KNOXVILLE — Kevin Punter had ignored his body for long enough.
When Tennessee’s leading scorer couldn’t walk the morning after the Volunteers lost at Kentucky a couple of weeks ago, Punter finally decided to have his ailing foot checked out.
After sitting out four games and trying to do everything in his power to play, Punter will undergo surgery on the stress fracture in his foot on Tuesday in his native New York City.
Tennessee coach Rick Barnes made that announcement before Friday’s practice, and Punter spoke to reporters for 10 minutes a little bit later.
“Me personally, yeah,” Punter said of the disappointment in not being able to finish a season in which he’s averaging 22.2 points. “I kind of fought with my parents about me playing, but they don’t want me to play.
“I honestly thought about playing against Vanderbilt and not even telling them, and them just watching TV and seeing me on the court. They probably would have drove out there and killed me, but I’ll take that behind-whooping.
“I always like to be on the same page with them, and if they don’t feel comfortable with something, I’m more for being on the same page with them. I spoke with Coach about it. He advised me not to do it.
“This is the one time in my life, I promise you, I’ll listen to my body. I’ve never listened to my body, ever. I just say, ‘Screw you.’ Now, I can’t do it. I’m going to listen to my body. If I’m not healthy, I’m not going to force it. I could easily go out there and force it, trust me.”
Barnes said Punter played through the pain in his foot for two weeks before getting it checked out.
“He’s a very humble person. His family is, too,” Barnes said. “I think it speaks volumes about him (that) he was hurt for two weeks and didn’t tell anybody, and that’s with me getting on him. I keep pushing him and ask him (if he’s hurt). He says, ‘I’m fine, Coach.’ His words were, ‘I’m good, Coach. I’m good. I’m good.’
“And he wasn’t good, but I think that’s how much it means to him. He’s been taught somewhere along the line that if you can go, you’ve got to go. I wish he would have told us, because maybe we could have managed it for him. That’s a maybe.
“He’s such a hard-working, humble kid, it went on for two weeks. He said to me it would hurt, then stop hurting. He didn’t tell anybody that it was a problem.”
Both Barnes and Punter’s parents wanted him to shut down a potential comeback and go ahead with the surgery, but Punter held out hope he could come back and help his team for as long as he could.
The last couple of days, though, Punter realized his lateral movement was affected too much by the injury to try to play in Saturday’s home finale against Ole Miss or beyond.
Punter was very emotional in the locker room after Tuesday night’s loss at Vanderbilt, which was Tennessee’s third in a row in the four games that Punter has missed.
“It’s been really emotional,” Punter said. “I haven’t cried in years. I cried against Vanderbilt. I probably cried when I first got the news. I’ve been doing a lot of crying, too much crying. That’s soft of me. I’ll probably cry tomorrow, Hopefully I won’t, but I’m sure it’s going to be emotional tomorrow.
“I’ll try not to let all that mushy mushy stuff get to me.”
After averaging 10.3 points per game this season, Punter will finish with the 13th-best scoring average in program history and become just the third Vol, joining Ron Slay in 2003 and Chris Lofton in 2006, to average 20 points in a season since Allan Houston’s senior season in 1993.
Punter took the scenic route to Tennessee. He had just two scholarship offers, from Texas Southern and Central Connecticut State, coming out of high school in The Bronx. His academic situation forced him to go prep school in North Carolina, then to junior college in Missouri.
He signed with Tennessee to play for Donnie Tyndall, but his play rose to another level under Barnes, who Punter would watch while he was coaching Kevin Durant at Texas.
“It guess it’s pretty cool,” Punter said. “It really is. From growing up watching him coach one of my favorites players, it’s just crazy how then you never would think I’d be here at the University of Tennessee and he would be my coach, looking back at it. It’s pretty crazy how life works.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.