Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Alumni Charity Game Edition

A lot of fun was had last night at the Alumni Charity game featuring many of Kentucky's stars over the last several years. You can see the highlights of that a little further down. Here's a hint: John Wall had a pretty big game.

Tweet of the Morning:

Calipari & UK raised over $1M. Pitino wanted to do the same, but it would cost that much just to fly all his UofL players home from Europe.

— Not Jerry Tipton (@NotJerryTipton) September 10, 2013

This just struck me as hilarious.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Kentucky offensive guard Kevin Mitchell earns Offensive Lineman of the Week from the SEC. Joe Monsoor and Za' Darius Smith get honorable mention.

• Avery Williamson presented coach Mark Stoops with the game ball after Saturday's win.

• Mark Stoops' Monday news conference. I found this tidbit interesting:

  Q. Are there times do you remember a time when you had two quarterbacks that really gave you headaches in preparation?

  COACH STOOPS: I can't think of one right off the top of my head. Obviously, just watching quarterbacks that have had success, and Coach (Steve) Spurrier through the years, he's been successful. I've heard him say before I don't remember the exact words, but if you have to do it, you have to do it. That's just the situation we're in.

• After two games, Javess Blue is the leading receiving target, but the QB's are really spreading the ball around.

• Chris Diggs suggests we temper our enthusiasm after the Miami (OH) victory.

• This was an up-tempo weekend when it came to offensive football.

• Mark Story has the 20-year history of the UK-UL rivalry.

• Interesting Kentucky statistic — UK's 675 yards gained against Miami (OH) is the third most in school history.

• Saturday Down South says Kentucky's Za'Darius Smith was the best defensive player on Saturday.

Kentucky basketball

• ESPN's 2014 Mock Draft 1.0 shows Julius Randle at #2 behind Andrew Wiggins. I can't see the rest because I'm not an insider.

• The Alumni Charity Game was a rousing success. No surprise there.

• Jason King says that John Calipari, Billy Donovan, Tom Izzo and Bill Self have an excellent shot at joining Rick Pitino et. al. in the Hall of Fame before the end of their careers.

• Kentucky sets an in-home visit with Tyus Jones.

• Alumni game highlights:

• The Courier-Journal's Adam Himmelsbach says that the Alumni Charity event was mostly about recruiting. I agree:

  "John Calipari is a borderline recruiting genius," said Evan Daniels, Scout.com’s national recruiting analyst. "This is a tool he can use and he’s taking full advantage of it. And it’s a really smart move on his part."

  "Borderline?"

• Brandon Knight does not want Louisville winning anything off Kentucky.

• Guy Ramsey has more on the Alumni Charity game last night:

  "A lot of coaches, once you’re done playing for them, you don’t hear from them," Knight said. "That’s not the same with Coach Cal. I not only hear from Cal, but (Rod) Strickland, Coach Strick, Kenny Payne, Coach (John) Robic. I hear from all those guys all the time. So it’s really a family when you come here. It’s not you play for us, you leave, we’re done with you. We always stay in contact, always keep in touch. It’s really family oriented."

• Jay Bilas is freaking hilarious.

Other Kentucky sports

• #19 Kentucky hosts Louisville tonight on the volleyball court. We've beaten them in women's soccer, let's make it 2-0.

Links posts

• The Leach Report — Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Sports Illustrated is reportedly about to write an exposé about Les Miles' time at Oklahoma St., which is said to include all sorts of NCAA violations regarding, payment, sex, you name it.

  The catch is that the period covered is between 2001 and 2007, which is outside the NCAA's statute of limitations. Of course, if the NCAA can ignore it's own rules for Penn St., it can also ignore them for Miles if the allegations are salacious enough.

  Read the comments — Kentucky fans will universally enjoy the invective spewed at Pete Thamel and Thayer Evans in the comments section.

• Oklahoma St. says it will cooperate with any NCAA investigation arising out of the Sports Illustrated article.

• SEC upsets just don't happen at night, according to Team Speed Kills. Interestingly, UK has one of the rare ones over South Carolina back in 2010.

• Yahoo! Sports wonders if the SEC's dominance is slipping away.

College basketball

• The NCAA investigation at Iowa St. is finally over. Apparently, the NCAA will not enhance the penalties that Iowa St. imposed on itself.

• Rush The Court — Morning Five

Other sports news

• Darius Miller had off-season surgery to repair a stress fracture, and he should be back in 8-12 weeks.

• Anthony Davis gives back to his high school — it's own basketball court, something Perspectives Charter didn't have while Davis was there.