Randolph Morris is playing well in China and has earned player of the week honors again in the CBA league. Congrats, Randoph!
Tweet of the Morning:
Stoops: Saban is a very good friend, for a long time. Recruited Mike and may have recruited Mark #Sooners #Bama
— Ryan Aber (@ryaber) December 16, 2013
How about that?
Your Quickies:
Kentucky football
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Member girth talks about some good football recruiting news over at KSR. I totally agree with him about Cory Johnson, that's one we really need to get the ink dry on.
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Several UK commitments to play in the Offense-Defense Senior All-American Bowl.
Kentucky basketball
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Calipari had a minor medical procedure yesterday. No idea what it was.
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Dick Vitale says Kentucky fans should be patient with this year's team. I think Dick is right when he says that "ultimately, their talent will prevail." That's what usually happens. Last year, for example, Kentucky was just too talent-challenged after Nerlens Noel went down, and wasn't nearly deep enough. This year's group has no such problem.
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A major AAU event is moving to Louisville from Florida in 2014. The AAU Division I National Championships and Super Showcase will be held at the Kentucky Exposition Center (Freedom Hall). I think that's fantastic, and it should draw a lot of interest.
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There are a couple of FanPosts that deserve attention. This one by girth, which I feel is just a touch overwrought, is still very well done and deserves to be read. It is possible that he's right, I suppose, but I find myself mostly in disagreement. Still, it's an honest, well-thought out effort to characterize what we see. Give it a look.
This one by Hutton looks at a problem Kentucky has had this season, which is defending the pick-and-roll. Kentucky was doing such a poor job at fighting over the screen earlier in the season that Calipari has gone to switching everything instead of fighting over the screen. Hutton describes some of his coaching when it comes to the pick-and-roll, and it's good advice.
Honestly, switching the P&R has not worked that well against bigger teams, and I think Calipari should rethink it. North Carolina really exposed us by getting McAdoo into pick and rolls and isolating him on a guard in the post. Other teams will follow suit, and as big as Aaron and Andrew Harrison are, they aren't big enough to effectively guard low post players.
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Ira Combs counsels patience. I also found this interesting:
The other talk about this team underachieving seems to circle around selfish play especially from the guards . My question Is this , is it selfish play or just a misunderstanding of the coach's philosophy and constant preaching of attacking the basket especially in a half court offensive set . Maybe UK just needs to curtail the mindset of attacking the basket religiously on every possession and bring some old fashioned set plays into the offense and feature some of these supposed special players skill sets in certain areas of the floor .
This was actually my thought as well. It seems to me that attacking the rim from the guard spot is what Calipari preached from Day 1, and when the Harrisons finally get around to doing it well, they are accused of selfish play. That's just silly.
I think Ira's prescription is right. Kentucky needs to run a few set plays, most of them designed either to free Young or Aaron on the wing, or get Randle the ball down low. In facing the zone, we really need to work the high-low with Randle in the high spot. He's got to learn to hit the face-up jumper from there. We used to use Darius Miller in the middle of the zone in 2012, and it worked well. But Randle has to take, and make, the foul line jumper. If he does, that will free up drives to the basket, and double-teams should result in lobs to WCS.
Other Kentucky sports
- UK freshman Linnae Harper wins Freshman of the Week in the SEC. Congratulations to the former McDonald's All-American.
Links posts
College football
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Florida loses seven players to transfer so far, including another quarterback, leaving them with two from last season and an incoming freshman QB. That's kind of thin at the position, and the Tyler Murphy transfer really hurt them.
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Aaron Murray's recovery is going very well, and he hopes to be ready for Georgia's pro day. I wish him a speedy and complete recovery.
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The 2013 SB Nation All-America team. Oh, shiny.
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From Vanderbilt to Texas? Does anyone think this really possible?
College basketball
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Billy Donovan doesn't think Damontre Harris will ever play in Gainesville. Unlike Rick Pitino, I'm inclined to take Donovan at his word.
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Just a reminder that Kansas has some panic-stricken fans as well as Kentucky. Honestly, I haven't seen much panic around here. Must be the other sites.
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Gary Parrish has some poll observations that seem okay to me. You saw mine yesterday.
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Duke defeats Gardner-Webb. I guess an upset was too much to hope for. Duke sure didn't impress in the second half, though.
Other sports news
- It's possible Nerlens Noel plays this season after all. I still don't think it's likely. Hat tip: Aaron's blog