Tonight, the Wildcats must defeat the Georgia Bulldogs, or their path to the NCAA tournament becomes very complicated, indeed.
Tweet of the Morning:
The Oklahoma City Thunder today re-assigned DeAndre Liggins and Daniel Orton to the Tulsa 66ers of the D League
— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) March 7, 2013
Liggins won't be there long. Not as sanguine about Orton.
Your Quickies:
Kentucky football
- Mark Stoops talks to Kent Spencer about Kentucky football:
-
OSU Commit Marcelys Jones to Kentucky? // Eleven Warriors
When even a little bit of talk about Kentucky poaching an Ohio St. recruit happens, you know the apocalypse is just around the corner.
Kentucky basketball
-
Video: Can Kentucky make the tournament? // ESPN
So you’re saying there’s a chance. Right?
-
Kentucky Sports Radio // Doug Shows sucks
I included this so people could pile on. I don’t feel one way or the other about Shows, but hey, taking shots at certain officials is the right of every fan.
-
Kentucky Sports Radio // Noel raps that he "might come back" in "Number 9″
Three words: Not. Gonna. Happen. With that said, here is the rap, and although I'm not a huge fan of the genre, it's pretty good:
-
Cats happy to embrace Cinderella role, face Georgia Thursday // The Kentucky Kernel
Another headline that just got me. Kentucky, under John Calipari, as "Cinerella."
That’s just downright head-scratching. Look, when you are Kentucky, you are never Cinderella, ever. No matter what, that descriptor simply doesn’t apply to this program.
There may have been times in the past when it did, back during 1992, perhaps. But that time is fleeting, and hasn’t returned since. We have no excuses for being in the position we are in, and calling this a "Cinderella" team, to me, qualifies as an insult.
-
Cauley-Stein said film proved that Arkansas was ‘punking’ us // vaughtsviews
"During the game you don’t feel like you were playing the way everybody was saying we played but then when you go back on film you can definitely see that (Arkansas) was playing with more intensity, playing tougher. They was punking us," said Cauley-Stein Wednesday as he looked back on the 13-point road loss
It’s encouraging that he can see what we saw. They "was punking [you]," all right.
So do something about it.
-
Hopkinsville’s Jordan Majors a potential walk-on candidate for UK? // Recruiting
Haworth said he called UK assistant Orlando Antigua recently to tell him that [Jordan] Majors, a 6-foot-2 player who averaged a team-high 21.6 points heading into the tournament, has been accepted to UK and has already earned a full academic scholarship to the school.
"We’re hoping walking on at UK will be a real good possibility because that’s what he really wants to do," Haworth said.If he’s anything like Jarrod Polson, I can’t wait to see him.
-
Calipari, Cats preview UK at Georgia // Kyle Tucker – UK Beat
"And I [John Calipari] don’t think we have one player that’s not capable of being physical and doing the things that you have to do. But sometimes when the game gets crazy, we’ve got guys that let go of the rope.
I hate to break the news to you guys, but the days of rope are passed. You are hanging on by a thread. Drop that, and it’s NIT, here we come.
-
Step One: Avoid a bad loss. Thursday night’s game at Georgia (14-15, 8-8 Southeastern Conference) would qualify. Step Two: Record one more quality win. Saturday’s home finale against 11th-ranked Florida would fit that bill. If Kentucky (20-9, 11-5) could go 2-0, it would almost certainly punch its postseason ticket. Lose either and the Cats would need to do damage in next week’s SEC Tournament.
This would seem to be the formula.
-
John Clay: Georgia game one Kentucky cannot afford to lose // Kentucky.com
John Calipari refused to say that at his Wednesday media opportunity — "I am worried about us being the best versions of ourselves," he said — but I will.
Lose to Georgia and the Cats slide right off the proverbial NCAA Tournament bubble.Exactly right. A loss tonight, and an upset of the Florida Gators may be required, at minimum. Very few teams can get into the tournament with a 3-game losing streak at season’s end.
-
Kentucky-Georgia notes: Bulldogs not a one-man team // Kentucky.com
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is a nightmare player for Kentucky. The Wildcats haven’t defended well on the perimeter all year, and he’s just the kind of guy who can make us pay for that over and over again.
-
Cats understand it's now-or-never time // Kentucky.com
UK acknowledged this now-or-never aura hanging in the air. If the Cats don’t begin to show and sustain a competitive passion at Georgia on Thursday, then … when?
"At some point, the light’s going to go on," Calipari said. "And when it does, you’re going to see a team (that’s successful). And you’ve seen it at times.I have an answer. If not now, next year, because quite frankly, this team is out of time to "get it." They either get it now, or they needn’t bother.
Other UK sports
-
Reed's Blast, Cody's Start Leads No. 7 Baseball to 6-3 Win // UKAthletics.com
All-America two-way standout A.J. Reed belted his fourth home run in his last six games and freshman right-hander Kyle Cody picked up his first career win, leading No. 7 Kentucky to a 6-3 win over Xavier, on Wednesday evening at Cliff Hagan Stadium. - Kentucky women expect fierce fight for SEC tourney title // Kentucky.com
-
Baseball's Oddest Fraternity // WSJ.com
The first time Mets outfielder Collin Cowgill remembers picking up a bat, he swung it from the right side of the plate. On the surface, this doesn’t seem all that unusual: Cowgill writes with his right hand. He eats with his right hand. If he wanted to throw a punch, he would do so with his right hand.
You’ll remember former Wildcat Colin Cowgill if you follow baseball at all. This is a very interesting story about him and his unusual combination of throwing and hitting.
Links posts
College football
-
Study indicates brain injuries among college football players
A study completed by researchers at the Cleveland Clinic found that college football players may experience significant and long-term brain damage due to hits to the head even when they do not suffer a concussion.
Definitely a worrisome finding.
-
3-point stance: Huskers', Vols' droughts - College Football Nation Blog // ESPN
From 2000 to 2012, a total of 13 seasons, 72 schools have won at least a share of an FBS conference title, and that is counting TCU, Cincinnati, Louisville and Boise State only once even though they won in multiple conferences. That’s 72 schools, and none of them is named Nebraska. The Huskers are for oh-for-the-century, having last won in 1999 (Big 12). Big Red fans, take solace. Your streak is one year shorter than Tennessee’s. The Vols won the inaugural BCS title and haven’t won the SEC since.
Tennessee fans cannot be happy about this. I recall when UK basketball was on that long slog through the years without a title, and even a Final Four. Tennessee fans must be even more restive than we were.
-
Louisville AD Jurich can get $250K if fired for cause // The Courier-Journal
I think this is just wrong. Getting severance in spite of poor or even unethical job performance is absurd, in my view.
-
Report: Mitch Barnharth 8th in SEC AD pay // John Clay's Sidelines
So Tom Jurich makes 1.4 million and Barnhart $654,000 (note to John Clay - one too many zeros in Barnhart’s salary, my friend). How many national championships in anything does Jurich have in his department?
I perceive a slight inequity here. Still, since Louisville “negotiated” their way into forcing taxpayers to subsidize their shiny new arena, for which they pay nothing and reap almost all the revenue, I guess they had to put all that bank somewhere. Tommy Turtleneck’s pocket is about as good as anywhere else, I guess.
If this sounds like green-eyed jealousy, I confess – that’s exactly what it is. We need to hire better negotiators at Kentucky, I’d say.
Another strange thing: I have seen all kinds of commentary about how much UK should share athletics proceeds with the University, but we never seem to hear that same outcry when it comes to U of L. Jurich, Pitino and Strong are all either the highest-paid, or among the highest paid athletics people at their positions in the United States. In fact, if memory serves, U of L subsidizes Cardinal Athletics to some extent.
Yet all we hear about is how much Calipari makes. Well, don’t pay me any mind, that’s probably just my UK fan derangement syndrome acting up again …
College basketball
-
Kentucky, Duke, Louisville among wacky bracket teams // One And One - SI.com
All I could muster is a "whatever." Your mileage may vary, you may even find it funny.
- Bubble Banter: Who helped their tournament chances? // CollegeBasketballTalk
-
3-point shot: 16 games for new Big East? // ESPN
You tell me – does this fall under the rubric of "Dude, seriously?"
I don’t understand why four Stanford assistant coaches and Cal assistant Gregg Gottlieb were ejected from the Cal-Stanford game for coming onto the floor to break up a scuffle Wednesday night. The assistant coaches were acting as peacemakers and trying to ensure the situation didn’t escalate. Gottlieb was reacting to a volatile situation. Were the assistant coaches expected to just sit there and watch a full-scale fight? At some point, common sense has to factor into some of these decisions.
"Common sense" isn’t particularly common among game officials these days, in my opinion.
-
Syracuse Head Coach Jim Boeheim Asked to Retire // Did You See That?
I suspect this is unintentional satire. Even Syracuse isn’t that stupid.
-
Slumping Indiana basketball team still has work to do // courier-journal.com
I admit it, I just loved the headline. That’s the only reason it’s in here.
Other sports news
-
"But there’s no way with his [Anthony Davis] shoulder and some of the ailments he’s had, I’m not going put him on Dwight [Howard] in a situation like that. That’s not fair to him.’’
Good call, coach.
-
Sacramento’s bench kept them in the game and nearly won it. Patrick Patterson had his finest performance as a King, scoring 15 points on 6-10 shooting (including 3-3 from downtown) to go with 8 rebounds, 4 assists, a steal and a block in about 28 minutes.
This makes me happy. This does not:
DeMarcus Cousins had another terrible performance from the field, scoring just 5 points on 10 shots. He played just 20 minute during that time.
The Warriors won a close one. A lot of SEC players in this game – Patterson, Cousins, Marcus Thornton (formerly of LSU). Probably others.
Other news
-
New commenting code rolling out to all SB Nation sites Thursday // Blog Huddle
I think a lot of you iPad users out there will be happy about this.