Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: April Fools Day Edition

So it's April Fools day, a tradition that I find goofy. Having said that, beware what you read today, I don't vet too closely for hidden April Fools jokes.

Tweets of the Morning

Ex-LSU Coach Dale Brown email to Cal: "Truly one of the most masterful jobs I have ever seen in bringing back a team from the grave."

— Jerry Tipton (@JerryTipton) April 1, 2014

Brown, who said he's rooting for Kentucky, added in all caps, "CONGRATULATIONS JOHN ON HOW YOU REVIVED YOUR TEAM !!!!!!!!!!!!

— Jerry Tipton (@JerryTipton) April 1, 2014

You may not like Jerry Tipton, but who doesn't like Dale Brown (particularly in retirement)? I miss him sometimes.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Kentucky freshman wide receiver T.V. Williams has gained 23 lbs. since arriving at UK. Good thing, too, because at 137 lbs. when he got here, he was in danger of being broken into small pieces the first time he got hit by an SEC cornerback.

• Football has kind of been thrust on the back burner right now due to Kentucky making the Final Four, but they haven't stopped spring practice. Here is yesterday's practice report. A couple of notes:

  • Javes Blue injured his shoulder, had to have surgery. 3-4 month recovery.
  • Demarco Robinson is back with the team after being suspended last season.

Kentucky basketball

• Eric Crawford:

  The Wildcats might've been seeded more highly had they not endured the growing pains. But they might not actually have grown. At least, that's my theory. I wondered what the players thought, though.

  We will never know.

• Insider Louisville's Mark Coomes gives John Calipari props:

  Calipari was supposed to get his comeuppance this March. The NCAA tournament was going to prove that a revolving-door roster of one-and-dones was no match for old-school squads staffed by wily upperclassmen.

  The KiddieCats have emphatically proved otherwise. In an eight-day tour de force, they defeated three of the top seven teams in the AP poll: No. 2 Wichita State, No. 5 Louisville and No. 7 Michigan.

  Read the whole thing.

• Willie Cauley-Stein still officially "doubtful" for Saturday, but Calipari seems pretty certain he won't play.

• Q&A with Marcus Lee by Larry Vaught:

  Question: Do you get homesick at all this year?

  Lee: "You don’t really have time to get homesick. You are always with your brothers and going together and bonding. So I really didn’t get homesick. My family came as much as they wanted to. I am not sure one was at every game. But I love my mom come for a week and I loved every day of that with her."

• Trey Lyles gets a head start on team building, wins Indiana State Tournament with Indianapolis Arsenal Tech.

• Kentucky signee Tyler Ulis getting better with help from his trainer.

• Don't forget that the McDonald's All American game is tonight. All four Kentucky signees are on the roster, Devin Booker, Trey Lyles and Tyler Ulis for the West, Karl Towns Jr. for the East.

• Final Four ticket information. For those without and worried about finding a ticket, you can always find them for sale at the event.

• Peyton Siva loses bet to Josh Harrellson, his teammate on the Detroit Pistons. See a pic of him in Kentucky gear.

• Karl Towns' mantlepiece is going to look like Anthony Davis' if he doesn't slow down.

• You've seen this 10,000 times by now, so one more won't hurt you.

• Annnnddd, in more from the video world, Campus Insiders picks the UK/Wisconsin game:

• Ira Combs weekly column.

• Julius Randle named 3rd team AP All American.

• Gregg Doyel with a typically sarcastic (and I think funny) mocking of the perception of Pitino and Calipari. I've come to believe this entire rivalry is a ruse perpetrated by both men, who secretly laugh about it when they talk.

• Bo Ryan: Kentucky's not young anymore.

Other Kentucky sports

• Volleyball opens spring season.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

• The Secondary Break

College football

• Five college football union scenarios. Frankly, I think that colleges can defeat this simply by restricting practice time significantly. The finding of "employees" was mostly based on that.

College basketball

• Cuonzo Martin decides to walk away from the Marquette coaching search. Good for him, and good for Tennessee.

• Bad news. Doug Shows will be working the Final Four. He must be Mark Emmert's father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.

• Men's basketball transfer list. It's really long, and littered with Indiana players.

• Four questions about each of the Final Four teams.

• Cat mug confiscated by the NCAA. Cat nazis.

• Andrew Wiggins headed to the NBA OMGZZZ!!!

• Congrats to coach Antigua! Could we be seeing Tony Barbee as his replacement?

• What the NCAA Tournament would look like with four-year players. Needless to say, UK would be at the top of that heap easy.

Other sports news

• The McDonald's All-American dunk contest. Karl Towns Jr. did a pretty cool dunk.

• Anthony Davis second in Red Bull celebrity bracket pool. Way to go, AD!

• Bad apples giving prep schools a bad name.

• Dirk Nowitzki would have played at UK if anywhere, and still pulls for us.