Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Cotton Nash Edition

Happy birthday to Kentucky legend Cotton Nash, 71 years young today. Hat tip to KSR for alerting me of the occasion.

Tweet of the Morning:

Bill Belichick & Urban Meyer both w press conferences today & around same time. Bet Meyer will have a lot more to say.

— Bruce Feldman (@BFeldmanCBS) July 24, 2013

Heh. Ya think?

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Here's Mark Stoops with Chris Fowler of ESPN. Definitely worth watching. Hard to believe that our next SEC could be more than 2 years removed from our last. Via Kyle Tucker

• More Stoops, talking abuot the challenges and excitment of trying to rebuild Kentucky.

• Looking toward the 2015 recruiting cycle: Here's one elite that UK is after. [Hank]
• Vince Marrow don't need no stinkin' bridge to cross the river. ;>) [Hank]
• Nice touch, Lex H-L, nice touch. Ben Roberts is doing a nice job at Next Cats. [Hank]
• Nicely done piece at 247 Sports focusing on the top 5 uncommitted prospects from Ohio. Kentucky is recruiting three of the five, and one of them is leaning heavily to UK. [Hank]
• Still no love from For Whom The Cowbell Tolls. They ranks UK's starting QB at the bottom of the SEC, no matter who it is.

Kentucky basketball

• John Calipari having dinner with his "sons." "Dad" picked up the tab.
• Coach Cal talks about the maturing of DeMarcus Cousins. Imagine -- he would have been a senior this upcoming year.
• Three UK prospects will play on ESPNU this week.
• A summary of Jeff Sheppard's comments from yesterday on KSR.

• Now, Jeff Sheppard doesn't think UK can win the 2014 championship? Seems so:

  "I am 100 percent for UK and the program and want them to win all their games and win a national championship, but I am not going to predict that. I am going to predict they will not be as bad as last year. I just don’t believe that a team this young can win a national championship," said Sheppard. "I hope this year’s team proves me wrong.  Maybe the talent level will be so much greater that I will be proven wrong, and I hope that I am. All I can do is speak from my experience, and that experience gave us such an advantage when we were playing."

  He's entitled to his opinion, of course, and he may well be right, for all I know. What I also know is that UK was not much, if any, more experienced when they won in 2012 than they will be this year.

  Well, how's about a tattoo if you're wrong, Jeff? If your former coach can do it ...

• 2014 UK target Emmanuel Mudiay will return to Prime Prep in spite of questions surrounding the school's academics.

Links posts

• The Leach Report -- Wednesday Wilddcat Links

College football

• Bob Stoops doesn't care if you don't like his opinion that the SEC isn't all that. Okay, Bob, I think we're down with that, as long as you're willing to let us have our opinion that you're a douche.
• Anchor of Gold asks, and attempts to answer, the question, "Is there a link between better recruiting and more disciplinary problems at Vanderbilt?"
• NCAA moves to dismiss the Paterno family's lawsuit against them.
• Saturday Down South looks at the biggest "subplots" for Kentucky next year. I think the do a pretty good job hitting the high points.
• The Belk Bowl has SEC vs. ACC tie ins. This could be the only guaranteed ACC-SEC bowl because of the new playoff rotation.

• Breaking down the SEC for new college football fans:

  Kentucky is just bad. The Wildcats should really stick to basketball. Florida has beaten Kentucky 26 straight times. Kentucky has been so bad, Trey Burton scored six times in one game against them in 2010.

  One of these days... one of these days... Pow! Right in the kisser.

College basketball

• Rick Pitino is right about losing games in the NBA. You have to get used to the idea of losing, and winning, a lot.
• Ten "pivotal" seniors for next year.
• Marcus Smart of Oklahoma St. plans to enter the NBA Draft next year. I'm glad we got that out of the way

Other sports news

• DeMarcus Cousins is going to do his "damn best" when it comes to making Team USA.
• The NBA summer league was good for John Calipari's former charges at UK. CoachCal.com runs down their accomplishments. Even Eloy Vargas played well.
• NBA flopping rule may go to arbitration after the National Labor Relations Board refused to address the issue.