Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Special Football Season Edition

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

One of the great things about this football season was finally ending the 31-year drought against the Florida Gators. The cherry on top was doing it in Gainesville, and that will be an excellent reason why this UK football team should be one of the most memorable ever.

Another great thing happened this past Saturday — returning some of the indignities heaped on Wildcats fans by Louisville over the last half-decade or so by curb-stomping the Cardinals in their own stadium. I enjoyed that. Very much.

What’s left is which bowl, and frankly, I don’t care which one it is as long as it’s not the usual dregs Kentucky has managed to reach over the last decade. A great season is worthy of at least a Florida, if not an Atlanta or Arizona bowl location. Speaking of the Peach and Fiesta Bowl, how can they imagine a Florida team with a mediocre (for them) record will wind up a better draw than Kentucky? Who knows, maybe those worthies won’t pick Florida or UK. Conventional wisdom says it’s the Citrus or Outback for Kentucky, and I could live with either of those.

I also noticed this article by Jamie Boggs regarding the new NET system used by the NCAA to replace the much-hated RPI, wherein UK winds up 61st in the country. Well, that’s what happens when you struggle against teams like VMI (Kenpom #307) and Tennessee State (Kenpom #280). Frankly, given the metrics that systems utilizes, I’m surprised we’re that high.

Wednesday, we get #263 Monmouth, a team who has yet to win and has only once managed to stay within double-digits of an opponent. Will the puzzling early-season struggle continue?

Stay tuned.

Tweet of the Morning

You have to love it when your coaches get loud and proud behind other school sports.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky footbal

• Tim Couch was the only Kentucky QB with a higher completion percentage than Terry Wilson’s single-season mark this year. That’s amazing, but I think it’s possibly as much due to a lack of confidence as skill. Or maybe not as much, but that was certainly a factor. Still, he throws a great ball under 30 yards. His long ones need more air under them, though.

Kentucky basketball

• UK recruit Dontaie Allen scores 52 points in his first high school game of the season.
• Both Kentucky and Duke losers in the early signing period.
• Ben Roberts asks and tries to answer all the big questions about Kentucky recruiting that we all no doubt have.
• Calipari to himself: Lighten up.

Sorry, but I just have to leave this here:

Other Kentucky sports

• UK hoops guard Taylor Murray named College Sports Madness’ National Player of the Week. Hoops is still undefeated on the year and looks much better than last season.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Red Cup Rebellion recaps the Egg Bowl, and the dumpster fire it became.
• Almost everything that was important from Rivalry Week, in order of importance. Well, okay, maybe it’s a little tongue in cheek…

College basketball

• Is the Pac-12 even a power conference anymore in college basketball?
• Heartwarming: First NCAA player with autism signs with Kent State.
• Former Louisville recruit Brian Bowen sues Adidas. Michael McCann discusses the litigation, but for me, whenever I see RICO alleged in a civil context, I just look away in shame. Even if it goes to trial, I can almost guarantee the racketeering allegation will not survive.
• The SEC has been riding high, but last week was not a good one.
• Analysts and coaches pan the NET ratings as “meaningless,” and at this point in the season, they are right.

Other sports news

• Go Wenyen!

Other news

• Black holes, quantum systems, superconductors and Planck’s constant are all related. For those of you who don’t remember what Planck’s constant is, it is the relationship between the energy carried by a photon and the frequency of same, and the basis for the definition of the kilogram.
• NASA’s InSight lander just landed on Mars.
• German experimental fusion reactor reaches a remarkable milestone. Faster, please.