Kentucky Wildcats: Morning Quickies - Jarrod Polson Edition

Jarrod Polson's inspired play of late has really been impressing Kentucky fans, and hopefully inspiring his teammates. He was simply terrific on Saturday and never fails to bring energy to the team.

Tweet of the Morning:

On Signing Day, UKathletics.com was 8th in traffic among CBS network schools. CBS hosts most D1 websites and more than 40 BCS schools.

— Kentucky Athletics(@UKAthleticsNews) February 11, 2013

And they say we don't care about football...

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Is selecting Larry Warford at #24 considered a reach? - Stampede Blue

  I have been paying attention to one particular player by the name of Larry Warford, he’s a massive Right Guard from the University of Kentucky who’s widely considered one of the best Guard prospects in the 2013 NFL Draft (ranked #3). At 6-3 335, he is a very stout and strong run blocker who can easily push defenders away from the ball-carrier and help spring the RB for a long gain. And in pass protection, he won’t let anyone beat him easily.

  It's been a while since a Kentucky player was taken this high, if it happens.
• SEC spring football schedule // Saturday Down South

• Kentucky Sports Radio // Matt Bradford’s Monday News and Views

  This is the reality. The new UK coaching staff is impressing EVERYONE they come in contact with, utilizing an approach to recruiting that is blowing people away. From explaining in detail how each player will be utilized to showcasing their revolutionary training and monitoring methods (more on this later in the week too). Kentucky’s recruiting class finished #27 in Rivals rankings and there may still be one or two more to come, but it wouldn’t shock me if the one next year does even better. It is a new Kentucky football mindset folks.

  That's a very good thing.

• Scout.com // UK joins early offer sheet for Florida DB
  I do like the focus on defense. That's new at Kentucky. ($)

Kentucky basketball

• John Clay: Order restored in SEC basketball // Kentucky.com

  Still, the data sheets don't show a wide gap between the two teams. Jeff Sagarin's computer rankings for USA Today have Florida at No. 1 and Kentucky at No. 16. Ken Pomeroy's vast array of numbers has Florida at No. 1 and UK at No. 18.

  Statistically, there is a fairly wide gap, but the game isn't played by statistics. Kentucky has a combination of skills that Florida has not seen this year. They are going to have trouble with it. Whether UK can score enough to upset them is the real question in my mind.
• Seth Davis puts UK in his Top 25, CBS Sports does not // John Clay's Sidelines

• UK basketball notebook: Respected professor says college athletics model can't survive much longer // Kentucky.com
  Who knows? It could happen, it may not. Everybody's a palm-reader these days, but predicting change doesn't require special insight. The game has changed a lot from prior times, and it will continue to change as we go along. Whether it will remain under the NCAA model is a question nobody really knows the answer to.

• John Clay: Polson gives Kentucky a jolt of energy // Kentucky.com

  "I feel more comfortable the more minutes I get," Polson said. "I don't really have pressure. I just have to go out there and defend and bring as much energy as I can. So it's pretty fun."

  So here's a hint to the other guys. Go out there and have fun. Play the game. It is a game, right?

• Ashley Scoby goes in depth with UK guard Jarrod Polson on his play, team play, phsyical game and more // vaughtsviews
  For all you Jarrod Polson fans out there, of which I am happily one.

• Notebook: Harrow doing 'fine,' but Calipari wants more - CoachCal.com

  While Harrow has been posting double-digit scoring efforts for the Cats, he’s been the focus of John Calipari’s attention the last couple of weeks for his inconsistency. After more than a month of solid play, Harrow’s energy level hasn’t been up to par with Calipari’s expectations.

  Harrow can be much better than he has been.

• Best shot blocker: Jeff Withey vs. Nerlens Noel // John Clay's Sidelines
  Noel will learn to control his blocks better with time. While his physical talent is freakish, he is still very raw.

• Fast Break: Illinois, Wisconsin score top honors after wild week // Seth Davis - SI.com

  A week ago, this would have looked like a Florida cakewalk, but now I'm not so sure. Kentucky has won five in a row, and the Gators, who are missing Glue Guy reserve Will Yeguete, are looking more vulnerable after their drubbing at Arkansas last week.

  Note to Seth: It was never going to be a cakewalk. Just sayin'.

Other UK sports

• UK Takes Down No. 20 Stanford to Complete Successful Weekend // UKAthletics.com
  I'll have more about the softball team later today.

• Cousino ready to lead a successful season // The Kentucky Kernel
• Mathies scores season-high 28, UK women's basketball routs Vanderbilt // Kentucky.com

Links posts

• Tom Leach // Monday links
• The Morning Mix // Troy Machir, CollegeBasketballTalk
• SEC M5: 02.11.13 Edition // Rush The Court
• Wakeup Call: As robust an array of links as we've had this year // CBSSports.com

College football

• Paterno-family report not enough to clean-up JoePa's reputation // ESPN

  I can save you the time of reading through the entire report. It goes like this: Joe Paterno … good. Freeh report … bad. So whaddya say, let's return the statue of JoePa to Beaver Stadium and, hey, Peachy Paterno ice cream cones for everybody!

  Look, the Freeh report is flawed. Let's stop pretending it isn't. No, we should not accept this new report at face value, but when everyone has already made up their mind and will accept no new evidence or arguments, we have truly reached a point of despair.

  Instead of mocking Paterno's family, the media should give them a fair hearing on the merits. Just because someone has an agenda does not automatically make them wrong -- defense attorneys always have an agenda, but we don't ignore them.

  Ridiculing a family's effort at advocacy for their deceased father is just unseemly, unfair, and unreasonable. View it through a jaundiced eye? Surely. But in my view, this piece is unfair even as an opinion.

• Urban Meyer is a college football villain, but why? // SBNation.com

  Some consider this the insidious creep of the dreaded SEC, which to stodgy old Big Ten fans, is a fate worse than losing. It isn’t. This is how college football works now. The rest of the country works hard. Meyer isn’t unique in this respect, he’s just extremely good at turning that hard work into lots and lots of wins.

  This, right here, is what is driving the so-called "hate."

• Phil Knight of Nike says Joe Paterno wronged by Freeh report - ESPN

  ike co-founder Phil Knight said Monday that Joe Paterno was unfairly maligned by the "unjustified and unsubstantiated" findings of the Freeh report.

  Knight also lashed out at the NCAA, saying it was "simply grandstanding" when it used the Freeh report to punish Penn State's football program with "totally unwarranted" sanctions.

  Well, I guess everyone is not uncritically accepting the Freeh report as fact.

• Tennessee Vols' Butch Jones faces challenge with SEC recruiting // The Tennessean

  "Everything is accelerated in the SEC," he said. "Every day, you have to bring your ‘A’ game, no matter what you’re doing. But it’s invigorating. As a competitor, you want to go up against the best each and every day."

College basketball

• 3-point shot: Will Miami be a No. 1 seed? // ESPN
  Too early to tell, but they are certainly playing like a 1 seed right now.

• Mike Sorensen: College basketball could use some changes // Deseret News

  Basketball, once thought of as a finesse game, is getting more like football all the time. Officials will blow the whistle if a player gets tapped on the wrist, but look the other way as players get knocked around and mugged in the lane all game long.

  Can I get an "Amen?" Nobody wants more fouls called, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make if we can clean up some of the wrestling in the paint, and all the fouling on presses. I even agree with some of his more exotic suggestions, like eliminating the 1 and 1 and no held balls at the end of games.

• College Basketball Gets Crazier by the Week - ABC News

  Six Top 25 teams lost on Saturday alone, including two of the top five. When the next Associated Press poll comes out Monday, it likely will have a new No. 1 for the sixth straight week — marking the second-longest such streak since the first rankings in 1949.

  Some people call it parity. I call it a bunch of mediocre teams.
• College basketball's elite in need of late-season jolt // USA Today

Other sports news

• Heat say Lil Wayne not booted from arena
  Oh, darn. :-)

• Lil Wayne tweets he was ejected by Heat for rooting for Lakers // CBSSports.com
  Heh. Well, I'd eject Lil Wayne on general principles. :-)

• The Suns are impressively bad // SBNation.com
  I had to link this because the headline made me laugh.

• With John Wall, Wizards a different team // Kentucky.com

  Without him this season, Washington was 5-28. With Wall, the Wizards are 9-7, playing a passionate, stop-and-pop game, knocking off projected post-season teams like the Clippers, Knicks and Nets just in the past week at home, where they've lost one game since Wall's return. They move, shoot and defend better when he is on the court. They care more. That's not a subjective take; you can actually see it.

  Predictions of a John Wall draft bust would seem to have been ... premature.

• NBA rookie Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, a South Jersey native, returns to area to face Sixers // NJ.com

  He is one of four players on the Bobcats roster who won a NCAA national championship — Kemba Walker (2011) and Ben Gordon (’04) each won a title in their time at the University of Connecticut and Hakim Warrick was on the ’03 Syracuse team that won the title.

  Four national championship winners on the same team? That's pretty impressive.

Other news

• Kentucky Sports Radio // OFF TOPIC: Makers Mark lowering proof to 84
  Another good reason to drink Four Roses Single Barrel (100 proof). Sad to see Makers go this route, but they have become all about the money, and less about the whiskey.