Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: CATSPY Awards Edition

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

At the top of today’s news is the annual Catspy awards, which were presented last night at the annual awards banquet in Memorial Coliseum. The word is, Coach Calipari and Tyler Ulis stole the show. Take a look:

Yes, that was Calipari giving his Coach of the Year award to Ulis. Great theater.

Tyler Ulis won the Male Athlete of the Year award along with Men’s soccer’s Callum Irving. For the ladies, Danielle Galyer (swimming and diving) and Kendra Harrison (track and field) were the Female Athlete of the Year winners

There was also a touching moment where UK gymnast Shelby Hilton was awarded the Mike Lyden Courage Award after having been diagnosed with brain cancer. I cannot imagine the calamity of having to deal with cancer, especially a rare form like brain cancer, at such a young age. Our prayers for a continued disease-free life go out to her.

Tweet of the Morning

The Los Angeles Lakers have been granted permission to interview Kentucky Wildcats coach John Calipari, league sources tell @TheVertical

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticaNBA) April 26, 2016

Well, you knew after Byron Scott was canned, this was inevitable. For those of you sweating it, don’t. Life is short, pain is long, and change is inevitable. But I don’t think we’ll be seeing Calipari in LA LA land except as a spectator.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Kentucky QB commitment Mac Jones has been offered by the Louisville Cardinals. But he isn’t wavering:

  "I want to respect them for offering me," Jones said. "I know it’s a good rivalry and all, but I don’t think anybody has to be too worried or anything like that."

  He also has offers from Alabama, West Virginia, and Arizona State among many others, and even dismissed the idea of defecting if his home-state Florida Gators extended an offer.

• Some really good stuff by Hank yesterday about recruiting, in case you missed it.

Kentucky basketball

• When it comes to Calipari leaving for the pros, Rick Bozich says we’ve seen this movie before:

  Honk if you’ve heard that one before.

  Calipari to the Nets.

  Calipari to the Knicks.

  Calipari to the Cavaliers.

  Calipari to the Bulls.

  Have I missed anybody?

  It can’t be about the money. Calipari has amassed a fortune coaching college basketball at UK, and whatever bad thoughts you have about Rick Pitino moving to Boston, there was one big difference — Boston paid Pitino a ridiculously higher salary by comparison than the Lakers can even dream of offering to Calipari, and UK would not let him go without making it competitive. I doubt that Kentucky would match a $10 million/year offer, but they might. I also doubt that’s forthcoming from Los Angeles.

  Keep in mind that the Lakers are not a good team, and no matter who they hire, they are not likely to be a good team for some years to come. The next coach looks to me like a sacrificial lamb to get through the lean times.

  And one more thing: Cal’s son Brad recently decided to come to UK. To Calipari, getting to coach his son is probably worth 3 million a year.

• According to the Montgomery Advisor, Marques Bolden is struggling with “life-altering decision.” Hat tip: Aaron’s blog.

Other Kentucky sports

• More defections from the UK women’s basketball program:

  On Monday afternoon, UK confirmed that promising freshman forward Batouly Camara had been granted her unconditional release from the school.

  Then a few hours later, a spokesman also confirmed that assistant coach Tamika Williams-Jeter had resigned her position on Matthew Mitchell’s staff. Her position has been posted on the school’s jobs board.

  Troubling. And there’s more:

  Figured this was coming. If you were a recruit, would you not be concerned? https://t.co/mcPhjfvnQk

  — Regina Lexi Rickert (@acrphoto) April 26, 2016

• Kentucky women’s Track & Field reaches number 2 in rankings.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• The U.S. Department of Justice is reportedly looking into the NCAA’s ban on satellite football camps:

  The DOJ’s interest, according to one of the people who spoke to USA TODAY Sports, is based on whether an NCAA ban of satellite camps — a term used to describe off-campus coaching clinics attended by prospective student-athletes — could jeopardize or lessen opportunities for youth players to be seen or have access to college football coaches.

  Stay tuned…

• Heh. Lane Kiffin.

College basketball

• So you were expecting the North Carolina Tar Heels to be smacked down for all the academic fraud reaching back decades? Seriously? Let me paraphrase a famous aphorism: “The NCAA is so mad at North Carolina’s men’s basketball team that they are putting the UNC women’s basketball team on probation.”

  John Clay has more here.

• Mark Story says the scandals at North Carolina and Louisville should teach the NCAA some lessons:

  Here’s a radical thought: The NCAA would be better served if it conducted its investigations to the end, let its infractions process run its full course and then imposed penalties itself via a uniform process.

  No more "self-imposing" by member schools.

  I think he has a point.

  More:

  Look forward seeing Mark Emmert explain to congressional committee why they allowed UNC to scam athletes out of education w/o consequence.

  — bigbluehistory (@bigbluehistory) April 26, 2016

  Hope you’re not holding your breath… And for some dark humor:

  How to dodge an NCAA investigation by Roy Williams, in bookstore's soon.

  — TobaccoRdMayor (@TobaccoRdMayor) April 26, 2016

  Indeed.

• Damion Lee and Trey Lewis named honorary grand marshals for the 2016 Pegasus Parade. I’m sure they’re honored, but I’ll bet they’d trade this for a chance to play in the NCAA tournament in a heartbeat. Just saying.

• Mark Cuban has pissed off Kevin Durant. Well, to be fair, Cuban has pissed off almost everybody in America at one point or another, so I’m not sure this is news.

Other sports news

• Chris Paul has broken a bone in his right hand. God, I hate it when injuries like this happen in the playoffs.

• And again — Stephen Curry out for at least 2 weeks with knee injury. Grade 1 MCL sprain.

• Tiger Woods has registered for the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont. I wouldn’t expect much even if he does show up.

Other news

• Scientists take the next step towards observing quantum physics in real life.

• Gmail now supports Exchange Server. For those of us locked into Outlook for an email client, this could be very big news indeed.

• The EmDrive, a new space propulsion engine that has been confirmed to work over and over despite an apparent violation of the law of conservation of momentum, is all the rage lately. Physicist M.E. McCulloch has released a possible explanation, but it just raises more questions.

  I think we should just rename the thing “impulse drive.”