Big Blue Nation Linkapalooza: Entering the SEC Edition

so far?

We have a winner. Yet many people are too thick to get past it. They think if u played here it makes all the difference which is ridiculous on it’s face value.

The SEC just isn’t that strong. It’s not like the ACC (normally) and the Big East.

I’m not a season ticket holder either, but we’ve been playing Indiana every year since 1969., We have a longer tradition with them than we do with Louisville. I will be very unhappy if that rivalry gets the axe.

North Carolina, I can see. They are not a traditional rival in the same sense as IU and U of L, and U of L’s more by virtue of proximity than anything else. But we will be playing Louisville whether Calipari wants to or not. So the only game that should really be considered is the North Carolina game. UNC is more of a big-picture rivalry in total wins and national championships.

I would like to see the SEC-BE challenge go away, One tournament is enough, like the Champion’s classic. Pick one or the other if something has to die. We are not really rivals with either Kansas or Duke except in the same sense we are rivals with UNC.

of dealing with a perpetually young team. In my mind he is trying to do what is best for preparing the team for an annual run for a championship. After all we expect and demand no less. I am willing to withhold judgment and let him do the job he is paid to do in the manner he thinks is best. As for padding his resume, for what? He isn’t building a case to take a better college coaching position and a few more wins won’t matter much to the pros. He is not likely to make the Hall of Fame on number of wins without doing something to redeem his NCAA tournament record. He needs titles, he needs to do it cleanly and he will clearly have to do it his way. If Coach Cal is using Kentucky to pad his resume with NCAA championships, I say use us, use us often and please use us this year.

Throw in mizzou twice gets you to 14. TAMU is 105 right now and for the sec be challenge we drew st johns THIS year. It is reasonable to assume both of those slots could be top 100 games and then you are looking at 16.. next, add playing in a real tournament early on and you have more than just the one top 100 team than we had in Kansas (see Maui). Oh, and we are adding the champions challenge next year (an annual rotating game with duke, Kansas and unc?). So 12 is probably your minimum number of top 100 teams and you could get to 18…..also given the level of athletes at sec schools, I don’t think you can necessarily dismiss the 100+ rated league teams as cupcakes.

The more I think about this and Cal’s modus operandi I think he might be trying to raise such a stink about dropping a rival game that the UK admin pressures the sec to get out of the sec be challenge – or at least make sure we draw a johnnies level BE team each year. To me – and I believe Glenn and I agree on this point – what should be dropped is the BE challenge.

I thought the pic was appropriate and only the cool kids would get it ;)