Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Calipari-Pitino Edition

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Big Blue Nation, and welcome to the Wednesday Quickies. I know I’m a day removed from my normal slot, but life sometimes makes that necessary.

Today’s ongoing news is the seeming controversy created by John Calipari in comments to Mike Lupica the other day. No doubt you have read them many times, but here is the relevant quote:

All I can tell you is this: If it happens on your campus and it happens with your assistants and those people, you probably have a good idea of what’s going on," Calipari said. "It happens back in their hometown, it happens back with their family … there’s no way you can know. You just can’t know.

Most people, including here at A Sea of Blue, have assumed this is a shot by Coach Cal across the bow of Louisville Cardinals coach Rick Pitino, basically suggesting that Pitino did in fact know about the "Cardinal Rules" controversy involving sex and strippers at U of L.

That’s certainly possible, and I don’t claim any special knowledge. But to me, it looks more like Calipari defending himself than attacking Pitino. Calipari has been hit by a couple of scandals, the most important of which was the one at Memphis involving Derrick Rose and at UMass involving Marcus Camby where some of his players engaged in questionable activity away from campus. Eric Bledsoe’s alleged academic questions in high school also fall under this rubric, as did John Wall’s unofficial visits issues.

To me, this reads more like Calipari defending himself than indicting Rick Pitino, but he certainly could’ve been doing both. Mike Lupica himself thinks that Calipari was not taking shots at Pitino, or at North Carolina or Syracuse.

This reminds me of an old quote from Dune based on the old "if the shoe fits…" wisdom:

"My son [Paul Atreides] displays a general garment and you claim it’s cut to your fit?" [Lady] Jessica asked. "What a fascinating revelation."

Indeed.

Tweet of the Morning

2018 PG @IQ_GodSon says John Calipari told him he would come to Spain to watch him play in the FIBA U17s.

— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) June 21, 2016

Recruiters without borders. Love it.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• We need more of this:

  Three-star linebacker Chase Monroe (class of 2017) https://t.co/S3lOQ51ZdG

  — Ben Roberts (@NextCats) June 21, 2016

• The one stat that might matter the most for 2016 Kentucky football:

  "I think the main thing Kentucky has got to do is increase that percentage of passes completed," Steele answered. "It’s something they’ve been struggling in the last couple of years. In today’s game, especially in the pistol offense, you really have to hit 60 percent of your completions. You’ve got to get those short ones and complete the passes. It stops a lot of drives if you’re only completing 53-54 percent."

  Read the whole thing

Kentucky basketball

• Rick Pitino non-responds to John Calipari. Don’t bother asking, Rick, he wasn’t talking about you. Or Roy Williams. Or Jim Boeheim.

  But it is funny that you all think he was.

• Several top recruits talk about how much they like Coach Cal.

  Hat Tip: Ben Roberts

• More recruiting news:

  As expected, five-star point guard Quade Green picked up an offer from Duke today during visit. He visits UK later this month.

  — Ben Roberts (@NextCats) June 21, 2016

• Still more recruiting: Top recruits say Duke-UK rivalry "only natural." I think that’s right, although for me, the "rivalry" aspect has mellowed substantially. It’s fun to play them and I always want to win, but Louisville and North Carolina feel more important to me.

• Jamal Murray wants to play for the Minnesota Timberwolves. That’s interesting, and exciting. Murray and Karl-Anthony Towns together? Fun.

• Coach Cal previews the NBA Draft, which takes place tomorrow. Here’s a taste:

  "Let me say this, I didn’t even say this about Jamal Murray: I’ve been wrong before in what I think. I think the last time I was wrong, I think it was 1978. I believe that Jamal Murray will be the leading-scoring rookie in the NBA. That’s what I believe.

• In case you missed it, Charles Matthews will be headed to Michigan to play. Not a bad spot, IMO.

Other Kentucky sports

• UK pitcher and former Iowa Kentucky Mr. Basketball Daniel Tillo will transfer to Iowa Western.

• Two Kentucky players named to the National Gold Glove team. Congrats to Evan White and Dustin Beggs.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Wednesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Archie Manning named the 2016 National Football Foundation Gold Medal recipient. Archie was a sensation at Ole Miss back in the day.

• Five reasons the SEC will rebound in 2016.

• Alabama’s strength coach is delightfully insane, and makes more than the POTUS.

• Dabo Swinney engages in some… creative reflection of their 45-40 loss to Alabama last season.

College basketball

• Former Duke guard Derryck Thornton Jr. will transfer to Southern Cal.

• Billy Gillispie in the news again, this time for using an ineligible player.

Other sports news

• From the "grain of salt" department:

  @celticsblog I would not be surprised at all if James Young is not a member of the Celtics by the end of tomorrow night.

  — Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) June 22, 2016

  Jeff Goodman has about the same chance of being right as a stopped clock.

• Rory McIlroy has decided to withdraw from the Rio Olympics because of Zika virus concerns. He probably won’t be the last.

• Wow. Mark Cuban, your office on line 1.

  ESPN sources say that Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki officially opted out of his contract today and will indeed become a free agent July 1

  — Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) June 21, 2016

• Julius Randle and Kendra Shaw are engaged.

Other news

• NASA finds a new "mini moon" orbiting the earth.

• Lockheed’s new T-50A looks like the old F-16,and has a lot of its DNA. The F-16 is perhaps my favorite multirole fighter aircraft. Even now, it has no peer when it comes to cost vs. capability.

• Former NASA engineer builds world’s largest Nerf gun. Awesome. I want one.