Let me clarify. Kentucky is definitely on a roll. 47 straight wins at Rupp is amazing. A definite Number 1 ranking is also amazing. What's not? The lack of credit West of the Mississippi. I know that we aren't in the heart of basketball country here in Utah, but I get nothing as far as UK news. And for a Number 1 team, that's unacceptable.

I've grew up in Utah but my mother and grandparents are from Kentucky. I've bled blue and white since at least 1996, the first time I remember seeing the Cats play. Ever since then, I've been hooked. Luckily, CBS and ESPN have been doing a phenomenal job of broadcasting the games for us fans who aren't so close. Kudos to them.

The one thing I can't stand is local media here. When Jimmer was dominating college basketball, you wouldn't go 5 minutes without hearing his name on every sports (or otherwise) station we had. Anthony Davis has been putting up record numbers (aka passing Shaq on all-time freshman block list) but I've yet to hear his name anywhere locally. I know I'm definitely in the minority but it does get frustrating.

I'm reaching out to you, Big Blue Nation. Tell me where to go to get my Wildcat fix. I need UK hoops to keep me going now that football is over. I'm looking for the best information I can get on anything UK, from analysis to recruiting. Because I sure can't get that here.

Feel free to follow me on twitter, hit me up with any info you have!!

Boone

@b_rad_y

I live in Indiana, have most all of my life. I have always been a Kentucky fan since the day are really started paying attention to college basketball (Go Jamal Mashburn), never been a Hoosier fan and I would like to show you all why.

Go Big Blue! Kentucky is whooping some Gator ass. Rupp is the toughest arena in all of basketball. 49 straight home victories and undefeated in conference play thus far. Like · · Unfollow Post · 17 hours ago via mobile

• Melissa Phillips Claycomb likes this.
• • Jacob Callaway With one loss!! Hoosiers!! 17 hours ago · Like
  • Shelby Gilligan Have fun in the NIT 16 hours ago · Like
  • AUTO_LINK_TOKEN_4_AUTO_LINK_TOKEN Delete CommentMark as Spam Jacob Callaway Ha, 16 hours ago · Like
  • Delete CommentMark as Spam Justin Judy Would love a rematch with the overated Hoosiers. 16 hours ago · Like · 1
  • Shelby Gilligan ‎48 straight sorry, but 49 will come 16 hours ago · Like
  • Isaiah Shuck remind me again who the one loss of the season was to? that's right, the Hoosiers!!! NIT my ass...they could prob lose out and still make the tournament. about an hour ago · Like
  • Isaiah Shuck if IU is overrated, them UK lost to a team that isn't even good. when will idiot UK fans realize that talking shit about a team that beat u, makes ur team look worse, not better. about an hour ago · Like
  • Shelby Gilligan No one said shit until asshole IU fans started in. So my question is, when are you tools gonna realize it was one game and you got real fucking lucky? They play that game a hundred more times and UK wins it 99 out of a hundred, so enjoy your win quietly.

The Big Blue Nation lost a name from its collective past this week and I lost a friend. Only the oldest Wildcat fans would remember the name of Jim Dinwiddie – he was a reserve guard for Coach Rupp from 1968-71. Even those who remember him wearing the blue and white would likely say he wasn’t a great ball player and his career stats back that up – 3.8 ppg and 2.5 rpg in 72 games played. Jim had a two-game tear during his senior season where he hung a career high of 17 on Vandy and followed that up with a 13-point effort against Auburn. In a different time, Jim may have had a bigger impact on the court but he played with some greats - Issel, Casey, Steele and others.

Jim’s impact on my life began a few years after he graduated and returned to Leitchfield to begin his law practice. I was a young boy when he and my father struck up a friendship. I was always fascinated with the tall lanky guy who always smiled. I had known Jim for a few years before I learned that he played basketball for Kentucky and a few years more before I appreciated what that meant to people. I just knew him as a kind man who always spoke and always spoke positively.

My first trip to Rupp Arena came through a gift from Jim. I had been to see a couple of those great UK-Notre Dame matchups in Freedom Hall but I had never seen a game in Rupp until Jim called in December of 1981 to offer my dad his tickets to the UKIT.

By the time I was 12 and, while excited to visit Lexington, I wasn’t full blown Blue. If I listed my favorite things at that time in my life, my Converse shoes, my 10-speed, Big League Chew and the BB gun I had at my grandparents’ house would have topped the list. UK basketball might have been in there somewhere but it is difficult for someone that age to grasp the width and breadth of the whole thing.

That first trip to Rupp turned the concept of UK basketball into reality for me. I still remember the conversation that Cawood and I had when he signed my prgram and I remember the words my father spoke when he introduced me to Gov. Happy Chandler. The game itself is insignificant in the history of Kentucky basketball – just one of the 2000+ wins. But my signed program from that obscure contest became a treasured possession that I would proudly show my friends for years after. The time I spent with my father that day is one of the best two or three memories of my entire childhood.

Over the years, I have thanked Jim a hundred times for the tickets that provided these memories but I never told him why I was so thankful. He might have even considered it odd that I continued to express my gratitude well into my adult years. If he did think it strange, he never let on. Instead be would just smile and tell me I was welcome.

Jim eventually gave up his season seats and later in his life had mixed feelings about Big Blue Nation. As a Christian, he felt that some people spent too much of their passion rooting for a sports team when they should have been devoting that energy to God. Jokingly, I would ask him if God was guiding those elbows he would throw when we played pickup games on the court behind the First Baptist Church.

When they put the new floor in Memorial Coliseum a few years ago, I was lucky enough to end up with a few pieces. I built a shadow box for my father and placed one piece in the center, surrounded by pictures from the great teams that played in that historic building. I knew Jim must have spilled a lot of sweat on that old floor and so I planned to make one for him as well. But before I could get it started, life got in the way and I put it on the back burner.

A few months ago, I saw Jim when I was out eating lunch. We talked for a few minutes and I suddenly remembered what I had planned to do. So I told him that I had something special that I wanted him to have and that I would bring it by sometime soon.

I was planning on writing this all down for him in a letter to accompany the gift. I had thought that I would explain to him what that trip to Rupp Arena did for me. I was planning on telling him that his generosity provided a man with the some great childhood memories. I was planning to tell him that his gift of two tickets to an insignificant basketball game provided a spark that allowed my father and I to share common ground during the years when we didn’t agree on anything else in the world. I was planning on telling him that, when times got better between my father and I, having those memories gave us something to talk about until other words came easier. I was planning on telling him that, even though we sometimes take it too far, having something that you can share with others during a bad time is never a bad thing.

I never had the chance to tell him of the impact he had on my life because Jim, the man who was always smiling and never without a kind word (or a sharp elbow if you tried to belly up with him in a pickup game), took his own life.

If you spent any time with Jim later in his life, you most likely walked away from him with a self-help book in your hand or a list of bible passages that he selected to try to help you find your path. His own path apparently eluded him and his importance to others must have been lost to him as well.

If I had been able to follow through with my gift to Jim, I don’t believe it would have made any difference in any of the choices he made or how he viewed his life. But I sure would like to have had the opportunity to give it, and tell him the story that goes along with it.

This isn't my typical "sky is falling" type post, but rather one that I thought was interesting: In last night's game against Florida, Kentucky (awesomely) held Florida below 40% eFG, which is a really, really good number, right? Yet when I checked out our PPP figures from the game, Florida registered at .98 PPP while Kentucky rang in at 1.32 (REAL GOOD). My question is, does the relatively low number of possessions have to do with why Florida shot so poorly yet seemed to be efficient in terms of PPP? I know KenPom leans a lot more on PPP or adjusted offense when compiling his ratings than he does eFG%, so I'm wondering what's really the better metric?

I know it sounds absurd at this point of the season - and I do not want to sound like the UK fan who can never be happy - but I do believe the next few weeks have what could be must wins - especially if UK wants a number one seed.

Follow me after the jump....

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Kentucky enters the home stretch of the regular season with the first of 2 games against Florida in Rupp Arena. I think I say this every year, but there is no team I enjoy watching the Cats beat more than the Gators. Here's hoping we get a reprise of 2003.

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Anytime there is a catfight, one cat has to win. And if you stood a Bengal Tiger next to a Wildcat, there really isn't any question who is going to win is there? Well, this is not the National Geographic Channel, so things are not quite that simple. UK Hoops took their 21-2, 10-0 record into the bayou and got swamped, simple as that.

From the opening whistle it was quite evident what LSU's strategy was going to be. They were big, they were deliberate, and they were patient. The game was played at a snail's pace, with UK expending so much energy on defense, that the offense never was able to make some outside shots that would have opened up that wall of a zone defense that LSU played, and UK could not play through the zone and consistently questionable calls if the UK Radio network is to be believed. A full and detailed explanation after the jump.

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Fans of the UK Hoops squad, I have a new name for you. We are now going to be called DreadHeads. I am sending that one to Coach Mitchell and the U.S. Patent office. And come 3PM Sunday, the DreadHeads must unite!

It is going to take a serious effort for UK to go down to the bayou and get out with their pelts intact. The Bayou has it's share of Wildcats, but they are not of the Kentucky variety. And we all know that Cats hate water. The starters are going to need their "A" game, and A'Dia Mathies is going to have to lead the way. Mathies leads the team in scoring (15.2), steals (2.8), 3-point field goals made (39) and 3-point field goal percentage (.382). She is also second on the team in rebounding (5.5), assists (2.5) and blocks (0.7). But Mathies is not alone, as SEC Freshman of the Year contender Bria Goss follows in the scoring column with 11.7 ppg. She has scored in double digits in three of the last five games, including a team-high 19 points vs. Ole Miss on Thursday. Samarie Walker is UK’s leading rebounder at 6.3 boards per game and has averaged 8.8 points and 8.8 rebounds in the last four games.

Coach Mitchell in his opening statement of his press conference stated, "We have a tough task ahead Sunday afternoon. LSU’s a very talented team and they’ve gotten a bit more healthy here. They’re motivated to win so it’ll be a tough matchup, it always is in Baton Rouge. We’ll have to do a good job as we’ve been able to on Friday afternoons of getting ready to turn our attention to our game Sunday. I’m real confident we’ll have good preparation for the LSU game, we’ll need it."

More after the jump......

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Remember — it hasn't been all that long ago — when you could pencil in a UK win over Vandy? Last year and the future portrays a whole new future for the Commodores. How did the 'Dores just sign their best recruiting class in history? Sports Illustrated's Andy Staples takes a look at the process and the success.

Franklin seems to be succeeding. Vanderbilt doesn't get players Ohio State wants. It got one this year. Vanderbilt rarely beats Tennessee for players. It did this year. "It's the best class I've ever been associated with," Franklin said.

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Business Insider compiles the list using the following criteria:

1) Architecture, ambiance, and aesthetics

2) History: an aggregate score of the historical importance of the team, the games played at the stadium, and the venue itself.

3) Passion How much do the fans care about the team who plays there? The roar of the crowd can do more for a stadium than almost anything

Guess what's missing.