Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Wildcats in the Big Easy Edition

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Big Blue Nation, and welcome to the Tuesday Morning Quickies. Today’s lead story is about former Wildcats stars Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins, now the backbone of the New Orleans Pelicans.

Having been through part of one season together after Cousins was traded to New Orleans last year the former UK stars are now concentrating on how to work together better:

“We’ve just tried to get in as much work as possible this summer,” Davis said from Los Angeles, according to the report. “We didn’t have that much time last season to work out with each other, because we didn’t have training camp or (many practices). So we wanted to take advantage of this opportunity, where we had time in the summer in the same city and can get in some work together, because we’ll be playing with each other a lot.”

Added into the mix in the off season is yet another UK connection, former Wildcats and Boston Celtics star Rajon Rondo in the twilight of his career. Despite his declining profile, Rondo is still very capable of getting the ball to scorers where it needs to be with his unparalleled court vision and ability to get wherever he wants on the court.

Also joining his old teammates Davis and Cousins, fan favorite Darius Miller is back for another bite at the NBA apple in the Big Easy.

Looking at all this, plus Jrue Holiday, Solomon Hill, E’Twaun Moore and others, this year looks to be very interesting for the Southern wing of the Kentucky Wildcats professional cohort. Barring injury (which has unfortunately been a problem for Davis), the pieces are in place for a breakout season for the Pelicans.

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Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• How many wins does Mark Stoops need to stay off the hot seat in 2017? Probably needs to get to another minor bowl, but I think most fans suspect he can do better considering the schedule and returning line talent.
• Wildcats are among the favorites for a top cornerback (national #45) from Florida.
• Freshman running back Bryant Kobach could add much needed depth to Kentucky’s backfield, and he is said to finally be healthy.

Kentucky basketball

• What is this, some kind of perverted reverse psychology: UK raises ticket prices in hopes more students will come to games if they do.
• Can we quit talking about this ex-UK stars/NBA super team matchup and get it done, please?
• UK tight end CJ Conrad gets a nice writeup in The Morning Journal (Loraine, OH) and is compared to Jacob Tamme. If he can live up to that billing, 2017 is likely to be a very good year.
• Quiz: How well do you know the John Calipari era at UK?
• Malik Monk might want to move to Kentucky when he retires and hire an armed guard when he goes home to visit.

Other Kentucky sports

• Awesome.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Alabama, among others, recruiting a 6‘4” 286 lb. eight-grader.
• How a single phone call started Hugh Freeze’s death-spiral as Ole Miss coach.

College basketball

• Courier-Journal reporter Tim Sullivan returns from heart surgery, and muses on what the appropriate punishment for Louisville’s running of a brothel in their athletics dorms should be, and chides Louisville for bemoaning the badly-needed revision to their KFC-Yum center sweetheart deal.

Other sports news

• Ouch, indeed.

• Derrick Rose’s fortunes have changed.
• Shots fired!

Other news

• Money may not be able to buy you love, but it can buy you happiness.
• Quantum anomaly observed on earth is “Extremely important for our understanding of the Universe.”
• Remembering a classic skit, Abbott and Costello style.