clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Kentucky Wildcats Quickies: Jake Arrieta Domination Edition

Jake Arrieta dominates on the mound, John Calipari speaks in Louisville, Auburn fans hate their new hype video, Louisivlle's athletic department is rogue, the Wildcars are already dominating the NBA, and more!

By James Streble
Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

We often don't give the honor of headlining the Quickies to Major League Baseball but Jake Arrieta pitched a four hit, complete game, shut out gem to propel the Chicago Cubs over the Pittsburgh Pirates in their first playoff win since 2003.

My wife is a huge Cubs fan as she is a Chicago native and it was fun to watch her cheer on her Cubbies last night. Granted she is from the South Side, but her heart lies with the team from the North.

The Cubs will now take on their hated rivals St. Louis Cardinals for the NLDS. The Cards have the home field advantage, but Chicago has owned them as of late.

I'm not into baseball but playoff baseball is all kinds of fun.

Tweet of the Day:

Eric Crawford isn't known for his comedic prowess but that was funny. It's also interesting to watch as the main stream media in Louisville isn't giving Tom Jurich his usual waltz through Lollipop Land with this situation. They are asking hard questions and they are holding people accountable.

Kentucky Wildcats Football:

Auburn Tigers football fans aren't excited about their new hype video. Not only is it narrated by a little kid, it just isn't very good. It was so bad in fact that YouTube had to disable the comments.

John Clay gives us some thoughts in his football notes, one of them being that if you can protect the football this season, you can win the SEC. Kentucky has had issues doing this, especially in the interception department.

Denzil Ware suffered what seemed to be a minor ankle injury against Eastern Kentucky. The boot may be precautionary measures to ensure he is ready and 100% for Auburn.

Gus Malzahn opened up the quarterback competition between Jeremy Johnson and Sean White. So Kentucky wil likely have to prepare for two guys. Great.

Kentucky Wildcats Basketball:

John Calipari was in Louisville yesterday for the annual Basketball Tip-off Luncheon. He hit plenty of talking points, but one of the most important is that this current team may not be very good early and they are going to lean on Tyler Ulis to win them basketball games. I don't know about you, but I am completely 100% OK with relying on Ulis.

Listen to Cal's comments here:

As we all heard yesterday, Kentucky star recruit Skal Labissiere has not been cleared by the NCAA as they have some questions for his guardian Gerald Hamilton. This doesn't appear to be academic and it doesn't appear that Skal took any extra benefits, this situation seems to be out of Skal's control and it's not fair to him. Kentucky on their part doesn't seem to be too worried about this and I don't get the same sense of alarm that I did with Enes Kanter. Time will tell but the season is quickly approaching. Skal has been through a lot, including surviving the massive earthquake in his home country of Haiti and adapting to his new home here in the United States. I'm hoping for the best for the young man.

Some awesome videos of the Wildcats at practice. Don't forget, ESPNU will be covering practice live on Sunday from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM.

Other Kentucky Sports:

Congrats the the #20 UK Women's Volleyball team as they swept #22 Arkansas last night 3-0 in a match to determine the top team in the SEC.

The women's soccer team faces an important split with Vanderbilt and Mississippi State this weekend.

College Basketball:

Tim Sullivan of the Courier-Journal wrote an article that got him in a lot of hot water with Louisville fans on twitter. In the article, Sullivan highlights an incident when Louisville Cardinal head coach Rick Pitino was coaching for Boston University. After a huge win, Pitino ordered the team bus to be stopped so the team could celebrate at a strip club. UofL's SID Kenny Klein debunked this story by saying that Pitino and his team thought the establishment was a restaurant and they walked out as soon as they walked in. Riiiiiiiggggghhhhhtttt.

Is Louisville running a rogue athletic department? It certainly seems that way. This gives more validity to Keith's article.

Rob Dauster seems to think RIck Pitino will keep his job amidst the scandall.

It has been confirmed by Ohio State that the NCAA has spoken to point guard JaQuan Lyle about his alleged activity with the Louisville escort scandal. Lyle was committed to Louisville before he dropped them for Oregon. He finally ended up being a Buckeye.

Jay Bilas with some strong words for the NCAA regarding Cheik Diallo. I'm sure he has similar thoughts about Skal as well.

College Football:

I again took part in the Team Speed Kills SEC Power Poll. Alabama jumps back to number one after their total destruction of Georgia.They are followed by LSU, Florida, Texas A&M, and Ole Miss to round out the top five. Kentucky is up from #9 to #8. Tip o' the cap to Vanderbilt as they are no longer last place. That belongs to the Fighting Head Ball Coaches.

The only top 25 match up this week is #18 Michigan hosting #13 Northwestern. Here is the top 25 slate.

NBA

Kobe Bryant has been impressed with Julius Randle thus far and there isn't a tougher critic in the NBA than Kobe. I hope Randle can stay healthy because the sky is the limit for that young man.

Karl-Anthony Towns looked mighty good in his NBA preseason debut last night going up against another former Wildcat in Enes Kanter. This will be a theme this season.

Another theme will be Rajon Rondo to Willie Cauley-Stein for the dunk. Or to Demarcus Cousins for the dunk. Man, the NBA is full of Wildcats. This is going to be fun.

Random News

Stop the insanity: Steve McQueen's classic film Papiillion is being redone.This is getting out of hand. There is nothing wrong with the original film, hell it's one of the best ever, why do we need a new one? This makes me almost as mad as I am about the Big Trouble in Little China remake.

If you are a 90's music fan such as I, then you will be excited about the release of previously unheard solo material from Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden were the bands of my youth and I love hearing new material whenever it is available.

Hey, how did the giraffe get its long neck? Glad you asked!

More From A Sea Of Blue