Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Top Plays of the Calipari Era Edition

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

John Calipari and Kentucky will release a bracket-style challenge to fill in the best Kentucky basketball plays of the Coach Cal era. Let me enter a couple of candidates into the mix. First, a sure selection:

Second, this one is… um… memorable.

Third, how can you forget this?

Finally, a relative oldie, but goodie:

Finding ten of these should be as easy as pie. I can think of three or four more right off the top of my head. What a run we have been on!

Tweet of the Morning

UK freshman knocking down threes … https://t.co/hVXdcX8CPa

— Ben Roberts (@NextCats) May 31, 2016

I’d be happy if everyone on the team had 3-point range. You can never have too many guys who can shoot the ball.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Seen yesterday:

  Happy Memorial Day! Thank you to all past and present Military for all that you do! pic.twitter.com/3gxfsuFUvY

  — Mark Stoops (@UKCoachStoops) May 30, 2016

  Thanks, Coach.

• Nebraska transfer Courtney Love is on a service trip to Ethiopia, but he’s ready to make an impact this season:

  Love, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound sophomore, has yet to play a down for Kentucky, but he’s one of the few defenders, and linebackers especially, who have college experience. In 2014, he played in 12 games and had six tackles for the Cornhuskers. But during his redshirt year the previous season, he was named Nebraska’s Scout Team Defensive MVP.

Kentucky basketball

• Coach Cal, among others, praises Billy Donovan’s success in the NBA so far. Nice going, kid. Don’t get cocky.

• Kentucky recruits are getting it done on the Nike circuit this summer.

• Wendell Carter Jr. (2017) was thought to be favoring Duke, but he tells Zagsblog that UK is actually higher on his list.

• Why do fans love Dominique Hawkins so much? Because he plays hard, he’s a nice kid, and he’s from… you know, Kentucky.

• Who will be the “glue guy” for Kentucky next season? Dominique Hawkins comes immediately to mind, but I actually think it will be Isaiah Briscoe.

• The Boston Celtics are among the teams hoping to obtain Jamal Murray’s services.

• Nice piece on Tai Wynyard. I can’t wait to see him play.

Other Kentucky sports

• Kentucky golf rises to finish #13 at the NCAA championships in Eugene, Oregon. The Wildcats finished just short of moving on to match play, and have had one of the best seasons in recent memory.

• UK Track & Field sens 23 qualifiers to the NCAA Championship finals in Eugene, Oregon.

• In my view, there is no excuse for UK baseball missing the NCAA Tournament this season. Perhaps it’s time to consider if Gary Henderson is underachieving.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Even a stopped clock is right twice per day, and Pat Forde is right on this one:

  When Mississippi shocked the college football world and signed the No. 7 recruiting class in the nation in February 2013, it didn’t pass the smell test for a lot of people in and around the sport.

  Three years later, we can say with reasonable certainty that their noses did not deceive them. There was a questionable odor coming from Oxford then, and it is lingering over Hugh Freeze’s program to this day.

  Yeah, when you see programs like Ole Miss out-recruiting Alabama, you know something is rotten in Denmark.

College basketball

• Is Ben Simmons they guy for 2016? It would be a tough call if I were a GM, but you can’t deny his basketball skill. Shooting always comes in the NBA if you really want to work hard, but therein lies the rub: Does Simmons really want to work hard? My impression is that he did anything but work hard at LSU.

  More: Sixer’s Brown seems to be favoring Ben Simmons

• Sam Vecenie thinks that it’s a tough call between Buddy Hield and Jamal Murray. I think he’s right. I believe Murry actually has more upside, but only just a little bit.

• Malik Newman’s transfer shows the grim side of the “one and done” culture, according to Ryan Fagan at The Sporting News.

  I don’t know why this is a big deal. Sometimes it takes a year or three for these highly-rated high-school guys to hit their stride, and sometimes, they never really do. Injuries and other issues can sidetrack the best pro prospect.

  When he resumes playing a year from now, he’s likely to get back on track, if he goes to the right situation. But if not, he won’t be the first. Just ask Alex Poythress or, for that matter, Marcus Lee just to name two recent examples.

Other sports news

• Kevin Durant on the loss to the Golden State Warriors in game 7 of the Western Conference playoffs: “I thought it was our year.” I know the feeling well, Kevin, it’s called the 2015 Final Four.

  More Durant:

  Wizards, Heat, Celtics, Rockets, Knicks, Lakers, Spurs and, yes, Warriors … all expected to pursue Kevin Durant in free agency this summer

  — Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) May 31, 2016

• Karl-Anthony Towns leads the NBA All-rookie team as a unanimous selection. Not at all surprising to me.

• Jordan Spieth it trying, with significant success, to put the Masters meltdown behind him.

Other news

• Only the 7th? I was getting ready to build an ark:

  With no rain in the forecast today, Jackson's total hit 7.04". This will make it the 7th wettest May on record. pic.twitter.com/EPfWgDo2EG

  — WYMT (@WYMT) May 31, 2016

  But seriously, I think that Texas needs to built the ark.

• Karl Urban (Dr. McCoy on the new Star Trek series) loves the franchise. That’s got to be a good thing when you’re a major part of it.

• Top ten little-known facts about the Big Bang Theory (no, not the TV show, the actual scientific theory.)