Kentucky Wildcats Sunday Brunch: PGA Edition

Oak Hill is taking a serious toll on the golfers in the PGA Tournament this weekend. Today is the final round of the summer's last major championship.

Tweet of the Morning:

History lesson for BBN: Rex Chapman was born in Bowling Green, in 1967 during his dad's (Wayne) sr. year at WKU after transferring from UK.

— Oscar Combs (@wildcatnews) August 11, 2013

Good to know.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Stoops' "two spot" concept is having an impact on everybody, not just the quarterbacks:

  In his quest to get more repetitions for Jalen Whitlow, Maxwell Smith and Patrick Towles, a funny thing happened. Every other player is starting to get better.

  Not just the quarterbacks, but the running backs, the safeties, the defensive backs, the linemen.

  "Everybody's getting their reps, everybody's learning the defense, they're not just sitting around, sitting on the sidelines," senior linebacker Avery Williamson said. "Guys are getting a lot more reps." ... The "two spot" also could have earned its name because players are rotating around so often that they feel like they're in two spots at the same time.

  "It's exhausting, but you know you've gotten a pretty good workout when you're done because you're exhausted when you're done," offensive lineman Zach West said. [My emphasis]

• Asking for autographs are a way of fans showing their support. This really speaks to the depth of Kentucky's fan base, and gives me a great feeling. Stories like this one make it easy to be a Wildcats fan, and probably make the other guys jealous.

• The football Wildcats rebound from fan day with a strong practice on Saturday:

  "Good practice," Stoops said. "I really felt good. We got a lot of work in today. We got really good meetings, good walkthrough this morning, good physical, long practice today so I feel pretty good about the practice."

• Kyle Tucker catches up on this weekend's practice notes so far. I like all the positive talk about the receivers.

• Fan Day photos from Rivals.com. No subscription needed.

Kentucky basketball

• To me, this is striking:

  A: "I think most college coaches would welcome the idea of universal fair play, but the general sense is that this concept doesn't exist at the college level. While all coaches would prefer to win fair-and-square, I think many would accept winning by bending the rules versus losing ethically."

  To some extent, this is understandable. College coaches must win to be employed, and when faced with the choice of losing ethically and winning unethically, cheating becomes much easier to rationalize when thinking about your family. Still, in the days of multiyear contracts with provisions for early termination, I think the balance favors ethical behavior.

  We in the private workforce face this problem every day, and we don't have, in the main, contracts or golden parachutes. If we lose our jobs, we generally don't have much to ensure a soft landing. In many ways, coaches have the better deal.

• Heh. I'd love to see this happen, it would be so sweet.

• Larry Vaught talks with Trey Lyles' AAU coach. Lots of good stuff about Lyles in there. I really do want to see us land him.

Links posts

• KSR Sunday Morning Links

• The Leach Report — Sunday Wildcat Links

• John Clay's Big Blue Links

College football

• Biggest losses for SEC East teams, personnel-wise. Not one UK player in there. I can't help but see that as a good thing.

• Jadeveon Clowney has a bruised shoulder, should be okay.

• Southern Cal escapes devastating bad news. Marqise Lee ionly has a bone bruise and is day to day.

• Football rule changes to watch this year. I really don't like the automatic ejection for "targeting."

• Can LSU end Alabama's reign at the top of the SEC. Definitely maybe.

• SEC scrimmage report for Saturday.

College basketball

• Alabama is putting together a solid recruiting class. This is how you build a program up, and although Anthony Grant has been okay in his first couple of years, he needs to step it up. This is how you do it.

Other sports news

• Former Bat Cat Chris Rusin pitched a shutout last night for the Chicago Cubs.

• The NCAA is sending their staff back to school to get a better understanding of what goes on. About time.

• PGA Championship leaderboard. Mickelson and Woods both struggling at Oak Hill.

• Classic Tim Tebow, and it is somehow even more endearing.

• Will Patrick Patterson be in the Sacramento Kings' starting lineup? Sactown Royalty tries to answer:

  Now, if the Kings go with Cousins and Thompson in the starting lineup, I could see Patterson as being very challenged to find minutes behind them and Landry. And a starting lineup of Cousins and Patterson could potentially cause some defensive challenges for the Kings up front. But in my little pea head it just seems that Patterson is the best fit for what I see as the Kings opening night starting lineup.

Other news

• High blood sugar linked to dementia. Not good news for those of us with insulin resistance.