Kentucky Wildcats Lunchtime Quickies: Big Jorts Edition

Josh Harrellson led the Fly Dragons of China to a 14-4 record, best in the Chinese National Basketball League, and was named Player of the Year. Way to go, Big Jorts.

Tweet of the Morning:

La Familia. "@CoachCalDotCom: That's a lot of former Wildcats in one picture. pic.twitter.com/zwJbCQ8I6m"

— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) July 31, 2013

What a great bunch!

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• SB Nation's Bud Elliott names the 2014 All-SEC Recruit Team. UK has no player on it:

  It's interesting to see that Tennessee and Kentucky, which various recruiting websites designated with No. 1 recruiting class status in May and June, respectively, are behind the more traditional powers in terms of bringing in elite recruits. Kentucky doesn't even have a single player on the team!

• Larry Vaught interviews Matt Elam. [Hank]

• Eric Korem: "We don’t rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." As a former HS level USA-Wrestling coach, I can vouch for that. [Hank]

• With friends such as this, who needs enemies? It isn't the article so much as the headline which implies disaster. Typical Herald-Leader. [Hank]

  [Glenn] I think the headline is fine, it is factual and succinct. Ben Roberts does a great job covering recruiting, and Hank and I will agree to disagree on this one. But his point is well made that sometimes the H/L headlines seem to be more doom and gloom than they should be for a local paper, probably to avoid the appearance of "homerism." I can't really fault them too much for that.

• Brad Woodcock at Kentucky Sports Connection has saved me time with this great piece and I'm most grateful. [Hank]

• Kentucky jumps back to #3 at Rivals and Rank By Offers. Who cares what the other three services think? [Hank]
• Did you know that Chad Scott and T.J. Harrell are cousins? I didn't. [Hank]
• Interesting.
• New helmet coming any time soon? [Hank]
• This is actually a good question. I'm not sure UK will give up on him, and in fact, history suggests they may try pretty hard to flip him. Stoops seems to be death on protecting the border.

• This is much ado about nothing. Note the shot at Calipari.

  Idiot. Feel free to send him a mocking comment or tweet. Or, if you want, mail him fifty letters with a photocopy of your one-finger salute. Nah, don't waste the postage on this moron, he's not worth it.

• Kyle Tucker's blog post about Nick Richardson.

• Five Wildcats commitments made the cut for ESPN's Top 300 list for the class of 2014.

• This is good news:

  Touching base with all of UK's commits it doesn't sound like any (so far) plan to take official visits to any schools other than Kentucky.

  — J.Rowland (@RowlandRIVALS) July 31, 2013

  That is pretty rare for a 20+ person class at this stage before the season, BTW.

  — J.Rowland (@RowlandRIVALS) July 31, 2013

  Makes me happy.

Kentucky basketball

• Rupp Arena will host an NBA exhibition game featuring lots of former Wildcats (The Pelicans and Wizards) on the night after Big Blule Madness. As somebody said on Twitter this morning, Calipari is a freaking genius.
• Coach Cal's Pro Camps photo gallery.
• Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, DeMarcus Cousins, and Eric Bledsoe all talk to Kyle Tucker.
• I completely agree with Rex Chapman, as does ... well, practically everyone in America but the NBAPL.
• Seems Archie Goodwin and Julius Mays were very surprised that Kyle Wiltjer transferred rather than red-shirted. Hat tip: Aaron's blog
• Details on the second annual Alumni charity game.

Links posts

• John Clay's Big Blue Links
• John Clay's SEC Links
• The Leach Report — Wednesday Wildcat Links

College football

* * The hammer is about to fall soon. [Hank] * The story behind the video of Johnny Manziel getting booted from a fraternity party at UT-Austin that broke the Internet. * Speaking of Johnny Football, he really should stay away from Twitter. Maybe the golf course, too. Celebrity is surely a curse that I hope I never experience.

College basketball

• The NCAA is "tweaking" its NCAA Tournament bracketing principles, according to Andy Katz of ESPN. We'll have to see how that works, because other "tweaks" have produced more jarring dissonance than harmonious music.
• Michigan St. guard Keith Appling thinks teammate Gary Harris has the potential to be "captain material." I knew we missed a good one when Harris picked MSU, but you can't get them all.

Other sports news

• Consider these tweets from Oscar Combs:

  Great to see New Orleans & Washington playing NBA exhibition at Rupp on Oct. 19 at 7 pm. Yum Center's loss is Rupp's gain. Thinking of fans.

  — Oscar Combs (@wildcatnews) July 31, 2013

  Shame Louisville is so short-sighted. A Kentucky NBA franchise could bring Commonwealth together with 8-10 games at Rupp. Sad. Sad.

  — Oscar Combs (@wildcatnews) July 31, 2013

• The Big Cuz is always quotable:

  Classic DeMarcus, when asked if he'll be playing in alumni game next month: 'If the money is right.' Ha!

  — Matt May (@TCPMattMay) July 31, 2013

• Josh Harrellson is the China league Player of the Year. Wow, Jorts, that's awesome, buddy. Not only that, Eric Lindsey says he may well get another look by the NBA, and I think he's right.

• Nerlens Noel talks to Jon Hale of KyForward.
• Tempe, Arizona is now the official home of USA Basketball.