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Wildcat Quickies: Big Blue Nation Purgatory Edition

A fanbase struggling to find joy, ridiculous baseball contracts, college football playoffs nearly set, and more quickies for your hump day.

By Keith Garrett
Andy Lyons/Getty Images

The fervent members of Big Blue Nation are anxious at the moment.  The Football 'Cats failures are still ripe in our minds, the anticipated changes cannot happen fast enough, and the Basketball 'Cats are not playing like the #1 team they are ranked as.

While the Football solution is not going to be a fast one, it will get better.  The staff is feverishly re-recruiting their commitments to assure we 'back into' February will all of our future pieces in place.  Staff changes are imminent and I think will happen fairly soon.

The Basketball 'Cats may not be playing like the #1 team, but who cares, it is December 1st and Coach Cal is notorious for late developing teams.  The concern about Skal is also much ado about nothing, in my opinion.  This time last year we were a bit frustrated with Towns also, that turned out ok.  I will say that Skal needs to work a lot on rebounding though.

What is clear is just how important Tyler Ulis is to the team, without him we are a middle of the pack top 25 team.  Amazing the difference he makes for everyone when he is in there.


TWEET OF THE NIGHT

YOUR BIG BLUE QUICKIES

  • The betting odds for Kentucky to win the National Title have improved from 7-1 to 5-1 since the season began.  This makes the young 'Cats the odds-on-favorite to cut down the nets in April.  Having said that, nobody in BBN is going out and getting tattoos this season... not yet anyway.
  • The 'Cats are practicing in style on the same floor as Kobe and the Lakers do.
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  • The second week of ESPN's power rankings for college basketball still have the 'Cats on top.  Here is the list in its entirety for your perusal.
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  • The UCLA Bruins are holding a Gold-out for the game against UK tomorrow.  They are expecting a sell-out crowd so it could actually be an interesting look.
  • Isaiah Briscoe does not know who John Wooden is, he thinks it is who the Wooden Award is named for though.  I do not hold it against these players, after all it is a long time ago and in today's instant gratification world anything beyond the year 2010 is likely ancient history to college players today.  I do find it sobering to realize how old I am from it, lol.
  • UK Hoops star Makayla Epps canned a half court shot at halftime of the men's game monday to help a fan win some prizes, check out the video of the shot here.
YOUR NON-UK QUICKIES
  • Former Vanderbilt pitcher David Price is the new starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, and the money he is making is 'strong, to quite strong' I would say?  Seven years for 217 MILLION DOLLARS is the contract he has signed.  Keep in mind that all Major League Baseball contracts are guaranteed.  He could shred his elbow on opening day, be done for his career and will still get paid $30 MILLION per year for 7 years, LOfrigginL.
  • The College Football Playoff Rankings are out and nothing changed from last week.  The top 5 control their fate, Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Michigan State.  Oklahoma is a proverbial lock as they are done with their season.  Alabama is a lock as long as they beat a much lesser Florida team.  Clemson the same assuming they take care of UNC.  The winner of Iowa and Michigan State is in the playoff, so that is simple.  Where it could get interesting is if Iowa and Alabama lose.  You would have a battle between Iowa and Ohio State for that final spot.
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  • Brandon Knight got filthy with a crossover and a jam last night


  • D'Angelo Russell with a silky sweet pass that threaded the needle, I love the 2nd angle.


  • Texas Freshman Kerwin Roach created the poster of all posters last night when he went Vince Carter-esque below.


YOUR RANDOM QUICKIES
  • The latest rumor for the iPhone 7 is that Apple will be doing away with the headphone jack.  The person originating it is usually reliable so there is likely some smoke here.  I really hope not because the amount of change this would cause would suck for a few years.  Only bluetooth headphones, what about square readers and such?
  • Mark Zuckerberg and his wife have decided to give away 99% of their wealth to charity.  That is 45 BILLION, with a B, dollars.  Do not feel too bad for the Zuckerbergs though, this will leave a paltry 500 MILLION Dollars for them.  I think they will make it, kidding aside, what an awesome gesture.
  • I am not sure there needed to be a new study to determine that participating in amateur contact sports increases your chances of CTE, but here is one in case you were not sold that contact sports lead to head trauma, which lead to later complications.
  • Children's tech manufacturer VTech has been hacked and around 6 MILLION kids profiles were accessed.
  • How bad is the air pollution in Beijing, pretty dang bad.  It is so bad that an artist decided to walk around with a vacuum and just hold it up in the air over a period of time.  He then dumped the contents and cast an actual BRICK from the pollution, yikes.
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  • Do you have a dog? There is a good chance you probably have a dog or have had a dog.  I am guessing you loved the dog and it may have even had a few cool tricks and neat obedience moments.  Well, your dog is subpar, because a guy in Florida has trained TWO dogs to dive into the ocean and fetch living Lobsters from the ocean floor for him.

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