Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: 500 Wins Edition

Today in 1955, Kentucky's Adolph Rupp became the coach to compile 500 victories the fastest with a win over DePaul. Hat tip: College Hoopedia.

Tweets of the Morning:

Memphis leads Louisville at halftime. Rick Pitino reinstates Chane Behanan, makes Kevin Ware drive to Texas to pick him up for the 2nd half.

— Not Jerry Tipton (@NotJerryTipton) January 10, 2014

From last night. Well, you have to admit, there's a ring of truth about it.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

Kentucky basketball

• Coach Cal talks about Mississippi St. and Vanderbilt in yesterday's press conference.

• Kentucky a "tough team to beat" according to Dick Vitale. Yeah, well, we need to be more than that.

• Coach Cal says Kentucky can't afford slow starts. He's right, you know.

• The latest on Montaque Gill-Caesar from Ben Roberts. The big question right now is whether or not he'll reclassifiy to 2014.

• Taylor county sophomore Quentin Goodwin played in front of John Calipari last weekend, but was upset with his game. I'm glad to see it means so much to the kid to play in front of the UK coach, he obviously wants to make an impression.

Other Kentucky sports

• UK Hoops loses their second straight game, this time to South Carolina.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Friday Wildcat Links

• The Secondary Break

• John Clay's Big Blue Links

• John Clay's SEC Links

College football

• James Franklin of Vanderbilt seems to be headed to Penn St. That's a smart move for him, and it may help us land a highly-touted in-state recruit currently headed to Nashville.

• Alabama fans none too pleased with the idea of Lane Kiffin as the OC. That's because they remember what he did to Tennessee, and even if they detest the Vols, they are a part of football in the south. Lane Kiffin is an outsider, and one that is deeply disliked among football fan bases in the SEC.

• "Changed" Bobby Petrino's press conference coverage. Consider this:

  The line of the day was delivered when WHAS' Adam Lefkoe asked Jurich what could possibly make him so convinced that he was getting a changed Petrino.

  "Having the courage to look me in the eye and tell me you've changed," Jurich said. "Because I told him, 'If you lie to me, I'll kill you.'"

  Really. Turtle Tom, tough guy. God, this is so rich.

  Petrino may have changed in his mind, but he hasn't changed a whit in his actions. Eric Crawford:

  If Petrino is a changed man, he ought to look a lot different from the Petrino who roared through Louisville, generally treating support staff with disdain or disrespect and otherwise doing whatever he wanted while, in the process, treating the school like an old junker that he couldn't wait to trade in. I know. Fans don't care about that stuff if a coach is winning. But that's part of the point. This hire is not about redemption. It is not about second chances. It is about winning. Let's call it what it is.

  Read the whole thing. He talks to some WKU people in the know, and the Petrino they describe sounds a lot like the Petrino that left Louisville last time. They deserve this guy, and I hope in this marriage of convenience, both parties get exactly what they deserve.

• Famous Jameis could still wind up getting fleeced in court. It's possible he could get drafted #1 in the NFL draft and owe his entire salary to his rape accuser — for years.

• Christine Brennan writing for USA Today says Vanderbilt's James Franklin is wrong for Penn St. because of the rape scandal at Vanderbilt and the message it would send. I can just hear Louisville fans right now — "Just win, baby!"

• Petrino vs. Stoops — will the bad guy win, or the good guy. We all know evil always triumphs over good in this world, at least until it self-destructs under the weight of its own ... well, evil.

• Bengals DC Mike Zimmer has no love for Bobby Petrino, apparently.

College basketball

• Damontre Harris re-enrolls at Florida, but will not see the court this season. You know, there is an awful lot of drama down in Gainesville every year. Can that be good?

• Arizona defeats UCLA in Pauley Pavilion. UCLA could have won this game very easily, but they just don't quite have the players they need to get it done. But if Arizona is the #1 team, they are an extremely vulnerable #1.

• The Cardinals go down to Memphis, and it was pretty much a collapse. Memphis, to their credit, never gave up after getting down double-digits at one point. This time, the Cardinals big people played fine, but the guards just kept making mistakes. Not only that, the Cardinals fans were doing their best Indiana Hoosiers impression:

  Pastner's postgame radio interview was delayed as he jawed with several fans who called his players classless and taunted him about the program's Academic Progress Rate. The coach prolonged the debate by not leaving the floor, vehemently defending his team's graduation rate before finally discussing a satisfying win that took everything the Tigers had.

  Cardinal fans say that Pastner was taunting them, and yet I don't believe them. I wonder why?

  Once again, the formula against the Cardinals is to just take care of the ball. If you get the Cards into half-court, they have trouble defensively. Chane Behanan's loss is a big problem for them as well, as Memphis battled them to a draw on the glass, and Memphis isn't exactly the brute squad when it comes to offensive rebounding.

• Still more academic issues at UNC, this time a Tar Heel player allegedly cannot read or write. I rather doubt this is true, but in light of the recent academic scandal, UNC has forfeited a presumption of falsehood about any academic story.

Other sports news

• Dennis Rodman redefining the term "nutjob." Maybe less redefining it than revealing the archetype.

• Eric Bledsoe out indefinitely with injured knee that will require surgery. It's cartilage, not an ACL. Hat tip: Aaron's blog.

• Sportswriter Dan LeBatard allows Deadspin to cast his baseball HOF ballot, gets kicked out of the Baseball Writers' Association. What a maroon, as Bugs Bunny would say.

• A comprehensive look at Patrick Patterson. This is really good stuff for the basketball wonk or NBA fan. Patrick is one of my all-time favorites at UK, and despite the fact he moves around a lot in the NBA, he's made himself a nice career there so far.

• Michael Kidd-Gilchrist preparing to return to the court Tuesday against the Knicks. Knowing MKG, I'll bet he can't wait.

Other news

• Murder by wedgie. Wow.

• French President Holande unhappy with reports of infidelity. Well, then, keep it in your pants, sir. I am inclined to believe this report because French.

• Okay, aside from the sheer awesomeness of seeing a woman devour red meat with her bare hands like a Viking, watching anyone eat 72 ounces of good steak in under 3 minutes is worth the time. Trust me.

  Even more awesome, she keeps eating more food afterwards. Amazement and awe are probably in order.