SEC Commissioner Mike Slive has been making the media rounds, talking about the SEC Network, SEC football scheduling, the SEC fan experience and more.
The possibility of a 9-game SEC slate will be one of several hot topics for the annual SEC spring meetings which begin today in Destin, Florida.
Tweet of the Morning:
@kevinscarbinsky one reason Alabama's schedule is too easy, they don't have to play Alabama
— Jeffrey Wesler (@jmwesler) May 28, 2013
Heh. Tautological, that.
Your Quickies:
Kentucky football
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Top six moments from Mark Stoops' first six months. I don't think there is much debate about what #1 is. For almost 51,000 fans to show up at the spring game still resonates.
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Morgan Newton "poised to make some noise?" CBS thinks so:
New York Giants - TE Morgan Newton, Kentucky Most undrafted free agents are signed within hours of the conclusion of the draft, but Newton is an example of a player who earned his way onto the roster during rookie minicamps. Weeks after the 2013 NFL Draft, New York tried out dozens of players and decided to sign Newton to a contract as a tight end. At one time considered the quarterback of the future at Kentucky, Newton struggled with consistency as a passer and transitioned to a receiving role as a senior, but finished his Wildcat career with only one catch. At 6-4 and 240 pounds, Newton has the size and athleticism but is still very new to the position and will be a strong candidate for the practice squad.
Good luck to Morgan. If he can learn to block and catch at the NFL level, that will truly be one of the great turn-around stories I can remember. Via KSR.
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Larry Vaught interviews Vince Marrow. Seems he and Mark Stoops have known each other quite a while.
Kentucky basketball
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John Calipari inducted in to the Junior Achievement of the Bluegrass Business Hall of Fame. I think this is mostly because of his charity rather than his business achievements, which have been fairly modest by comparison to his peers in the class.
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Nerlens Noel thinks he can become one of the best players in the NBA. I think so, too, but he's got to get mended first.
Other UK sports
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Softball had a tremendous season, and next season could be better:
"If you would have said at the beginning of the year that we would have made it all the way to supers against ASU with five freshmen starting I would have said that's a tall order, but they responded," Lawson said. "I do feel like we have a solid foundation but we are going to have to figure out how to replace Kara Dill and we are going to have to figure out how to do better offensively."
Of course, we thought the same thing about baseball this year, and the offense was the major factor in a disappointing season. So Lawson is right to be concerned.
Links posts
College football
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Mike Slive talks to Tony Barnhart of CBS Sports about the SEC Network and several other important SEC football issues, including the possibility of a nine game schedule as it relates to overall strength of schedule:
Slive: A lot of this discussion comes back to nonconference scheduling, and as a conference, we're going to have to take a look at that. But when I was on the men's basketball committee, I always believed that you should judge a team by its entire body of work. And our conference schedule is a big part of the body of work for our teams. Some of our teams (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky) already play a ninth game because of a nonconference rivalry game.
That's a significant factor. We get caught up in what would happen if we had to drop Louisville due to a nine game SEC slate, but it also might force Georgia to drop Georgia Tech, Florida to drop Florida St., and South Carolina to drop Clemson. None of that would please their respective fan bases.
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Miami football player being questioned by the NCAA felt "intimidated" by the NCAA investigators. I can't imagine why...
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Nick Saban is the only coach so far to speak out for a nine game SEC schedule. When you've won 35 of the 40 SEC games you've played, that makes sense, but most of the SEC isn't in that tall cotton.
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Mr. SEC rejects the idea that SEC teams should dump their permanent cross-division rivals, and takes pundits backing the idea to task. I think he has a point.
College basketball
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Dave Daniels of Rant Sports says Andrew Wiggins did his recruitment the right way. I find this a dubious conclusion if we are to believe he was talking about shoes with Kansas. In fact, if I were the NCAA, I might want to know more about that conversation.
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Former Duke player Ryan Kelly is engaged to former NFL coach Bill Cowher's daughter. Hope he's a Steeler's fan, I wouldn't want her father hating on me.
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UNLV seems to be hemorrhaging players.
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Former Wildcat and Oklahoma St. coach Travis Ford helped out the tornado victims in Moore, Oklahoma on Memorial Day by doing what Americans do best -- cooking hot dogs and burgers.
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Does the SEC miss Bruce Pearl? I don't miss the orange body paint and that awful orange blazer, that's for sure.
Other sports news
- I thought this was a little rough when I saw it. Bayless was less than pleased.