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.