Cousins, Bama, Bad Blood
February 9th, 2010 ║ Posted By: John Pennington ║ Permalink ║ Tags: Alabama, Kentucky
On Saturday, star Kentucky freshman DeMarcus Cousins said that tonight’s game with Alabama is “going to be a big game” for him. Why? “There was a lot of bad blood between me and that school.”
A number of Lexington media folks tried to get to the bottom of the “bad blood” yesterday, but Cousins kept mum. “Just a bad situation. I really don’t want to talk about it.”
According to Gentry Estes of The Mobile Press-Register, Cousins might be ticked by the fact that former Tide coach Mark Gottfried didn’t spend much time recruiting him. As you’ve probably noticed from watching him, Cousins is a tremendous talent, but that talent comes with a pretty short fuse.
(John Calipari suggests Cousins’ temper is a product of being picked on for his weight back in the seventh and eight grades… by Alabama residents. So maybe that plays a role in the “bad blood,” too.)
Then Anthony Grant arrived in Tuscaloosa and he — like Gottfried before him — pursued in-state recruit Eric Bledsoe rather than Cousins.
In the end, Calipari lured both players to Lexington. And Cousins could be on his way to earning SEC Player of the Year honors and top-pick status in the NBA draft.
