Kentucky Wildcats: Afternoon Quickies - 50 Days Until Football Edition

Football is only 50 days away. There's still some summer left, though.

Tweet of the Morning:

Latest story: UK recruiting notes: Cats get jump on 2015 7-footer Stephen Zimmerman http://t.co/jU6odFgmZ4

— Ben Roberts (@NextCats) July 12, 2013

Calipari gets the jump on... well, everybody.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Kentucky Football Fan Day set for August 9th at Commonwealth stadium, 6 p.m. The football team will sign autographs, hold an open practice, fireworks, more. Admission is free.

• Nice work by Jonathan Schuette at KSR looking at offenses before and after the Air Raid is introduced. It's pretty dramatic, really, and despite the dearth of wide receiver talent, you can probably expect a similar offensive explosion at Kentucky when the Air Raid is introduced.

• New wide receiver commit T.V. Williams enjoys the social media interaction with the Big Blue Nation, and is surprised by the volume of their response.

Kentucky basketball

• Playing at Kentucky is "everybody's dream," according to 2014 5-star power forward Craig Victor.

  Duh:

  Ironically, it's the hope of not staying at UK long enough to enjoy all those amenities that appeals to players like Victor. Calipari's track record of placing players in the NBA — often after only one college season — fuels Kentucky's preeminence in the eyes of prospects.

• Can 2014 power forward Abdul-Malik Abu earn an offer from Kentucky? Well, he does one thing really well -- rebound. If he can figure out the rest of his game, he's the kind of player Calipari likes to bet on.

• 2015 5-star prospect Malik Newman doesn't care to watch college basketball on TV. Consider:

  "It never really caught my attention," he said with a smile at the LeBron James Skills Academy. "I’ll watch highlights, but as far as just an up-and-down game, it bores me sometimes. …

  "It’s kind of crazy. When I tell people that, they never believe me."

  Kind of crazy. Good description.

• A scouting profile of James Young. I think this is mostly right, although Young has better athleticism than this guy seems to think. He also is extremely left-handed, and needs to really work on his right hand.

• 5-star wing forward Derrick Jones (2015) says he holds an offer from John Calipari. As the #11 prospect in the Rivals 100 for 2015, I believe him.

• I think everyone who follows UK basketball recruiting knows about Dante Exum. I doubt he's better than Andrew Wiggins and Julius Randle, but he is supremely talented and has fantastic size for his position.

• 2014 star Cliff Alexander is not taking an official visit to Kentucky, but for a good reason — he was here for Big Blue Madness last year.

• Jahlil Okafor would be a nice front-line mate with Karl Towns. Hope it happens.

• Our chances for Emmanuel Mudiay are looking really good to me.

Links posts

• The Leach Report — Friday Wildcat Links

College football

• South Carolina's Jadeveon Clowney is predictably the front-runner for the Heisman and Nagurski Awards.

• Ex-president of Penn St. Graham Spanier files a libel lawsuit against Louis Freeh, the former FBI director who's report blamed Spanier and others for failing to protect children from Jerry Sandusky.

• The SEC All-Name team. Mister Cobble and Max Strong of Kentucky are both in there.

• Lexington does not finish high on Saturday Down South's best SEC cities for sports fans.

College basketball

• The new American Athletic Conference is a gawky mess cobbled together at the last minute. If it lasts three years, I'll be surprised.

• The news about Marshall Henderson just keeps getting worse. If you were like me and thought last year that he was a train wreck waiting to happen, well ...

  More here.

• Brian Cardinal to become an assistant at Purdue?

Other sports news

• Mark Emmert is making bank, but that shouldn't surprise anyone.

• Archie Goodwin seems to be adjusting well to the NBA life, at least in early returns. Consider:

  "I think the first practice was maybe a little, the physical play maybe his eyes were opened a little bit," Hornacek said. "But he's battled these last two and now he doesn't even look like he's an 18-year-old out there."

  Hat tip: Aaron's blog

• The New Orleans Pelicans are trying to be Kentucky South. I think that's great. Consider:

  Anthony Davis, Jrue Holiday, Eric Gordon and Tyreke Evans feels like the type of team John Calipari would put together in Lexington. While Davis and Evans are the only ones who actually played for Calipari, the Pelicans are equipped to bring his style of play to the NBA. They have three guards who can create offense off the bounce, a versatile big man who prefers to play on the perimeter and an athletic edge on almost every team they will face.

  Hat tip: Aaron's blog

• Team USA falls to the Aussies in the World University Games. I wasn't loving the composition of Team USA when it was announced.