Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Boys In Blue Edition

Off all the songs that I have seen done about Kentucky this season, this one by Crystal Reeves is my runaway favorite. Enjoy.

Tweet of the Morning

Random NCAAs thought: Wondering if Cats have ever played 5 tourney games in a row in the blue uniforms? Thinking it will be a first.

— Jeff Drummond (@JDrumUK) April 7, 2014

There seem to be a lot of firsts this season.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Darren Durham writing for Wildcat Blue Nation has a piece wondering if Mark Stoops can keep u his in-state recruiting prowess.

• Football picks up three offensive line commitments this weekend, including one four-star.

• First scrimmage for football was held this Saturday. Here's a look at some of the good and bad.

Kentucky basketball

• Aaron Harrison has gone from legend to some ridiculous netherworld occupied only by him.

• Storylines for Kentucky - UConn. For my money, Kentucky has to use their size to nullify Daniels

• Tyler Ulis could be a revolutionary guard for John Calipari. We all know Calipari's preference for big point guards, so this will be a little different. But Ulis can play this game, and his competitiveness is off the charts.

• DeAndre Daniels was almost a Wildcat. That makes the story of the game tonight all the more interesting

• Injuries in basketball are cruel, but the one to Wilie Cauley-Stein might be the cruelest injury in a while:

  "I can't really speak to them like I'm a player," Cauley-Stein said softly, "because I don't feel like a player anymore."

  Ouch. Back, tears.

• Kyle Tucker says that Dominque Hawkins will be called upon to defend Shabazz Napier. I think that's very likely.

• It's UK's Fab Five vs. Connecticut. We don't have a "Fab Five." We have "Spectacular Seven."

• This has a ring of truth to it:

  Seriously, the only reason Kentucky is a No. 8 seed is because the Wildcats underachieved during the regular season. Were it not for bizarre losses to Arkansas and South Carolina, Kentucky easily would have moved up the seed list. Even with those losses, the Cats probably should have been higher.

  I think that's right. Losing four out of their last seven had to leave a bad taste in the Committee's mouth.

• Calipari is in a lot of pain from that hip, apparently. This season can't end fast enough for him.

  s Calipari covered this distance after practice Friday — 247 strides, give or take a few size 10 Onitsuka Tigers — he was biting his lip. Every step Calipari takes, his right hip burns. He tried taking painkillers a while ago but stopped, he said, after four days because they left him woozy. He sleeps less than a police officer on late-night stakeout duty. He was not being flippant when he said that he was happy that Kentucky’s season would end no later than Monday.

• John Feinstein's latest hit piece on Coach Cal, saying he and Mark Emmert are two of a kind — bad for college sports.

  Yes, you will see him offer damnation by faint praise, and some of you will be taken in by this tactic and think that he's just being honest. I'd like to live in your world, dear bamboozled reader, but I refuse to be a fool.

• Yet another hit piece, this time by Victor Contreras. Once again, you'll see Calipari defended just enough to try to fool you into thinking the author is being fair. He isn't. If I were going to write a hit piece on Rick Pitino, that's exactly how I would do it — make a little flashy praise so you'll look over there and say, "Oh, shiny! This guy must be fair!" Embrace. The. Hate.

• This is actually a pretty good piece by Rick Bozich, who doesn't focus so much on the perception of what Calipari does, but what the players who come to play for him think.

• One more hate piece to embrace. It makes it that much sweeter to be a Kentucky fan. You can usually count the quality of a program by the number of people who hate it.

• After all that venom, how about a little love? SB Nation provides.

• Boatright feeds off defensive disruption. Kentucky is going to have to take good care of the ball tonight.

• John Calipari's work speaks for itself. Yes it does, and it speaks extremely well of him.

• Dana O'Neil takes the position that UConn will win, Myron Medcalf the position that Kentucky will win.

• For those of you who care about such things, Kentucky is between a 2 and 3 point favorite, depending on who you ask.

Other Kentucky sports

• Baseball wins the series over Florida in a game 3 nailbiter.

• Softball rallies after dropping the opener and wins the series over Texas A&M.

• Men's tennis, now #14, takes down #26 Vanderbilt.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Monday Wildcat Links

College basketball

• Wisconsin may be heartbroken now (and who wouldn't be after that game with Kentucky), but I think they have a fine chance to get back to the Final Four next season.

• This is totally hilarious!

• Black coaches at major colleges seem to be diminishing in number.

• Sigh:

  But the model isn’t working for college basketball. When Kentucky’s five freshmen starters take the floor against Connecticut on Monday night, it’s unlikely they will ever play together in the same uniforms again. They’ve been in school for seven months. It’s unlikely they’ll all return for another semester as student-athletes.

  Yeah, yeah, we hear this every single year. Bad for college basketball, blah, blah, blah. Honestly, it has worked out fine. Most colleges never have to deal with a one-and-done player, and colleges who don't have them win national titles, too. Spare me, please.

  Then this:

  It’s incumbent on the NBA and the NBA Players Association — and the NFL, too — to stop encouraging this mockery of higher education by doing what Major League Baseball does, and create a farm system. Scholarships should go to students who want to be students first.

  Lady, I don't know how to tell you this, but the NBA is a business, not a social club. It doesn't have to do a single thing that is not in it's best interests, and right now, at least, their interests are served by not having to spend a fortune on a development league when they have one ready-made that doesn't cost them a dime.

• University officials adamantly opposed to "one and done." Doh.

• Retrospective by the Gators at Alligator Army. Good stuff.