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Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Blue/White Game Edition

Welcome to the Tuesday Quickes, where the Blue/White game is next, and Miami might be eyeing UK's coach.

By Glenn Logan

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Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Big Blue Nation, and welcome to your Tuesday Quickies.

Tonight, as I’m sure you’re all aware, is the Blue/White game, the annual rite of passage that gives us our first look at how the Wildcats might be this season in a semi-competitive format.

What I’ll be looking for is energy and basketball IQ. I want to see if the young guards can make some good decisions, if the young front-court players can keep the energy high, and if this team seems to have that undefinable but recognizable quality of "chemistry."

Tweet of the Morning

Oh, my God. This has got to be the poorest excuse for a conspiracy theory I have ever heard in my life. Billy Reed has not only jumped the shark with this one, but instead of landing back in the water he’s continued on up into a low Earth orbit that may not decay until doomsday.

I can only shake my head, and feel pity. I hope I don’t get this mentally deficient when I reach his years.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

  • The Orange and the Blue (in honor of the UK-UT rivalry), to the tune of the old Irish ditty, "The Orange and the Green:"

  • A "bounce back" game against UT would be just what the doctor ordered.

  • Coach Stoops is taking the lessons learned from last Saturday’s beat-down in Starkville into the Tennessee game. The biggest lesson from that game is that Kentucky must find a way to get pressure on the quarterback. I don’t care about anything else that happened at MSU, the magnitude of that defeat was all about allowing a top SEC QB all day to throw the ball. All the other stuff was pretty much irrelevant — no group of DB’s can guard high-level receivers for 15 or 20 seconds. It’s just not possible.

Kentucky basketball

  • Coach Cal is asking Alex Poythress to be a beast again. I doubt we’ll see that beast early, because he hasn’t fully regained confidence in his rebuilt knee. I hope to see it show up before the SEC season starts, though, at least occasionally.

  • I’m sure it will come as no surprise, but UK has tickets that are much more expensive than many professional teams. Consider:

    Starting ticket prices for home games featuring the University of Kentucky Wildcats, who were undefeated and ranked #1 last season and are up near the top again this year, vary based on the opponent—but none comes particularly cheap. When the Wildcats match up against worthy rivals such as Louisville and Arizona State, the "cheap seats" are priced at a face value of $92. Ticket prices start at $47 apiece against apparently lesser opponents like NJIT and Wright State, and go as low as $37 when the Wildcats are playing at home in what are supposed to be laughers against the likes of Boston University and Illinois State.

    That puts UK’s average prices well above teams like Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, New Orleans, Orlando, and more. And we’re not talking just a few dollars, either. You can see Anthony Davis and the Pelicans play, for example, for $9 a seat, and Orlando for just over $6.

    Times have changed.

  • Coach Cal says allegations against Louisville "…not the norm" for college basketball. I certainly hope not, but it could be more common that we’d all like to believe. We’ll see.

  • I have to admit, I found this goofy. Coming up short is the norm for every team in college basketball — only one can win it every year.

    Calipari has done a fantastic job, and despite this person’s admonition, I think most Kentucky fans want what we’ve gotten — to compete for the NCAA Tournament championship every year. It’s hard to win, but if you keep getting to the last weekend of the season, you’ll get your share.

  • Coach Cal draws the pills for the Breeder’s Cup. That’s quite a nice honor.

Other Kentucky sports
College football

  • Miami has fired Al Golden after getting crushed by Clemson at home. A coaching search now begins, and Mark Stoops is at the top of Jerry Steinberg’s list over at State of the U. Consider:

    Let’s be honest, this is a long shot. Stoops makes too much money in Lexington. But if Miami’s other top choices didn’t take the position and Stoops was interested, I think this would be a very good hire. His teams always play hard, and there’s no chance the ‘Canes would be nearly as disorganized and unprepared defensively with Stoops in charge as they have been the past few seasons. And if he can bring Top 25 classes to Kentucky, there’s no telling what he could haul in for UM.

    Okay, now tell me truly — did you ever expect an analyst for a program like Miami to say that the Kentucky coach makes "too much money?" I am aghast at that.

  • Clemson makes a big jump over Baylor in the CFB rankings to #2.

  • Bill Connelly says that this is the year of flawed teams:

    Take a quick look at last year’s S&P+ ratings. The top two teams (Ohio State and Alabama) were ranked in the top 11 in both offense and defense. Six teams ranked in the top 20 in both categories, and Oklahoma came very close. You had your single-unit teams – Oregon was second in offense and 28th in defense, Ole Miss was 35th in offense and first in defense – but a) the bad units typically weren’t that bad (Georgia Tech’s defense and Clemson’s offense aside), and b) single-unit teams weren’t the norm.

    Now take a look at this year’s S&P+ ratings. Clemson ranks 11th in offense and fourth in defense. Ohio State ranks 13th and 11th. Strangely enough, Oklahoma again ranks 14th and 21st. And that’s the entire list of teams with two top-20 units.

College basketball
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