Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Death Of A Rivalry Edition

The home-home series with Tennessee in basketball sadly ends this year. I must say, that's a very poor decision by the SEC.

Tweet of the Morning:

Doing away with UK-UT basketball game in Knoxville is about as smart a basketball move that a football conference could make. DUMB & DUMBER

— Oscar Combs (@wildcatnews) August 14, 2013

I agree, Oscar. Basketball is treated as just slightly above intramurals in the SEC.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Raymond Sanders has returned to the team this year transformed physically and prepared to lead the team. [Via Hank]

• Practice report yesterday from KSR [Via Hank]. As I told Larry Glover the other day, I think Max Smith is going to wind up the starting QB and Jalen Whitlow will wind up as a wide receiver or some hybrid back/WR combination.

• Interested in Kentucky kids? This piece talks about the under-the-radar players in Kentucky and has some interesting thoughts on who will partially finish out the 2014 class. [Hank]

• Cats are using walk-on WRs in practice and they're doing well.

• Alex Montgomery is a name that seems to come up in every Mark Stoops press availability. The true freshman wide receiver looks set to make an impact this season.

• Neal brown is not in a rush to name a starting QB. Fine, just as long as he doesn't let it drag down to the first game, like Joker did two years ago.

Kentucky basketball

• Dave Daniels writing for Rant Sports predicts Dakari Johnson will be the sixth man off the bench for Kentucky this season. I think it will be close between him and James Young who gets off the bench first in a given game. Can we have two sixth men?

• Wayne at WBN thinks losing Wiltjer could be "addition by subtraction." Sorry, Wayne. No sale. Care to try again?

• ESPN analyst Jason Taylor is going to John Calipari's Fantasy Experience.

• Kentucky won't play Tennessee at Tennessee this season in basketball for the first time since 1953. The wages of conference expansion. It saddens me.

• Tyus Jones and Jahlil Okafor are visiting most schools together, but not Kentucky. I have said, and continue to say that wile it is possible the two play together in college, it isn't that likely. We see this all the time.

• Julius Randle would be the consensus #1 player in the draft next year in a normal year, says Chad Ford. He may still be. [via Aaron's blog]

Links posts

• The Leach Report — Wednesday Wildcat Links

• John Clay's Big Blue Links

College football

• Willie Taggert: LOL

• Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant thinks NCAA players should be paid. Yawn.

• Intriguing early nonconference games. I really like Georgia at Clemson. The rest of them don't really interest me all that much.

• According to other coaches, particularly in the B1G, the SEC is just plain overhyped. Then there's this:

  Here is the part of the SEC story that is not propaganda. It was the only league to win better than 77 percent of its non-league games last season, finishing 13-9 against the five other BCS leagues. Having a record 63 guys taken in the NFL Draft, including a dozen in the first round, also feeds the beast.

  Yeah, it feeds the beast all right. What you're trying to say is that overhyped == jealousy, in this case.

• SEC two-deep talent on offense. I think we'll be seeing a significant upgrade for UK next year, but this year, it's basement-city, according to Team Speed Kills.

College basketball

• Rick Pitino offers James Blackmon Jr. I would not be pleased to lose him to Louisville.

• Florida and Kansas will square off as part of the Big 12-SEC challenge. That should be interesting.

• Mike Rutherford questions the claims of a "conspiracy of silence" among the Louisville media. I think he's right.

  This "rumor" we've all heard about a particular Louisville basketball player being in some kind of trouble has yet to be confirmed by anyone, and the media are known more for their dog-eat-dog efforts to scoop each other than any conspiracies to silence.

  If I were you, I would be skeptical of any claims from Kentucky fans of special knowledge of the goings-on in Louisville. Just saying. I'm sure we'd apply that logic in reverse, as well. I live here, and I know this media market. A "conspiracy of silence," in the opinion of your humble correspondent, is tinfoil hat material.

Other sports news

• Ira Combs emailed me the following:

  According to sources close to www.combsbrothersonkysports.com, Sr. guard Tristen Cunningham has left Henry Clay H.S. and enrolled at Cordia H.S. to play for Rodrick Rhodes in his senior season plus an additional transfer from New York City has arrived in Lotts Creek at little Cordia H.S. who is listed as 6' 6" and 245 lbs. with reports of being a solid college prospect as well .

  Wow, Rod. Looks like you have a few players on your hands, there.

• Maryland operated their athletic department $21 million in the red last year.

• Trouble at the worldwide leader. Can allegations of racism be far behind? It's fashionable these days, you know.

Other news

• Bad news this morning, as a UPS plane originating in Louisville crashed in Birmingham.

More from A Sea Of Blue:

• Kentucky-Tennessee Basketball Series The Latest Victim Of SEC Expansion
• Kentucky Football Tales from the Dark Side: Charlie Bradshaw Part Three
• Kentucky Wildcats Basketball: Julius Randle is Bringing the Alpha Beast back to Lexington
• Kentucky Wildcats Football: SEC East Preview and Predictions
• Kentucky Wildcats Leverage Recent Success in Texas to Recruit 2014 Class