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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Big Blue Nation, and welcome to the Tuesday Morning Quickies.
One thing I think we can all safely say after the events of the last couple of weeks, especially the last two Saturdays – the Kentucky team we expected to see back in August has finally emerged.
I suppose given our experience with Kentucky in the Calipari era, we shouldn’t be surprised at all to see this. Expectations being what they are, though, I had my doubts at times.
I’m not sure how the rest of you felt, but I was even more surprised at how the Wildcats crushed Auburn than the convincing win over Tennessee the week before. Auburn has been a good team this season, and they haven’t taken a drubbing like that at the hands of any team. Remember the six point loss they had against Duke?
The Arkansas team coming into Rupp Arena tonight has really hit the skids lately, losing five in a row. To be fair, three of them have been on the road and all but two have come against good teams, but they are really struggling to find ways to win.
I don’t really expect them to challenge Kentucky in Rupp unless the Wildcats just sleepwalk into the game tonight. Arkansas will be fired up as usual, but they have really struggled to get road victories throughout the history of the series. In fact, of the 11 victories the Razorbacks have posted against UK, only 3 of them have been in Rupp Arena, and of those, only one (2014) has been achieved since 1994. Kentucky is currently on a six-game winning streak against the Hogs.
Arkansas is young and struggles to shoot the three, but is very deep and has good if inexperienced talent. Rebounding has been a major problem for them all year, and against Kentucky, it is likely to continue to be an issue. But they do turn teams over a lot, and Kentucky isn’t exactly frugal with the ball, so there is danger.
But I don’t think it will be enough this time.
Tweets of the Morning
Happy 21 indeed to No.26 https://t.co/gsOmaCXZ74
— Vaughts' Views (@vaughtsviews) February 26, 2019
Happy birthday, Benny!
And;
Get you day started right! Whatever you need to do this afternoon, get it done this morning or postpone it till later. Then makes plans to show your support for @Coach_Mingione and @UKBaseball at the Grand Opening of Kentucky Proud Park at 4 pm. A new UK tradition is here. #BBN pic.twitter.com/ZwygpUgy47
— Oscar Combs (@wildcatnews) February 26, 2019
At long last.
Your Quickies:
Kentucky football
- Get to know Josh Allen before the NFL Combine. Oh, I think we know him, and so do all our opposing quarterbacks from last year – most of them a whole lot better than they’d like…
- Jon Sumrall named inside linebacker’s coach. He’s a Kentucky alum from 2004 who had a short coaching stint at Ole Miss.
Kentucky basketball
- Reid Travis injury update. It would be great if he gets back for Senior Day.
- Kentucky should be a favorite against Arkansas tonight, but 18 points seems like a tough cover to me.
More:
O/U of 143 seems a little high tonight. I just laid the -17 on Kentucky but had to take that under. I can’t see Arkansas scoring 65+ but it’s CBB so I’m an idiot for even betting it ♂️
— Greg (@GregNJ) February 26, 2019
Other Kentucky sports
- Kentucky women’s golf has two players, Casey Ott and Sarah Shipley, near the top of the leaderboard at the Gold Rush Invitational in California.
- Men’s soccer has a good outing in a scrimmage against Louisville City FC, the professional soccer franchise.
Links posts
College football
- Predicting every SEC team’s offensive MVP for 2019. Kentucky’s prediction will not surprise many.
College basketball
- Forget it, Jake. It’s college basketball.
What if I told you Virginia beat two ranked teams on the road last week by a total of 18 points — and dropped on five AP ballots this week?#PollAttackshttps://t.co/ZhgdUjsNze
— Gary Parrish (@GaryParrishCBS) February 26, 2019
- LSU coach Will Wade, who is on a roll with his Tigers right now, must testify under subpoena in the FBI basketball corruption case, along with Arizona’s Sean Miller.
- Zion Williamson will not be available for Duke’s next game against Virgina Tech.
- Tennessee finds referee from controversial game against LSU held up an LSU shirt and made an apparently pro-LSU comment on social media five years ago. Not a good look.
Other sports news
- The case against Patriots owner Robert Craft, and how it could go down.
- The NFL mock draft by SB Nation. Josh Allen projected at #2 to San Francisco. Cornerback Lonnie Johnson is projeccted #89 (third round) to the Colts.
Other news
- After making history, NASA’s tiny deep-space satellites go silent. But they have already exceeded expectations.
- A faster method to read quantum memory. Quantum computing is becoming a thing, faster than I expected. Skynet, no doubt, is smiling…
- Grav waves!