Louisville signee and Clark County High School graduate Preston Knowles has been dismissed from the Kentucky All-Star boys' basketball team and will not play on Saturday when the squad faces the Indiana All-Stars in Bowling Green. All this according to Jason Frakes of The Courier-Journal.
Knowles was dismissed from the team for breaking curfew.
"We asked him why he missed curfew, and he said he had some personal problems back home," Stan Hardin, the game director for the Kentucky team told Frakes. "So we're going to let him go home and take care of those problems. He could come back next week."
Knowles' character has been called into question several times since U of L turned up the heat on their recruitment of the 6-2 guard. He was suspended multiple times as an underclassmen, although never for anything more severe than "attitude problems."
When I spoke with Knowles' high school coach Scott Humphrey earlier this year, he said that his star player's problems with discipline were extremely overblown.
"We live in a small town in Kentucky with our own newspaper," Humphrey said. "Every time I disciplined him it was front page news. I have been here for four years as the coach and Preston has started for four years. There have been times when he needed a kick in the rear like most high school kids do, but in Preston's case it was front page news every time. I was harder on him than most because I realized his potential early on, but he always bounced back on a positive note. He was a good teammate, and every coach would love to coach him because he brings it everyday and plays with passion."
His biggest fans in our community are the teachers that he currently has. Zero trouble with the law. Zero trouble with drugs or alcohol."
I have no idea what Preston's "personal problems" are, but I hope that they are not too serious and that he can get them taken care of so he can rejoin the team next week. This isn't the type of thing Cardinal fans were hoping to hear out of the Knowles camp this summer, nor is it the type of story, I'm sure, that Preston wanted to produce.