In case you haven't noticed, there are tons more doodads and whatchamacallits here at A Sea of Blue. I know that the post conversion FanPost was a bit much to read. I wanted to take a moment and highlight some of the cool things for the ASoB community to use.

You have to try out these FanShots. These are videos, images, links or other things that you'd like to share with the ASoB readership. These are great if you want to share a story that you read, or something else that isn't very wordy and worthy of a FanPost. (Of course, feel free to comment with breaking news in the most-recent story like before. FanShots don't replace what we've done in the past.) You fan find the FanShots in the grey toolbar just below the top of the page, or look in the right-hand column for the FanShot box (as pictured, left).

Sharing a YouTube video can be a little confusing. It took me a few seconds to figure out what you need to do. On your YouTube video page (example video), look for the light gray box immediately to the right of the video. There should be an "Embed" text field, which contains the proper HTML code to embed the video into a web site. Copy that into your clipboard, and then paste that into the "HTML Embed" field in the FanShot.

Also, the Recommendation system looks to be really cool. If you really like somebody's FanPost (formerly the Diaries) or FanShot, you can recommend it so that it stays at the top of the list for a while. Now you too can be popular!

 

UPDATE 05/10 9:26:  Just a quick note -- please don't use FanPosts or FanShots to post any copyrighted photos or other copyrighted media.

 

 

Now that A Sea of Blue has migrated to it's shiny new home with all the bells and whistles that can be imagined, I suppose I should start to do my job and talk a little bit about UK.

First off, the lingering hangover from the Tipton debacle.  Marc Maggard took me to task yesterday at his site, Kentucky Ink, for what I wrote about Jerry Tipton.  We exchanged a number of posts on his site, and ultimately agreed that I would appear on his radio show on Monday at 7:00 PM.  I still don't really know the procedure for doing this or where it can be heard, but I will update you on this as I have time to figure it out.

For just a little more on the story, AOL Fanhouse's Michael David Smith has thoughts.  Too bad he didn't read my recent post on the subject.  Or maybe he did.  Who knows?

Moving on to real UK news, Matt Jones had this interesting comment today on his blog:

(2): Billy Clyde was on the Scott Van Pelt show and said that UK would honor commitments of young players, regardless of their development. That means that if Avery, Zollo, Miller, Euton, etc dont develop, they still will be coming to UK. That is good from an ethical standpoint, but sure puts a LOT of pressure on the staff to identify talent early on.

Now, those of you who know my thoughts on this subject probably realize that this kind of thing makes me a bigger and bigger fan of Coach Gillispie.  What he is saying here is that he will keep his word.  That means a lot to me, and aught to stand as a shining example to the rest of the coaches taking early commitments.  How 'bout it, 'Ol Roy, Tim Floyd and the rest of you college coaches out there?  Jump on that band wagon and make us all proud.

John Clay has a story over at his blog Sidelines which brings to our attention the fact that Billy Donovan still hasn't signed his contract extension.  Donovan's excuse?

Donovan has changed attorneys since the extension was negotiated, which has played a part in the delay.

Ah.  OK then.  But wouldn't it be cool if Gillispie beat him to the punch?

Lots of thoughts over the last few days on committing young.  I'll just link dump these and you can read them if you're interested, and haven't:

KU Sports

Courier-Journal -- Eric Crawford

Rivals -- Jerry Meyer (free)

Arizona Republic

Armchair GM

I need to make a post on Jon Hood, which I will soon, I promise ...

UPDATE:  The Big Lead links us in a story about Tipton.

UPDATE 05/08 3:16PM:  The Cats Pause is reporting that Gillispie will have a press conference tomorrow morning.  Nobody is sure why.

Tomorrow morning when you go to your computer to immerse yourself in A Sea of Blue, you will find it radically different.

That's because sometime in the wee, small hours of tomorrow morning, A Sea of Blue will be migrated from the venerable Scoop platform (what you see now) to the brand new, high-tech custom bogging platform of SBNation 2.0.

This is a huge change for this site, and should be a great new experience for our members.  When you wake up, there will be a lengthy post describing the new platform and many of its features.  It will be fun for us all, and I am positive that our readers will really enjoy 2.0.

So get ready for an even better blogging experience, more community development tools and a cutting-edge new AJAX-based platform for us to talk about our beloved Wildcats.  I think you will love it.

This post will remain on top all day today, so scroll down below for the new non-admin stuff.

Update [2008-5-8 6:17:29 by Truzenzuzex]:  OOPS!  Apparently, I misunderstood the date thing.  Instead of being ready this morning, the new digs will be ready tomorrow morning (Friday).  I somehow failed to assimilate the clarification I was sent after the original schedule.  Sorry for any inconvenience, but it does give me one extra day to prepare, which is not at all a bad thing.

There are numerous things of interest in the news today, which we will run down in a moment.  First, though, it seems that the decision of Roderick Flemings to matriculate to Hawai'i has placed the Big Blue Nation into a rather surprising funk.  The Cats Pause, as well as numerous other Wildcat fan sites this morning, are filled with hand-wringing and prophesies of doom.  The scare of Dick Gabriel's apparently incorrect report last night that Jodie Meeks was considering a transfer simply amplified the angst to levels not seen since Jai Lucas shunned the Cats for Florida.

First of all, it was advised by the normally reliable Marc Maggard at Kentucky Ink that he had spoken to several people in a position to know, and they had independently confirmed that Flemings was well short of NCAA qualifications to transfer from JUCO to Division 1.  Assuming that is true, this begs the question, "Why would Gillispie have flown out to Texas to speak to the young man?"  That is a very good question, and I don't really know, but there are all sorts of possibilities -- Gillispie wanting to evaluate his qualifications first hand, Gillispie just doing due diligence and trying to turn over every rock, etc.  Besides, there is always the theoretical chance that Flemings could have made up enough hours to get qualified.  We don't really know, and we probably never will.  It is fairly obvious to me, though, that Kentucky didn't lose a straight-up, uncomplicated recruiting battle to the Rainbow Warriors, although I can't prove it.  Call it a gut feeling.

But the point I want to make is to relax, take a deep breath and have a little faith.  We brought Gillispie here, in large part, because of his reputation for recruiting.  So far he has landed some excellent recruits, and is now feverishly trying to round out our roster for 2008.  We have seen this before with Tubby Smith, and it is always difficult to make these come-from-behind recruiting moves successfully.  Failures are going to happen, but in this frenzied environment, there are no givens and no sure things.  So just keep yourself firmly grounded in the apparently obvious fact that nobody is going to beat Gillispie for a recruit by out-working him.  Matt Jones had a surprisingly negative comment on this situation today over at KSR, making the point that "...if you are going to recruit him, fly down and see him and have him all but say that he is coming to Kentucky....well you gotta get him."  All I can say is that this is pretty presumptuous -- recruiting simply doesn't work that way.  Nobody, and I mean nobody, is that good a closer.  Let's have faith, but keep in mind that we are talking about human beings here, and that one of them is a 20-year old.

Now, to the rest of the news:

• Vanderbilt beat the Bat Cats last night in Nashville, 3-2.  Kentucky really needs to get some wins against the tougher teams in the SEC or risk falling even farther behind in the SEC standings.  As good as the Cats were early in the season, they have reached a period where they are losing as many games as they are winning, and that is not a good thing.  The second game of the series is today at 3 PM.  The Wildcats need this one bad.
  
  
• Tyler Hansbrough will return for his senior year at UNC.  Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington will be "testing the waters."  My money is that at least one of them will be back next year, and probably both.  Neither of them looks like a first round pick to me.
  
  
• Updating this post I had earlier, Pete Holiday of Fanhouse (and an Alabama law student) tells us that Nick Saban is finding ways around the so-called "Saban Rule," which outlawed "bumping into recruits" during the spring evaluation period, where direct contact with recruits is not allowed but "incidental" direct contact (i.e. "bumping into" a recruit during a visit to the school for a lecture or something) was formerly allowed.  So Saban has figured out a new way to get in front of his targets during this time -- videoconferencing.  You have to admire that kind of dedication and gumption in a coach, but you have to wonder a bit about the ethics of deliberately violating the spirit of the rule, if not its letter.
  
  
• Jerry Tipton informs us today that Paul McCoy has narrowed his choices down to Virginia and Kentucky.  SMU, Southern Cal, Washington State and the other suitors now seem to have fallen by the wayside.
  
  
• If you were planning on trying out your new Twin Spires Club account on Churchill Downs' racing card this opening weekend, think again.  It seems that the Thoroughbred Horsemen's Group are utilizing a provision of federal law to veto the on-line pari-mutuel betting except for a few big races like the Derby, Oaks, and Woodford Reserve Classic, holding out for a bigger piece of the pie.  Churchill Downs has filed a federal lawsuit down in Florida over a similar situation.  That is just posturing, however, as there is no way CD will allow this situation to continue -- they will either solve it through negotiations or removing the conditions that allow the Horsmen's group to exercise this power.  Both will cost money, but trust me -- this piece of the pie is too huge to wait years for this to wind it's way through the courts.  But for now, on-line bettors will have to wait to bet on CD races until there is a meeting of the minds.
  
  
• MSNBC reports that the BCS is inching toward a playoff of sorts by talking about the so-called "plus one" format that would essentially create a four-team playoff between the top four ranked teams in the bowls, then play a separate BCS championship game between the two winners.  A variant of that format would play the bowls as normal, then select the top two teams out of the bowl system to play in a separate BCS championship.  That is essentially what we have now, but after instead of during the BCS bowl season.
  
  But the article warns that playoff proponents should prepare to have the patience of Job -- the earliest such a scheme could be implemented, even if the intransigent opposition can be swayed to agree -- would be seven years hence.  So will this stymie the ridiculous proposed investigation of the BCS as violative of anti-trust called for by some in Congress?  My guess would be no -- this is an election year, after all.  Just one more question -- where is the NCAA in all of this?
  
  
• AskMen.com has this story about an analysis using  WhatIfSports.com to figure out who the top 10 basketball national championship teams were.  They ran the teams against each other 100 times each, then ranked the teams by winning percentage.  The UK 1996 national champions figure prominently, but many UK fans will not be that happy where they land.  Read the whole thing if you're curious.
  
  
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, today is the start of the NFL Draft.  As you know, we here at A Sea of Blue are interested in the draft results, but not as interested as many others because I am not much of a professional sports fan.  I'll wait for the results to comment on them, but in the meantime, here are some sites that will give you much more coverage:
• • The Worldwide Leader
  • The NFL
  • NFL Draft Countdown
  • Rivals.com
  • Kissing Suzy Kolber (live blog)
  • Depressed Fan (live blog)
  • NFL Draft Watch

That's all for now.

Update [2008-4-26 12:14:40 by Truzenzuzex]:  Regarding Flemings, I have a few more thoughts.  It is possible that more of Flemings' hours will transfer to Hawai'i than UK.  Of course, it is also possible that Flemings picked Hawai'i because he liked it better than UK -- he never did visit UK's campus, so he has no real first-hand knowledge of what it is like here. It is very likely that Gillispie was making a last-ditch effort to try to get him on campus, which makes a lot of sense.  If so, his efforts were apparently in vain.  But Flemings has always been flighty in his decision-making, as evidenced by this Rivals article back when he was coming out of high school.

Since Tru loves his hometown Cardinals just slightly less than the Wildcats^*, I thought I'd throw out a few tidbits concerning our beloved rivals:

• Louisville hosts our Kentucky Wildcats today at 6PM. The Herald-Leader reports that the game won't be shown on TV, so you'll need to to default to UK's Internet Audio stream, 630AM WLAP in Lexington, or Louisville's Internet game tracker. The Wildcats beat Louisville earlier in the year 7 runs to 6, so you know the Cards will be looking to split the series.
• 
  
• Louisville's basketball team has taken the curious step of scheduling Tubby Smith's Minnesota basketball team next season. Pitino has only won twice against Tubby's Wildcat squad. Given Pitino's talent that is returning -- didja hear Earl Clark opted not to jump into the NBA Draft? -- Tubby will have his hands full.

I steal all my Louisville news from the most excellent Card Chronicle; I recommend the same to you, good readers.

Finally, a point of discussion for you Wildcat faithful. From all accounts, the new Barnstorming Event is going along swimmingly. From what little I've gathered, Louisville doesn't offer the same kind of fare-the-well tour for its basketball seniors. Which is kinda sad; who wouldn't want to boo David Padgett one last time, for old times sake?

Would it be too much to ask to try and schedule a Barnstorming event that included the UL players? You could have it held in Louisville, and have the old foes battle back and forth for a half. Then bring in the regional all-stars and combine the UK and UL teams. (Now that's a scary thought, huh?)

And why limit it to just Louisville players? How about bringing in Courtney Lee and the rest of the great WKU seniors for a stop near Bowling Green? That would make each event unique for the region and promote the state of Kentucky as the state that loves basketball. I think the Barnstorming basketball spotlight is big enough to share with all our in-state players. What do you think? (Share in the comments, of course!)

^*This statement is somewhat false. Tru does not love the Cardinals teams, insomuch as he loves Rick Pitino^**.

^**Tru was lying in this article. He has a full cardboard cutout of Ricky P standing by his bedside. I've seen it with my own eyes.

According to the loathsome troll Jeff Goodman, Travis Ford of UMass is close to becoming the new Oklahoma State University coach.  Gary Parrish of CBS Sportsline is also reporting this as though it is now "official."

Oklahoma State is officially denying it, though, so we still have a little bit to go before we can all throw a party.  If true, I think it is a great career move for Ford and a solid hire by Oklahoma State.  Thanks to everyone in the threads below who gave me a head's up to this story.

Update [2008-4-16 13:54:30 by Truzenzuzex]:  Here is a view from the Massachusetts side.

Update [2008-4-16 15:41:2 by Truzenzuzex]:  No firm confirmation yet, but it's beginning to look like Ford has been hired at OSU.  The OSU Rivals site reads more and more like a done deal.

More ... Mike DeCourcy doesn't like the hire.  Frankly, I think he is being a bit unfair, but I do respect DeCourcy's opinion generally.  Don't agree in this case, though ...

Update [2008-4-16 22:42:47 by Truzenzuzex]:  Done deal, from Travis' own mouth.  Congratulations to the OSU Cowboys.  I think they will be happy with this hire.

Ah, Saturday at last.  Time for catching up on some blogging.

First things first -- the word coming from Jerry Tipton, both on his blog and in the Herald-Leader, is that Coach Gillispie will not be entertaining any offers from Oklahoma State or anywhere else.  This word comes via assistant coach Jeremy Cox and was delivered to two JUCO recruiting targets of UK, but at least it is something.  Hopefully, there will be no Brinks trucks with Oklahoma tags sighted in front of the Kraft Center.

Moving on a bit, we have this article from Rick Bozich lauding the prospects of SEC basketball.  His main point is that Florida's back to back national championships have galvanized the SEC athletic departments, with the unsurprising exception of the Alabama schools, into taking basketball more seriously.  As evidence, Bozich points to the hiring of Trent Johnson by LSU and Darrin Horn by South Carolina.  Both coaches made it to the Sweet Sixteen this year, and Bozich seems to think this will mark the beginning of a more competitive SEC in basketball.

I think Bozich has a point, but I am not worried about the SEC suddenly becoming a league where we have different champions emerging every year.  This league has been competitive for over a decade now, and even though Kentucky's dominance has not changed until recently, this is most likely just transitory.  Many point to the rise of Tennessee and Florida as competitors to Kentucky's pre-eminence in this league, but personally, I don't buy it.  Yes, Florida and Tennessee will be very tough under their current regimes, but we have seen this before out of schools in the SEC. 

Remember Arkansas and LSU back in the 1980's?  Remember Tennessee and Alabama in the 1970's?  The fact of the matter is, Kentucky has won or shared the SEC regular season championship only 12 times since 1980, and only 5 times in the last decade.  In fact, in the decade of the 1990's, when Kentucky won 2 national championships and appeared in 3 national finals, the Cats only won three (3!) SEC regular season championships.  Of course, no other SEC school won so many in that decade, but that just goes to show you how competitive this league truly has been.  What I see is simply more of the same.

Now, it's time to award the trophy for the Sea of Blue Bracket Challenge.  This goes to the individual who demonstrated extraordinary bracket brilliance in this year's NCAA tournament.

And this year's winner is:  Yakota JAG! 

Yakota JAG had 46 out of 63 possible picks correct, including the national champ, the entire Final Four, and all but two of the final eight.  Honorable mention goes to Blueblood, who had 42 out of 63 picks correct.

I want to thank everyone who participated in the challenge.  Next year, I intend to extend this challenge and include some prizes for the top 3 challenge winners.  A very special thanks goes out to TrickyD26 (who is still not a crook!) for setting up and administering the ASoB Bracket Challenge.  He did an outstanding job, and I hope everyone who participated will recognize his efforts.

So congratulations, Yakota JAG, on your outstanding victory.  This Cup is for you!

Moving right along to our final bit of news, I am very pleased to announce that Ken Howlett will be joining me on the front page of A Sea of Blue.  Ken has been one of the most active posters at A Sea of Blue over the last year, adding a lot of value to the board with his well-researched and in-depth commentary.  Ken has made 1188 comments on this blog since he became a member in July of 2007, for an impressive 148 comments/month or 37 comments/week, and as most of you know, his comments are rarely one-liners.

So please welcome our newest front-page author, promoted from the very ranks of our members.  I plan to add at least one and possibly two more front-page authors to this blog in the next 6-8 months, so if you think you have the right stuff, we are holding 24/7 tryouts right here.  Sharp, insightful commentary, great diaries and excellent research will get you noticed.

Update [2008-4-12 12:52:3 by Truzenzuzex]:  Dickie V. weighs in on the Oklahoma State situation.

...as reported here last week is being confirmed today by Jerry Tipton.

Meeks may be next.  Get well soon, guys.

... is a Volunteer.

Unless, of course, he changes his mind again.

Update [2008-4-2 8:26:42 by Truzenzuzex]:  Seems Darius Miller is a 3rd team Parade All-American, and Hopson 2nd team.  But check out this name on the 4th team Parade list -- Tyrelle Pryor, the #1 football recruit in America.  Bound for Ohio State.   Wow.