Kentucky Wildcats Wednesday Quickies: Jerry Tarkanian Edition

Jerry Tarkanian has died at 84. Our condolences to the family, and his extended family at UNLV and Long Beach State. He was a fine coach and a colorful figure. College basketball will miss him.

Tweet of the Day

No one could ever claim Tark's teams were unwatchable. 75-76 team AVERAGED 110 points a game with no three-point line. Let that soak in.

— Fran Fraschilla (@franfraschilla) February 11, 2015

Indeed.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• UK football pioneer Nate Northington to be featured in CBS Sports documentary. Northington was the first African-American player in the SEC.

• Commonwealth Stadium’s progress from several angles.

Kentucky basketball

• Willie Cauley-Stein is a finalist for the Wooden Award. Congratulations to him, it’s richly deserved.

• John Calipari sends tough message, Kentucky still survives. Consider:

  It was an electric night at LSU, which draws packed houses like this … well, basically never. The intensity in the room felt more like a Saturday night at Tiger Stadium – and maybe that was fitting since LSU football coach Les Miles was standing in the center of an amped-up student section along with many of his players.

  But this was nothing new for Kentucky, which by this point is wearing a bull’s eye squarely on its back. It was the Wildcats’ fifth SEC win that came by 10 points or fewer, but the common thread in all 11 conference games thus far is that the Wildcats managed to win all of them.

  Here’s the thing about "wearing a bullseye" — Get over it! Just play. Play like winners. Forget how motivated the opposition is; just respect them, and chin-ups on the rim was disrespectful to LSU and they got motivated by it, as competitors should. Great lesson for Towns and the rest of the young guys who are so used to success they don’t understand the full cost of it.l

• Thon Maker will decide on reclassification Friday. Hat tip: NextCats

• There’s a reason John Calipari recruited Charles Matthews.

  St Rita 74-Seton 48. Charles Matthews 25p Kain Harris 14p Armani Chaney 16p to finish reg season 11-0 in Catholic Lg pic.twitter.com/oG12T0V2z5

  — Scott/Ballislife (@BallisLifeCHI) February 11, 2015

  Hat tip: NextCats

• Heh. I’m betting he had a lot of company!

  Sam Malone couldn't believe Willie's dunk pic.twitter.com/RdkvEvdJhS

  — Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) February 11, 2015

  Willie threw down some filthy ones last night, I’ll tell you that. He invited the entire LSU team to his poster.

• Kentucky’s remaining schedule on KenPom.com. I have highlighted significant items.

  

• This is a bit late (the LSU game has come and gone) but it’s still very much valid with the exception that the chance is now at least 83% (not 84) and the cumulative odds are now almost 62%. See the image above.

• Ira Combs’ weekly column. Consider:

  Now I ask you what would have been your train of thought or projected record for this UK team back in August if you had known that Alex Poythress and Trey Lyles had both missed a combined six games at the same time at this point in the season with Poythress having missed eight to ten himself going into mid February .

  Good question. I figured we’d lose a game by now with everybody available. Hasn’t happened, even with as many as 2 players down.

• Kentucky is the odds-on favorite to win the NCAA Tournament. Consider:

  Kentucky is going off at 11/10 to win the championship at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. The Wildcats held off LSU in a 71-69 road win on Tuesday to stay undefeated and to stay in the driver’s seat for the top overall seed in the tournament bracket. With sophomore guard Aaron Harrison leading a batch of super talented freshmen, Kentucky looks to be the team to beat.

• This is the way to get your coach back when he’s talking bad about you. :-)

  I saw that live, it was so funny!

• Kentucky is a gift to the SEC, according to Team Speed Kills:

  Having a Goliath in the league matters for perception purposes of course, just like in football. Unlike football though, it makes a direct effect on other teams in the league thanks to the way the RPI works. The RPI may be a terrible way to judge teams—seriously, don’t use it as a power ranking for anything—but the selection committee absolutely uses it every year. The Wildcats racking up win after win, especially in the non-conference, helps everyone who plays them out in the RPI.

• WTF?

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Wednesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Football Study Hall examines recruiting rankings. Interesting.

• SEC Morning Links (ESPN)

• Pennsylvania state senator calls for Mark Emmert’s firing:

  Sen. Jake Corman said Wednesday that 4,900 pages of documents from the case show that in 2012 the NCAA under Emmert exceeded its own legal authority and misled Penn State to get school officials to agree to the sanctions.

  Corman is right about the NCAA exceeding its legal authority in the Penn St. matter. As to Emmert’s firing, I’ll leave that to others.

• The recruit that Bobby Petrino withdrew the scholarship offer from? He went to Wake Forest. Good for him.

College basketball

• SnapChat has become an NCAA recruiting tool. I personally don’t use SnapChat, and really don’t have any idea what it’s about. But young people are clued in, so it makes sense for coaches to be there as well.

• Charles Barkley expounds on something about which he has zero functional knowledge — basketball analytics.

Other sports news

• Eric Bledsoe is having a great year, and a particularly great week.

• You’d best be leaving Boogie alone. If he wants to sing, let him.

Other news

• When you’ve got a broken heart, who do you turn to for relationship advice? Why, Taylor Swift, of course.

• One thing I will likely never have is a "smart watch." I have way too many nice dumb watches.

• Google is teaming up with the Mayo Clinic to keep your hypochondria in check. I thought that’s what doctors were for?