An untold story behind Poythress' UK senior day
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Before she tells you about the nine-hour dialysis treatments, Regina Poythress wants to be very clear about something: Her son Alex has cherished almost every moment of his unlikely four-year Kentucky basketball career and an overwhelming majority of the Wildcats’ passionate fan base has showered her boy with love.
But she also knows there are some who lash out at him, whether by screaming vitriol from the stands or spewing it across social media, because they are frustrated that the former McDonald’s All American with freakish athleticism doesn’t always dominate games. In fact, sometimes he seems to disappear in them.
Why? “You’ll have to ask him,” coach John Calipari is always saying.
“I don’t have an answer,” Alex Poythress said Friday.
So now, as he prepares to play his final game at Rupp Arena on Saturday against LSU, and because senior day is a time to reflect on the totality of one’s career, his mother Regina is finally going to say something that’s been more or less a secret during his four years in Lexington.
“He announced he was going to Kentucky in November of 2011, and I found out I had Stage 5 kidney failure two months later,” she said. “Alex has been dealing with that. He’s a caring person and he tries to make sure everybody’s OK, so he’s definitely concerned about my health. But he’s never complained, never said, ‘My mom has this and I’m worried.’
“We don’t put that out there. It’s not an excuse. We aren’t complainers. Things happen and we just deal with it. But I’m just saying people don’t really know Alex. He tries to keep everything in, so they just really don’t know.”
Q&A | Calipari reflects on Poythress' career
What's widely known is that Poythress is a 6-foot-8, 230-pound specimen who came to Kentucky from Clarksville, Tenn., in the fall of 2012 as a top-10 recruit and proceeded, in his second college game, to tomahawk dunk his way to 20 points (plus eight rebounds) against mighty Duke, freeing the faithful to begin dreaming big.
What's also widely known is that his career since then – back when NBA draft gurus were projecting him as a top-five pick, when he was an almost certain one-and-done – has been a roller coaster of inconsistency and injury that led him to Saturday’s unexpected reality: He is the first Calipari scholarship signee at Kentucky to stick around long enough for a senior day.
When Poythress and his mother stand together on Cawood’s Court, holding his framed UK jersey as some 23,000 fans serenade them with “My Old Kentucky Home,” they’ll be reflecting on the path that led here, which is full of what everyone doesn’t know.
“It weighed on me a lot,” he said of his mother’s illness. “It’s something I really don’t talk about, because it’s personal and I don’t think people really need to know. But she’s been battling that, and just seeing how she battles that, it’s kind of like motivation and inspiration.
“(Senior day) will mean a lot to her. It’ll mean a lot to me. She’s been there all my life, helping me along this journey. She raised me to the man I am today, and I’m just happy that I got a chance for her to be my mom.”
Likewise, she is thankful that with the help of nightly, hours-long treatments, she has stayed strong enough to watch him play in the 2014 national championship game and become just the 15th player in Kentucky’s rich history to produce at least 800 points, 500 rebounds and 70 blocked shots in a career.
She’s also seen him lose in the first round of the NIT at the end of that once-promising freshman season, his NBA stock plunging as his performance dipped. She’s seen him struggle to earn minutes as a sophomore, forcing another return to school. And she has been “crushed” as he tore the ACL in his left knee after playing just eight games as a junior last season.
But Regina Poythress, unlike her soft-spoken son’s critics, has never wondered whether he cared enough.
“Some of the comments about Alex, I think they’ve been interesting. I know who Alex is, so we try not to entertain the negativity,” she said. “He’s been hit, he’s had a lot of challenges, but he’s always come back fighting. Think about some of his (bad) games – and I know people say he’s not consistent – but he’ll come back and the next game he’s coming out swinging. He’s trying to give you what you want. He’s trying.
“I think he just has been misunderstood. Just because he’s quiet and his personality may be different than some – some people are loud and boisterous; Alex is just not that way – I think it’s kind of not fair to compare.”
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Poythress, who is not a projected pick in any of the major 2016 mock drafts, admits that he thought his UK career would be shorter. But he tries not to imagine alternate realities, like the one where he’s healthy for last year’s Final Four and can defend Wisconsin’s Sam Dekker – as he did in 2014 – instead of watching him shoot UK out of a perfect season.
“I think we would’ve gone 40-0,” Poythress said, “but you can’t change the past or think of what-ifs, because you can’t solve anything by doing that.”
This senior season has been another mixed bag: consecutive double-doubles for the first time in his career back in November, a 25-point outburst at Alabama in January, another knee injury – albeit minor and in his right leg – that cost him five games in February, and a scoreless foul-out in a key game at Vanderbilt last week.
“I experienced everything from the highs to the lows to everything in between,” Poythress said. “I think for the most part, it’s been a somewhat successful career, so hopefully (fans) would feel that, too.”
Subtract the expectations of a basketball-mad Big Blue Nation – fueled by the almost unbelievable fact that 25 Wildcats were drafted, 19 in the first round, during Calipari’s first six seasons – and Poythress’ time in college is an unqualified success. He graduated in three years, is working on a master’s degree and just became UK’s first Academic All-American in 20 years.
Mom is understandably prouder of that achievement than anything else Poythress could accomplish. Not that she’s surprised. He became obsessed with counting money as a tot and working complex math problems by kindergarten, when his teacher suggested skipping him ahead a grade. (Regina declined.)
By the fifth grade, her boy was winning an award for having read more books than any other child in the school.
“As you got older, sometimes people thought it wasn’t as cool to be into academics,” she said. “But Alex always thought it was cool.”
Point being, he’ll probably make a fine living even if this basketball thing doesn’t work out. He’d like to work in sports marketing, maybe for Nike. But he hopes that is way down the road.
It’s funny to him that some question whether he loves the game, because his only immediate plan for the future is: “Basketball.”
“I just want to continue playing, continue being around it, as long as I can,” Poythress said. “I want to keep on doing it forever.”
If his mother has taught him anything, it’s never to give up on something you love.
“Everybody acts like this is it for Alex, but I don’t believe it,” she said. “Success is a journey. It’s not a destination.”
Calipari has been along for the roller coaster ride with Poythress. He’s spent four years trying to push him higher and pull more of that immense talent to the surface.
There were times the coach felt as frustrated as some fans, and he still hopes the best is yet to come from Poythress as Kentucky prepares to make a run at its third straight Final Four, but over time it seems Calipari has come to appreciate what he is and not focus on what he’s not.
“Each guy is on his own path,” he said. “He’s had a heck of a career on all fronts. He’s made us all proud – in the classroom, on the court. You know, I wish he hadn’t gotten hurt and I wish he was already in the NBA. So does he. So does he. It happens sometimes, and you’ve got to play the cards that you’re dealt, and that’s what he’s doing.
“I think he's going to be one of those guys that (Kentucky fans) remember fondly.”
Kyle Tucker can be reached at (502) 582-4361. Email him atktucker@courier-journal.com.