Kentucky Wildcats: Morning Quickies - Jason Kidd Edition

Jason Kidd was hired, fresh out of the ranks of the newly-retired NBA players, to be head coach of the Brooklyn Nets. Kidd's not the first to skip all kinds of rungs to get to the top, and that path has lead to some successes and some failures.

Tweet of the Morning:

Our locker room at today's game. Might compete with Rupp's... http://t.co/kfdk519hyx

— Kyle Wiltjer (@kwiltj) June 13, 2013

From the lap of luxury to ... whatever. Yikes.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• While TV Williams apparently didn't commit on his visit, we have another opportunity for a commitment today when Stanley "Boom" Williams comes to town. [Hank]

• KSR is at its best when they get serious instead of frivolous. This is a nice effort.

  [Glenn] It's not hard to see why they don't write a lot of serious articles. Take a look at the comments. The author puts in a ton of work, and this is the kind of comment he gets:

  Zamphir Says: June 12th, 2013 at 10:21 pm You don’t need to be a football expert or have a degree in statistics to know that UK football sucks. All you had to do was watch any game they played

  Unfortunate.

• Drew Barker's Diary. Really interesting stuff, he's like having an extra recruiter on the staff. [Via Hank]

• Preview of Jonathan George for next season. [Via Hank]

• Another UK 2015 Offer - A Kentucky kid living in Texas - VERY good interview. [Hank]

• So you're saying there's a chance?

• Mark Stoops said yesterday we might be getting a big Yahtzee today. Hope!

• KSR has a piece that nicely dovetails with the mea culpa by Greg the other day.

  I don't think the writer is quite right about the talent in Kentucky, but if Stoops & Co. can close the borders to raiders like Norte Dame and Alabama, then what talent there is can really help.

• Chris Low on the Kentucky coaching job:

  What’s the toughest coaching job in the SEC? Most in and around this league would tell you that it’s a close race between Kentucky and Vanderbilt. And with James Franklin taking the Commodores to back-to-back bowl games, the challenge that Stoops faces at Kentucky is in a class by itself.

  Read the whole thing.

• A surprisingly fair and balanced™ preview of Kentucky football for 2013 by an Alabama blog, the Capstone Report. Worth reading, and not nearly as slapdash-critical as the one done by SB Nation's Alligator Army.

Kentucky basketball

• John Calipari helping Archie Goodwin with the draft process. Goodwin also worked out for Brooklyn Nets recently. Hat tip: Nation of Blue

• UK recruits dominate the recruiting rankings for 2014. And in other news, the sun rose this morning and water is still wet.

• 2014 Kentucky recruit Tyus Jones talks about his recruitment. I really like this:

  Tyus does not arrive at tournaments with a posse. There are no 24-year-old girlfriends or traveling groupies. There are no leeches banking on the day he turns pro and makes millions.

  Hat tip: Aaron's blog

• DeMarcus Cousins, Anthony Davis, and John Wall have accepted invitations to attend the Team USA mini-camp in Las Vegas.

Other UK sports

• Here's a nice piece on a Kentucky kid trying to get attention on the women's basketball side. [Via Hank]

• Inside the Center for Academic Tutorial Services (CATS) hosted by Avery Williamson and others.

• We have known for some time that Maegan Conwright of the women's hoops squad was going to transfer. Now, we know where - Florida St.

Links posts

• The Leach Report -- Thursday Wildcat Links

College football

• We are having fun talking about UK's improved recruiting, but meanwhile, the big dogs are not idle. LSU has a chance to have a 2013 Calipari-style football recruiting class that eclipses all others.

• Will the NCAA ignore the Sports Illustrated report that detail allegations of Nevin Shapiro's gambling on Miami games using inside information on the team?

  On the eve of the University of Miami’s hearing with the NCAA Committee on Infractions, Sports Illustrated released excerpts from its exposè about college sports’ governing body and its investigation into the Hurricanes’ athletics program, including allegations from former booster Nevin Shapiro that he received inside information from coaches to win bets on 23 football games between 2005 and ’09.

  It is late in the game to be adding things to the NCAA allegations, but if Shapiro really did get inside info to place bets, the implicated Miami coaches could wind up in hot water with somebody a lot more powerful and scary than the NCAA -- the U.S. Attorney's office.

  More here. [Via Hank]

• Florida lost the better part of a million dollars on the Sugar Bowl. It seems that Florida sold less than 7000 of its 17,500 ticket allotment. Not impressive, Gators. Not at all.

  This financial catastrophe will be known as the Curse of the Cardinals. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

• Lane Kiffin, the Billy Gillispie of football coaches. He's another gift that just keeps on giving.

  The embarrassing thing is that he's got the Bruins following suit.

• The SEC's toughest, and easiest, October schedules. Guess where the Wildcats land?

College basketball

• NCAA Regionals will be held in non-domed arenas from now on. I think that's a good idea. Arenas are more likely to be substantially full, and I think that creates a better atmosphere.

  For the Final Four, well, you need the dome. We got that.

  Andy Katz has more, and explains that domes could get regionals:

  The committee and the new leadership under Vice President Mark Lewis would rather the atmosphere be in arenas over domes in regionals. But that doesn't mean they won't award them to domes when sites are decided in 2014 for the events in 2017-2020. If there is a new dome, even in an old familiar Final Four city like in Atlanta, then there is a strong chance the new dome would get a regional for a test run. There is no longer a mandate, however, which is a clear distinction.

• Bruins Nation says that the model for the Steve Alford hire was Jim Herrick. Well, he did win a national championship for UCLA, if memory serves. Yeah, he did also get the Bruins in the NCAA trick bag.

  BN is highly skeptical of the Alford hire. They are in that "Hope for the best, but expect the worst" mode that you hate to be in.

• Speaking of coaches, Burnt Orange Nation fantasizes about replacing Rick Barnes. Right now, I suspect the Longhorn faithful are fantasizing about replacing more than Barnes.

• Speaking of the Longhorn fantasies, Scipio Tex of Barking Carnival fantasizes about the SEC cheating when it comes to NCAA rules.

Other sports news

• Does this surprise anybody? I didn't think so. Jeebus.

• Jason Kidd, fresh out of the NBA and into retirement, to coach the Brooklyn Nets? Talk about skipping a few steps. Wow.

• "The time is ripe to cheat," according to this article by Sports Illustrated:

  SI spoke with more than 20 current or former NCAA employees about the troubles of the NCAA enforcement staff for a lengthy story in this week's Sports Illustrated. A portrait emerged of a department battered by turnover, afraid of lawsuits and overwhelmed by scandal. One ex-enforcement official told SI, "The time is ripe to cheat. There's no policing going on."

  Warning: It's by Pete Thamel, Grand Dragon of the Evil UK Haters Media Cabal

Other news

• How odd, and disconcerting.