I just want to shout out to Kentucky's walk-ons, the guys that work as hard in practice every day as the bigger, stronger, faster dudes that wind up on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Sam Malone, E.J. Floreal, Tod Lanter and Brian Long — congratulations on the final four, men. You deserve the honor as much as the starters do.
Tweet of the Morning
Congrats to Kentucky's Sam Malone, Elite 89 winner for his 3.7 GPA in marketing! #FinalFour pic.twitter.com/Mjoj8NJvYY
— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) April 4, 2014
Because our walk-ons deserve some pub, too. They labor in relative obscurity, making the team better. Props to Sam on his brilliant academic career at Kentucky as well as his athletic excellence.
Your Quickies:
Kentucky football
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Stoops talks about his Maker's Mark bottle.
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Does the famous whiskey bottle put more pressure on Stoops?
Kentucky basketball
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A little Calipari hate for you this morning. Embrace it. It's simple jealousy from a small mind, and he's entitled to his opinion, as uninformed as it is.
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The Edge: Kentucky Kernel. I don't necessarily agree with all these. I think at best, Andrew Harrison is a push. I think Dekker and Young will be matched up more often than not, and that would be a push. I'll have the usual breakdown a bit later today.
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Campus insiders looks at who has the edge between Kentucky and the Wisconsin Badgers.
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Kentucky takes the tough road to the Final four. Indeed they did. It will be quite the story if they get to the finish line first.
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Kentucky fans try to help Texans grok college basketball. I'm not sure such a quest isn't doomed to failure from the outset. Because football.
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Wisconsin's Ben Brust knows a thing or two about Kentucky basketball history.
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Leave it to Boston to take shots at Calipari. It's like he never coached at UMass. Consider:
The voluminous Kentucky media guide (202 pages) makes no mention of the fact that Calipari’s Final Four appearances at UMass (1996) and Memphis (2008) were later vacated by the NCAA because of rule violations involving star players Marcus Camby and Derrick Rose. They’ve been Nixonianly wiped clean.
"Nixonianly?" Is that really a word?
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The Wall Street Journal has a part of John Calipari's upcoming book, "Players First: Coaching From the Inside Out" today. It's a very interesting read. Consider this:
There has been talk of putting NCAA basketball in line with baseball, where high-school players either go right into pro ball or, if they choose college, have to stay for three years. That is just stupid for our game. I don't have another word for it. The NBA doesn't want high-school kids, and it doesn't have a whole minor-league system to develop them. The baseball rule would keep some kids in college basketball for three years who want to be in the NBA—without improving their situation in any way. [My emphasis]
How many times have I explained this? Calipari gets this somewhat wrong, though — the NBA has a perfect minor-league system, one that doesn't cost them a single penny. It's called, "college basketball."
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Calipari is becoming Larry Brown. Or so US News suggests.
Other Kentucky sports
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A.J. Reed named midseason National Player of the Year for the Bat Cats by Perfect Game.
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Softball takes on #18 Texas A&M this afternoon at 3. Might be a little soggy.
Links posts
College football
College basketball
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Richard Pitino leads the Minnesota Golden Gophers to the NIT title in his first season as head coach. Pretty impressive, Richard.
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The NCAA Tournament is not about the best team winning. No single elimination tournament really is.
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Could the SEC extend the Big Ten's drought in college basketball? Possibly. That would be a fun story line, wouldn't it?
Other sports news
- Patrick Patterson returns to the Raptors lineup after an elbow injury sidelined him for almost a month.