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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Big Blue Nation, and welcome to the Tuesday Morning Quickies.
Today’s lead story is the Kentucky women’s basketball team, who are seeded #4 in the Lexington region. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that Notre Dame looms in Kentucky’s side of the bracket, and barring an upset, that will be a tough matchup in the third game for the Wildcats if they make it past #13 Belmont and the winner of #5 Ohio State and #12 Western Kentucky.
Boy, it would be cool to see UK and WKU lace them up in the second game. I hope it happens.
Tweet of the Morning
Tickled Marty Zuckinburg met with r ballteam. Runs 'at Facefriends computer crap Wander's always on. Cain't shoot for sh*t, tho.
— Daggum Roy (@DaggumRoy) March 14, 2017
I always get a laugh out of this guy.
Your Quickies:
Kentucky football
Kentucky basketball
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Kentucky basketball climbs to #6 in the final men’s basketball AP poll. I guess in a perfect world, we’d be #5, but this is close enough.
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The full seed list from the NCAA shows that Kentucky is the top #2 seed. Not sure what s-curve theory gets them matched up with North Carolina (#3 1-seed) and UCLA (#3 3-seed) and Butler (#1 4-seed). For that matter, I’m not sure what theory gets UCLA down to the #3 3-seed. Does anyone really think that Florida St. is better?
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Kentucky not looking beyond NKU. Good idea, the Norse are a solid basketball team, and 2-15 upsets, while rare, are not unknown. Right Michigan State? Duke?, Mizzou? Beuler?
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Bryan the Intern asks UK fans to stop worrying about the path to the championship. I agree. If you’re going to be the best, you have to beat all the best pretenders you can.
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Colin Cowherd, blithering idiot. But you knew that.
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Having addressed defense and rebounding, Coach Cal says he still has one more thing to get right:
"More consistency," Calipari said Monday on the SEC coaches teleconference. "We’re not doing it for 40 minutes; we’re doing it for 30. There are things tha we’re doing in games that are letting people hang around."
Correct. When you have your boot on the opponent’s neck, finish him. That’s the rule in combat, and sports. Letting him get up off the deck is a bad idea.
Plus, it’s competitively wrong. Opponents deserve your best. Save the showboating for all-star games.
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NKU to students — don’t wear UK apparel on the bus, or you won’t be allowed on.
Other Kentucky sports
- Bat Cats to host Murray St. at the Cliff this afternoon. Gonna be a cold one, boys and girls.
Links posts
College football
- Baylor fires associate director for football operations about a month after he was hired, citing inappropriate text messages.
College basketball
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Should Duke have received a 1 seed? No. There, saved you a click.
As an aside, I’m beginning to think the NCAA’s de-emphasis on conference tournaments (if that perception truly comes close to reality) is a good thing. Getting hot at the end of the season didn’t help Kentucky last year, Or Ole Miss in 2013, or Vandy in 2012, just to name a few. None of them got out of the first weekend.
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Thank God Lonzo Ball is not an idiot — like his father apparently is. Even if this were somehow true, it’s a stupid thing to use your inherited fame to say.
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Wichita St. might be the most disrespected team in the tournament. Unquestionably. The committee made a mess of their seed. Even worse, they are squarely in front of us unless Dayton is way better than I think they are.
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Awesome.
The @NKUNorse are in the NCAA Tournament and I have dropped under 190 pounds for the first time since September. Best. Week. Ever.
— meisterbuerger (@meisterbuerger) March 14, 2017 -
Former UCLA player Cameron Dollar dismissed as head coach of Seattle.
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Heh. Gregg Doyel says that Tom Crean-IU marriage isn’t working.
Other sports news
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Former Kentucky players sweep NBA Player of the Week awards.
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Judge has diverted the battery case against former UK player Sean Woods. That means if he stays out of trouble for the next six months, the charge against him will be expunged. Good for him.
Other news
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Close call: Boeing 737 almost lands in the water at St. Maarten.
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White dwarf star has tightest orbit around a black hole ever measured, and has an orbital period of just 28(!) minutes.