Things that make you say Hmmm

The Drew Lavender Saga gets curiouser and curiouser. Sean Miller says Drew asked out of the game last night. That answers 1 question, sort of: The Xavier party line had been Drew's ankle could only get better by playing on it. They stuck to that logic in expecting Lavender to play Saturday. Though, to me, it's hard to understand how a bad ankle gets better when you run, jump and cut on it.

Lavender obviously feels the same way. Question: If he thought he could play, why would he opt out? There's money to be made. Missing games now equals missing auditions for NBA people. Why would Lavender want to do that, unless he felt his ankle was so bad, he couldnt perform well?

Why would he bring this team this far, then opt out?

The guy that Miller has praised for his toughness suddenly goes soft?

Makes no sense.

Until someone invents a Painometer, I'm not going to question an athlete's injury. Only Drew knows Drew's pain. And it has been obvious since the injury that he's not right.

Miller and athletic trainer Mike Mulcahey have made it clear they expect Lavender to play through whatever pain he has. In other words: We've handled the injury properly. You suck it up and go. The fact that Drew isnt playing is on Drew.

I'm not sure that's fair, for the reasons stated above.

Regardless, last night's W notwithstanding, this is only a decent team w/o Lavender, not the very good model and wild-card Final 4 group some of us believed. Another 10 days to get something straightened out.