back to college was and is a national curiosity. He was always going to redshirt this season. Then he wasn’t. Now he is again.
As the late Jimmy Buffett used to say, "Indecision may or may not be my problem."
From Pat Kelsey’s standpoint, I get that when your starting point guard is out with a mystery back ailment and your leading scorer is listed as "we’ll see," you start chasing hope like it’s the last Uber in town.
That’s more or less where Kelsey was when he had a conversation with London Johnson about jumping in this season, Johnson was open to it, and Kelsey announced that he was being activated.
It smelled like a little bit of desperation at the time. And it was. If anything, Kelsey was guilty of caring about what the pundits and keyboard warriors thought about the whole situation. He wanted a PR win. And an actual one, if he could manage it.
But what has happened since? It’s less a news cycle and more a game of "He’s In! No, Wait, He’s Out." The Kelsey Konundrum. Johnson suited up, then didn't. Warmed up, then didn’t. Was expected to play, now won’t.
Johnson made a decision based on a fact that seems to be lost in all this – he isn’t ready to play. And I’m not talking emotionally. He wasn’t going to be his best version as a basketball player. He wasn’t going to be effective.
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So Kelsey, to his credit, sat down at the postgame mic and took the whole mess square on the chin. He apologized. Profusely. Thoroughly. Like a man who had just accidentally hit reply-all on the wrong thing.
"This was me being really aggressive," Kelsey said, sounding like a guy who tried to fix the team’s depth chart the way your uncle fixes the plumbing, with silly putty and duct tape.
Turns out Johnson thought he was ready. Then he decided he wasn’t. And you know what? That’s allowed. He’s 21. Most of us changed majors three times before lunch in college. If indecision were a sport, I’d be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
But the reaction — the reaction — was something else. "Embarrassing," they screamed. "A PR disaster!" they posted, while clutching their phones and fanning themselves like it was 1957 and Elvis had just shaken his hips.
Let’s be serious. A PR disaster is when Katina Powell writes a book. When the FBI pulls up with a moving van. Heck, this isn't even Koron Davis being double-secret suspended then showing up to watch the game in the stands.
This? I covered Rick Pitino for 17 years. During that tenure, we called a series of events like this, "Wednesday." One press conference David Padgett is out for the year. The next he was due back in two weeks. Anybody remember that? I remember once he suspended a guy, then started him the next game.
This wasn’t a scandal. It was a hiccup. The sports version of showing up to a party and realizing you forgot the ice. In fact, it may have been less serious than that.
And for those convinced Johnson would’ve been a savior, folks, he was going to spell the point guard for 8-10 minutes and maybe hit a floater. Not walk on water.
Maybe I’m the crazy one. Maybe I’m out of step. But from where I sit, this wasn’t drama. It was life. A young man changed his mind. At worst, a coach was more concerned with the news cycle than he should've been. And the rest of us should try to do the impossible these days: have a little perspective.
The better way to handle this, of course, would've been to say nothing from the start. But I’d be hypocritical if I spend my time writing columns telling coaches to say more, then criticize them for saying too much. Sometimes you can’t win, which right now is a bigger issue for Kelsey and the Cardinals.
Because if this is what we’re calling a crisis, that in itself is progress for this program.
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