Kentucky Wildcats Afternoon Quickies: Return Of College Sports Edition

Today is the first day of August, which means the summer, from a sports perspective, is pretty much over. From now on it's college football, football, football until we hit September, when basketball looms large.

Tweet of the Day:

Calipari predicts that in two years, UK players will make up 10% of the NBA. 450 players in the league now, 22 are from UK. Can he do it?

— Tyler Thompson (@MrsTylerKSR) July 31, 2013

I say, "Why not?"

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Randy Smith of the Chattanoogan tries to give props to Kentucky, but fails basic journalism 101 by identifying Mark Stoops as "Mike Stoops, the younger brother of Oklahoma's Bob Stoops." Maybe he should take his editor out for a beer more often.

  I agree with his counsel of patience, but we do have some skill position players. What we lack is depth at any position.

• A blog I've never heard of breaks down the first part of the Kentucky schedule, and breaks down the first four games. I'd take the results, but I expect the scores to be higher for Kentucky on the wins, and possibly the losses as well. Overall, though, not bad at all.

• Neal Brown speaks to Larry Vaught about what kind of players Kentucky is looking for.
• So playing UK motivates Western, according to Bobby Petrino. Well, we're ready for you, Coach Motorcycle.

Kentucky basketball

• Former Wildcats basketball players enjoy their trip back to the Bluegrass. Some pretty funny smack talk in here.
• Former UK player Michael Porter sentenced to two years in prison for sex acts with an underage girl. Man, that's a shame, and he's now a sex offender for life. When he left, I really thought he was going to have a great life, but he's really ruined it in a hurry.

Other UK sports

• Jarrod Polson reflects on the trip to Ethiopia.

Links posts

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

College football

• Teddy Bridgewater takes out a large insurance policy. Good idea, I think.

College basketball

• The Louisville Cardinals lose a highly-ranked point guard that committed to them 2 years ago. I wonder if Calipari would get involved to annoy Pitino? Nah, probably not ...

  Card Chronicle reacts here, and here. I had to laugh at this:

  Best of luck, Kid. If you were just hoping to ride Louisville one year and jump to the pros, it’s best you be on your way. If that’s his motivation, wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him pull a Marquis Teague. You know Calipari’s crooked d**k got hard in a New York minute when he heard the news.

• Andy Katz's Three Point Shot

• The answer to Gary Parrish's question, I think, is no. The thing is, with the NCAA machine so firmly ensconced, I'm not confident that the power conferences could go it alone. Plus, there are some real contenders in basketball that don't fit the power conference model.

  He's right, in theory. The practical part may be too steep a climb to be attractive.

Other sports news

• John Wall signs a "max deal" with the Wizards worth about $80 million. Good for you, John.

  SB Nation's Bullets Forever reacts. The comments are a mixed bag.

• The NCAA's new penalty structure is here. Note that the Minimum penalty for coaches is 10% of games when they are suspended for a rules violation.