Darnell Dodson bridging the gap between Tubby and Cal

Jeff Goodman is reporting that his sources say Darnell Dodson will be returning to the rotation for the Cats today, meaning the Stanford Cardinal will have one other UK weapon to worry about. Another program, though, already has concerned themselves with Dodson's availability as he's factoring into their season too. Former Kentucky coach Tubby Smith is still trying to figure out when or if JuCo double-double machine Trevor Mbakwe will be availablefor his Golden Gopher team. The hangup for Mbakwe stems from felony battery charges involving a fight with a woman in April. Mbakwe, who has maintained his innocence, was originally set to go to trial on December 14th, meaning he could have been available for the second half of the season if the jury agreed with his side of the story. Now, the trial has been pushed back to January 7th, meaning Mbakwe will most likely miss the entire season, regardles of the outcome. The reason for the switch? Well, according to the power forward's lawyer, it has to do with the availability of Mbakwe's witnesses - one of whom is now a Kentucky Wildcat. Gregory Samms, the lawyer for Mbakwe, says that his client is innocent of the battery charges, but they cannot prove it without witness testimony, most notably Dodson's. Dodson was Mbakwe's roommate at Miami-Dade Junior College (they had five guys named 1st Team All-Conference. How is that possible?) and, according to Samms, was not available to be in Miami the week of Dec. 14 (Cats play Austin Peay and Drexel that week, following the UNC-UConn-Indiana gauntlet) for Mbakwe's orginal trial. This excerpt is from court documents aqcuired by the Minnesota Star Tribune:

Samms "is having extreme difficulty getting through the school administration and the office of Coach John Calipari in order to attempt to arrange for Mr. Dodson to be available during the week of the 14th in Miami"

In the meantime, Samms has asked that Dodson, along with Memphis assistant Matthew Dunn, to submit their testimonies via electronic means in order to get the trial taken care of as quickly as possible. Whether that happens - or if it has any bearing on Dodson's availability to UK (probably unlikely) - remains to be seen. But, aren't you glad you got to read about Tubby and UK again (I just thought I should use parentheses one more time)?