Kentucky’s Alex Poythress Suffered the Most Cringeworthy Injury of the Season

So far.

When high school basketball players commit to the University of Kentucky, they don’t expect to be around for very long.  Coach John Calipari has a habit of recruiting the country’s top prep talent and then sending them to the NBA after only brief stop in academia. 

Alex Poythress was supposed to be one of those players. But after a surprise decision to return to Kentucky for his sophomore year and an injury that forced him to come back as a junior, he’s a rare upperclassman on a team known for freshman phenoms. 

Still Poythress has always had the skills of a guy who could have gone to the league as a teenager and during Tuesday night’s Kentucky and Duke game he provided a reminder. Watch him convert this fility alley-opp and get his tooth almost get stuck in the net in the process. To repeat, his tooth nearly gets ripped out by the net. The net. His tooth. Ripped. Ouch.

We’re all for flossing, but this just seems like overkill.

Photos by Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images