Kentucky Wildcats Afternoon Quickies: A-Rod Edition

Will the New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez be banned for life, or just through 2014? I'm betting on something less than life.

Tweet of the Morning:

Wonder what folks in ACC think of Louisville taking Dyer.

— Matt Hayes (@Matt_HayesSN) August 2, 2013

Good question. All we've heard about the ACC is how high it's standards are. Will they see Louisville as lowering them? Some almost certainly will.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Andy Staples talks Kentucky football to SB Nation's Solid Verbal. He's right about Kentucky fans caring a lot about football.

• Kentucky punter Landon Foster says that Mark Stoops reminds him of another SEC coach:

  "The attitude that the coaching staff brings is unreal," says Foster. "It's very similar to what Coach Franklin did at Vanderbilt. I was around there quite a bit when he came in changed it around. This coaching staff, the attitude they bring, and how they are upbeat and how they are in practice. They enjoy being around the players. They enjoy being here. Obviously the change on the field as well."

  I don't know how to feel about that. Should we be flattered by a comparison to Vanderbilt about anything (other than academics, of course)?

• Looks like most SEC fans think the loss of Bear Bryant wasn't as bad as Arkansas' 2012 season. Whatever.

• Inside the thought process of Damien Harris, the best player in Kentucky for 2014 who picked the Michigan Wolverines over UK the other day. He dashes cold water on any fan hopes for him to change his mind.
• Dan Mullen of Mississippi St. has beaten Kentucky four times in a row in Lexington. For Whom The Cowbell Tolls wonders if he can get the whole handful.

Kentucky basketball

• Is Bill Self the #2 recruiter in college basketball? I'm not so sure, but he's certainly deserving of consideration. Here's the ESPN Insider article for those of you with access.
• Was Jack Givens better than Dan Issel? No. Next question.
• Dickie V. picks UK to win it all next year. Dick has been showing UK in general, and Coach Cal in particular, a lot of love lately.
• 2015 stud Malik Newman likes Coach Cal, and what he's doing at Kentucky.
• Kentucky, along with Michigan St. and Duke, boast the best 1-2 punch in college basketball. See if you can guess which players they're talking about without looking.

Other UK sports

• Linnae Harper is ready to hoop it up at Kentucky, fresh off her gold medal performance.

Links posts

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

College football

• Congratulations to Louisville for their best-ever preseason ranking. Last time they were up near this high, Stevie got loose.

• It looks like Louisville went and accepted Michael Dyer. They'd better hope he behaves, or there's going to be hell to pay.

• Team Speed Kills says Louisville is the least likely of the top ten to finish the season unranked:

  Teddy Bridgewater could play every game with four offensive linemen and still go 11-1. It's not Louisville's fault that it's lifeboat out of the Big East's wreckage doesn't arrive until next year, but in the meantime, it faces only two challenges. One is not to lose interest this year. The second is to become only the third team since 1950 to win every game by 14 or more points.

College basketball

• The NCAA alters the guidelines on bracketing. The main focus is on same-conference teams. It used to be that the NCAA would try to avoid teams from the same conference playing each other by making sure no more than two teams from a single conference were in a given region.

  The new guidelines permit the meetings to happen as early as the third round as long as they only played once during the season. Multiple game conference foes will not meet until the regional semis (Sweet Sixteen), and teams that played each other 3 times during the regular season can't meet until the regional finals (Elite Eight).

  I honestly think that the tournament would be better served by just ignoring a team's regular season meetings altogether. I don't think it really does anything to enhance the tournament.

• An early basketball matchup analysis — how Syracuse matches up with Duke. Syracuse is heading into the ACC this year, you know.

• Tony Barbee explains the dismissal of one of his best players at Auburn. Barbee is going to have to produce, and that right soon, or he'll be freed up for other opportunities. Even Auburn can't stand to be the pits in basketball every year.

Other sports news

• Coaches and inappropriate relationships. It happens more often than we read in the media. As with the NCAA, the number and persistence of media reports is what drives the outrage, but the more aware we all are of potential problems with coaches, the better off we are.

• Holy crap! John Wall throws himself an alley-oop!

• The Big Cuz likes Sacramento, thinks he's maturing. Show it on the floor, big boy.

• John Wall will donate a million bucks to charity. Good for him.
• Randall Cobb has been dropping a few balls in practice, and it produced a news article. Kind of amazing.

• Latest update on Terrence Jones. This is Jones' lawyer's side of the story:

  "He did yell at him to wake up and may have nudged him," O’Connell said in his statement. "He certainly would not, and did not, intend to cause Mr. Kellerher any harm. He is confident that those who know him understand that the charge and accusation that Terrence intentionally committed a crime cannot be true. It is inconsistent with his character. Terrence is thankful for all who continue to support him and understand the great sadness he is suffering as a result of this incident."