Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Missouri Edition

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Big Blue Nation, and welcome to the Tuesday Morning Quickies. I hope you are enjoying the 2016-17 college basketball season, because it’s rapidly approaching tournament time with only four games left in the regular SEC season for Kentucky.

Speaking of those games, one of them is tonight in Columbia, Missouri, against the hapless Missouri Tigers. I have nothing personal against Mizzou, but their basketball team for the last two years under Kim Anderson has been… well, awful. Yes, they pull an occasional upset, but they have yet to reach double-digit wins on the season this year, and I can’t imagine Anderson surviving two back-to-back seasons like this in the 2017 what-have-you-done-for-me-lately coaching environment.

Back in the Norm Stewart days of yore, Missouri was an almost annual NCAA tournament team, although they have never reached a Final Four in their history (just another highlight of how difficult that accomplishment is) and have only managed the Elite Eight five times.

But every team on the SEC road is dangerous, as Vanderbilt and Arkansas have recently discovered in Missouri’s case. Alabama very nearly came to grief in Columbia, as well. With the exception of a blowout loss in Knoxville, the Tigers have been playing rather better lately, so even though Ken Pomeroy offers them only a 6% chance of upsetting the Wildcats, Kentucky doesn’t need to be thinking that way.

Tweet of the Morning

UK's Bam Adebayo, with David Shelton and Bill Perdue, won the Bill Keightley MVP Award from the Greater Atlanta UK Alumni Club Saturday. pic.twitter.com/x1wgp0Yot4

— UK Alumni (@kentuckyalumni) February 21, 2017

Attaboy, Bam!

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Kentucky football tickets will be a little more expensive in 2017.

Kentucky basketball

• Here it comes again — the Calipari-to-the-NBA talk. Well, it was never-ending under Rick Pitino, and I suppose it will be the same way under Coach Cal.

• Calipari won’t let Kentucky overlook Missouri. Good, because that way lies a loss.

• Jay Bilas has some observations about John Calipari’s recent rant about firing coaches midseason.

• Coach Cal talks about the DeMarcus Cousins trade with Dan Patrick.

• Florida faces a tougher SEC road in the last few games than Kentucky. I just want to beat them at Rupp on Saturday.

• Megan Calipari trolls Colin Cowherd. Good.

• Kenny Payne talks about Kentucky’s higher standards:

• Can UK get it’s groove back versus Mizzou? All I can say is that there are no easy games on the road.

• Top five 2019 recruit Scottie Lewis showed off for Coach Cal last Sunday.

• Remember Dottie Henson [Geena Davis] talking about her sister Kit [Lori Petty] in A League Of Their Own: “High fastballs. Can’t hit ‘em, can’t lay off ‘em.” John Calipari is Pat Forde’s high fastball:

  His asking price would be steep, and it likely would include front-office control – which may be the hardest thing for a competent franchise to give him. And The Minutes has been told previously that Cal’s personality wouldn’t necessarily mesh with the New Orleans front office style. [my emphasis]

  Hilarious. Making your bed again, Pat? C’mon, please?

• Mychal Mulder on UK’s consistency:

Other Kentucky sports

• Men’s golf is having a good year so far, moving into the top three in the Puerto Rico Classic. Watch the mimis down there, boys. Those things are nothing but wings and teeth. You’ll come back with ankles looking like hamburger.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Alabama makes offensive coordinator hire — New England Patriots’ tight end coach Brian Daboll. Another NFL coach, Philadelphia’s Joe Pannuzio, will be the new special teams coordinator.

College basketball

• Bob Huggins goes down to his knees last night in the West-Virginia vs. Texas game. Huggins has a history of heart problems, and what happened was that the defibrillator implanted in his chest went off. I’m sure he’ll have it checked out, and hopefully, he’ll be okay.

• John Gasaway’s Tuesday Truths. There is so much good stuff in here (as always) you have to read the whole thing but consider this:

  I realize “Wow, Villanova shoots well” has been an evergreen headline for four years now, so how about this tweak: Villanova is shooting twos better than ever before. Better, in fact, than any team has in years.

  Penetrating observation, and only one of many.

• Miami knocks off Virginia in overtime in Charlottesville. Consider the score: 54-48. Virginia’s offensive efficiency was .81 points per possession.

• As several great college coaches face the twilight of their careers, who will replace them?

• Consider:

  America is sleeping on St. Mary's just because it lost to Gonzaga 2X. Gaels still won at Dayton, beat Nevada by 18, & won at Stanford by 15.

  — Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) February 21, 2017

  St. Mary’s is a good team, but when I watched them the other day, they looked like a mid-major.

• The blood has not yet dried over the Kings-Pelican trade involving Boogie, according to Tom Ziller.

Other sports news

• Kings GM Vlade Divac said he had a better deal than the one he struck with the Pelicans two days ago. Bird in the hand, anyone?

• New Orleans is now looking to move former UK player Terrence Jones.

• DeMarcus Cousins makes an emotional farewell to Sacramento. I really was surprised that the Kings moved him.

Other news

• NASA has made an important discovery about planets outside our solar system, and plans to announce it on Wednesday. Ohhh, mystery!

• Brown-Forman hires whiskey maker for Scotch whiskey segment. Even though I’m (reportedly) of Scots descent, I can’t stand the stuff.

• Why emotional snap-judgments are often wrong. Let me guess — because they’re emotional?