Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Masters Edition

The Master golf tournament begins today. Tiger Woods will not be playing in the tournament due to injury. And I just want to note, for the record, the Phil Mickelson continues to display the highest character and sportsmanship you are likely to see.

Tweet of the Morning

And for those of y'all who think Kentucky football ain't on the rise... Keep sleeping, they'll prove you wrong come season. Just wait on it.

— Damien Harris (@Damien_D1Harris) April 9, 2014

I still don't think he'll come here, but what if he did?

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Mark Stoops talks football practice. Good news that Josh Clemons is working his way back. He has had such tough luck with injuries. Patrick Towles also gets some praise.

• Mark Stoops praises "energetic" practice. Well, they say practice makes perfect ...

• Kentucky receivers benefiting from one-on-one battles.

Kentucky basketball

• John Feinstein, even when he's trying not to be obnoxious, manages to do so anyway:

  Calipari will make about $6 million this season, and he’s an almost God-like figure in Kentucky. Sure, Kentucky fans’ expectations are ridiculous, but they aren’t that different from those of most fans. They’re just louder.

  Coming from Feinstein, "God-like figure" is unquestionably an insult. And while his point that Kentucky fans are mainly just louder than most fans may have a kernel of truth in it, you can tell it was meant to be condescending. There was absolutely no reason to include that cheap shot in this article, which was otherwise fairer-than-usual article I might have praised.

  What a small person Feinstein is, and how transparent his distaste for Kentucky (and Calipari), although one is forced to wonder if one isn't driving the other. I have no idea why I trouble to read him. Possibly because seeing such a bitter person behind quite a bit of talent is like watching a slow-motion train wreck — I just can't look away.

• John Calipari and the Wildcats celebrate the season. Hat tip: Larry Vaught.

• Attaboy, Aaron. This his how you make friends and influence people — by being nice to them.

• Wildcat Blue Nation has a 2014-15 dream team. Yeah, that would be great.

• Coach Cal just didn't have enough answers for UConn:

  "But these kids aren’t machines. They’re not robots. They’re not computers. I say it again, I wish I had an answer for them later in the game where I could have done something to just click it to where we needed it to go," said Calipari. "That three in the corner (by Aaron Harrison), if that would have gone, maybe the game changes a little bit, but it didn’t."

  Even Aaron proves you can't make them all.

• Your mileage may vary, but I found this parody of the Calipari rumors to be hilarious. Great job to Thomas Beisner and CN|2.

• Rex Chapman explains the tweet heard 'round the world. I'm not going to pronounce judgment on this explanation, but here is my advice to everyone in a position to receive information under the table:

  • When it comes to things like this there is always an agenda. Suppose the intent of this information being passed to Rex was exactly what happened, with the ultimate purpose of feeling out Calipari's interest? If Cal was interested, there is no better way to gage it than start a high-profile rumor, and see what he does. The Lakers didn't have to have actual interest for this to be a valuable tactic.

  • Always be skeptical of your sources, and ask yourself — what if they are wrong?

  Finally, this obsession Rex has with race is very off-putting. Maybe he thinks it's honesty, but to me, it's just annoying. If he were black, people would be no less annoyed with this whole firestorm.

• Why do they keep writing about Calipari coming back? Because they so desperately want him to up and leave, so they can say, "We told you so!"

• Julius Randle has not made the decision to enter the NBA draft. Yet. He will, though.

• Kentucky: A tale of two teams that finally met in the middle.

  It wasn’t as surprising that Kentucky lost as it was to see Kentucky lose, even if the Wildcats had already done that 10 times this season. The team now immortalized for coming so close was not the same team as the one that lost all those games. Reconciling the two is tough, but it’s better than chalking it up to luck. The second-place SEC team that lost at South Carolina on March 1 was not the same team playing for a national championship five weeks later. That first team would never have had a chance.

  Exactly right.

• No, the Lakers aren't hiring John Calipari. This guy blames William Wesley for the rumor. Well, I guess if anything goes wrong, we can all blame Wesley for it. Just another know-nothing. Why would Wesley abuse his friendship like that with Calipari, when he doesn't do it with anyone else?

Other Kentucky sports

• Softball KO's Mississippi Valley St. on the mercy rule.

• #14 men's tennis upends #1 Ohio St.

• SEC baseball roundup from Team Speed Kills. Your question for the day:

  Kentucky is an interesting experiment this year: Can an offense-only team still win in modern-day college baseball? The Wildcats are tied for 11th in the SEC in ERA in conference games, but lead virtually all of the major offensive categories at this point. They are one game out of the lead in the East and tied with Vanderbilt. Wait -- what?

• Four UK signees make All-USA list. Hey, that's 100%

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Thursday Wildcat Links

College football

College basketball

• Luke Hancock says he's going to make the NBA. I hope so. I think there's a place in the NBA for a player like him.

• Florida's Chris Walker to return to the Gators.

• Without Shabazz Napier and DeAndre Daniels, Kevin Ollie's path to a repeat for UConn looks very unlikely.

• What Sam Dekker and Frank Kaminsky can do to improve their draft prospects.

• Arkansas Fight looks back at the SEC this season, and forward to next:

  There are fourteen teams in the SEC. More than three teams have to do well in the postseason for us to declare the SEC a strong basketball conference. More teams have to do well in November and December too.

  But that still doesn't mean the SEC was awful. The league was pretty good at certain things and laughable at others. The SEC led the nation in block%, and was in the top 10 out of 33 conferences in offensive rebounding% (even with Arkansas being as awful as Arkansas was in that category), and steal%. That tells you the league was athletic and physically tough.

  Shhh. Don't use facts. You'll just confuse them.