When it comes to the NCAA Tournament, there are a lot of stories to be told. Every team has a good one. They're great feature pieces in between games and at halftime.

But there's only one story that Big Blue Nation has cared about over the last week to 10 days.

It's titled "PJ Washington's Foot."

The sophomore forward, All-America, and Kentucky's leading scorer and rebounder has yet to play an NCAA Tournament game since spraining his foot in an SEC Tournament loss to Tennessee a couple of Saturdays ago.

The thinking was (and correctly so) that without Washington, a national championship is off the table for the 2nd-seeded Wildcats. Likely a Final Four, too.

Heck, ESPN's Jay Bilas said, flat out, that Houston would beat UK without PJ.

Well, there's been the kind of development that will make the enormous Kentucky fan base jump for joy.

Now, I don't want to throw water on the festivities. He's JUST come out of this cast. There's a difference between walking on carpet and running at lightning speed for 30 to 40 minutes. But this is ABSOLUTELY encouraging.

Check out UK head coach John Calipari's reaction.

And who knows what "Uh oh" means when it comes from John Calipari and in this context. If we knew what he was thinking, he'd be very disappointed.

It's even better that Kentucky's game against Houston isn't until late Friday night. The more time PJ can be given to back up and running, the better.

And keep in mind, he has not officially been cleared to play yet.

It's funny. Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson didn't seem to ever doubt PJ would be playing Friday night.

Now let's see if Washington starts. My guess is he doesn't.

We'll see.

 

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