Cancun Challenge ‘gym’ surprises Cats

No matter how many Kentucky fans flock to Mexico, the Cancun Challenge will not be Rupp Arena South.

But Alumni Gym South seems likely.

One look at the gym for the Cancun Challenge made UK players think of the modest on-campus gym back in Lexington. Only not quite as nice.

“It’s like Alumni Gym,” Josh Harrellson said on Monday. “The floor is pretty bad. You can’t really complain because both teams have to play on it. It’s not the greatest gym but we gotta do what we gotta do.”

The gym, which seats about 1,200, has chandeliers. Counter-balancing that touch of class is an imported floor that the players noticed had cracks and bends.

“It’s a floor, at least,” Patrick Patterson said. “There are cracks in the floor, spacing missing, parts in the floor where it dips in and makes a ‘V’ shape all the way down the floor. We were dribbling the other day and balls were going left and right. John (Wall) lost a couple balls. A couple teammates tripped on the court cause of the cracks. The court is in pretty bad shape, but it;s still a basketball court.”

The court is in a ballroom at the five-star Moon Palace Resort in Cancun. The players had only to walk across a hall to get to the gym.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Patterson said. “We walked in there were chandeliers on the ceiling. Someone said, ‘Make sure you don’t shoot the ball so high.’ I was like, ‘That’s so crazy.’ ”

The team locker room added to Patterson’s surprise.

“It’s just a small ballroom,” he said. “I figured we would have a basketball court and a real lockerroom but this is what the resort does for us.”

UK Coach John Calipari said the floor had been imported from the Boston Garden.

“There is a little seam,” he said. “Balls are gonna fly. . . . There is a gap in front of our bench you could sprain your ankle. There is a gap about three inches,and I said you could lose your foot down there. So, there are some dead spots in the floor.

“It’s a ballroom. You’re playing in a ballroom. We go from 24,000 to playing in a ballroom. Which is fine. The good news is the other team is playing on in a ballroom on the same floor too.”