Cousins has built a reputation for having a short temper.
In the crazy scene immediately following last night’s upset in Columbia, did DeMarcus Cousins revert back to his brash, violent ways?
There is an eye-witness report and the victim — a college kid who is calling himself “Stephen” — claiming Cousins threw two punches before being whisked away back to the locker room by a Kentucky employee wearing a suit.
Bob Shields, who is an anchor at WLTX CBS television and has a morning radio show, “The Early Game,” on 107.5 WNKT, spoke with me this afternoon about what he saw Cousins do.
“We did a live shot right after the game. I see many fans swarming the court. One in particular looked like he was trying to duck the security guards. While he was still bent over, DeMarcus threw what I saw was two little uppercuts. A big fellow like that can throw a much bigger punch than he did. But he definitely swung twice. Somebody from the Kentucky bench, somebody in a suit, grabbed DeMarcus as quickly as it happened and the kids after he got hit.”
Afterward, Shields saw the kid, Stephen, in the bowels of the arena talking about his run-in with Cousins.
“First he gives me a little chicken wing and then I get like a cold cock in my right cheek.”
“I hear about somebody talking getting hit. He said, ‘Yeah, it was me, but it was worth it.’”
Fast-forward to this morning. Shields talks about the incident he saw on the radio. An hour or so goes by, and who calls in? Stephen. Now, Shields told me he left out certain details from his story on the air, then asked Stephen to verify those details when he called in, to which Stephen did.
“I didn’t feed him any of the lines,” Shields said. “I’m certain it was the same guy and he wasn’t a bogus caller.”
The five-minute audio clip of Stephen’s phone call can be heard here. Here’s part of his account:
“I had my head down, just kind of plowing through crowd, just because you want to get past the girls in the yellow coats. … So as I’m doing that, my heads down and I bump into this big body. And, of course, I look up and it’s none other than Cousins. I’m like, Great, biggest guy in the whole Coliseum right now. … First he gives me a little chicken wing and then I get like a cold cock in my right cheek, and man it knocked me for a loop. … He gave me at least two good licks.”
Shields also told me he didn’t tell the story on the radio in an effort to shed bad light on Cousins; he’s more concerned with the ever-growing danger of students and student-athletes clashing on the court after a game when emotions are so high.
“[Stephen] was in the Kentucky bench area and he did run into DeMarcus,” Shields said. “Should he have thrown a punch? No, but I can understand why it can happen. I don’t think it’s a punishable offense. You invade an athlete’s space in a situation like that, and sometimes things can happen.”
Cousins has seemingly been improving with his behavior ever since he threw that blatant elbow in the Louisville game, but will Calipari do anything to reprimand his big man if he owns up to this and tells the truth? Here’s a somber Cousins speaking with the media after the game, and below, a callback to that Louisville brouhaha.
