Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Sochi Olympics Edition

Tonight is the opening ceremony for the Sochi Olympics. It has been a rough start for Sochi due to all the complaints and tweets about substandard hotel rooms and the euthanasia of stray dogs. Let's hope the actual games are worthwhile.

Tweet of the Morning:

Bahahahaha. Yes. RT@jaybusbee: And the Sochi Opening Ceremony begins with ... a Broncos safety! Wow! That was unexpected!

— Charles Robinson (@CharlesRobinson) February 7, 2014

Haha!

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Kentucky football excelled in recruiting by invading Ohio. Consider:

  On Wednesday, UK finalized a class that contains 11 recruits from the state of Ohio. Since 2002, the school's previous high was four in 2004. Those 11 guys have a Rivals.com average of 3.45 stars apiece, a figure that by itself would be the best star average of any Kentucky recruiting class since Rivals began rating them in 2002.

• Blake Bone's word as solid as his name:

  He verbally committed to Kentucky in August and never wavered even as the Wildcats struggled this season under new head coach Mark Stoops, and as offers from more highly-touted programs began to pile up.

  ...

  "A lot of people tried to influence me with (Kentucky’s) record, but I had no (concerns) about it because I knew our 2014 class would be the game-changer."

  Via Hank

• The Big Ten has a Kentucky problem:

  These superlatives of each Big Ten recruiting class and more were discussed on BTN during the network's Football Signing Day special. Left off the table was a matter of frank conversation of how badly programs in the Big Ten, excluding Michigan and Ohio State, were smoked on the recruiting trail by Kentucky of the SEC.

  Via Hank.

• Just to get you past the above's arrogance....You don't see Florida's teams whining about losing players to other conferences. [Hank]

• The tOSU people may believe Stoops is taking "second tier" players from Ohio, but how about taking the #5 and #12 players from Florida? [Hank]

• Kentucky football is just on an incredible roll. I find myself anxious for the spring game to get here.

• The answer: Probably. But we'll have to wait until the Wildcats have some success to answer in the affirmative.

Kentucky basketball

• Further to my earlier article:

  I guess the saying is true: When you throw a rock in a pack of dogs, the one that yelps is the one you hit.

  — John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) February 6, 2014

  Why do I suspect this was directed at Pat Forde?

Other Kentucky sports

• Kelsey Nunley tossed a no-hitter for Kentucky softball in the season opener over Long Beach St.

• Gymnastics hosts #1 Florida on DanceBlue night.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Friday Wildcat Links

• John Clay's Big Blue Links

• The Secondary Break

College football

• This is just weird. Via Hank

College basketball

• Arizona escapes Oregon by two, but questions remain about the loss of Brandon Ashley.

• Ken Pomeroy analyzes "slow" defenses, and why many of them are so good. [No subscription required]

• LSU pummeled at Georgia. Bizarre.

Other sports news

• The Sochi Olympics opening ceremonies are tonight. Just don't show any hotel rooms, please.

• DeAndre Liggins with a double-double in the D-league.

Other news

• Really? The fact that there is an "Africa is not a country" campaign is ... disturbing.

• Sad to see Jay Leno leave late night.