Saturday Quickies: Beat Wofford Edition

Good morning Big Blue Nation! The Kentucky Wildcats thumped Abilene Christian in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and now the Wofford Terriers stand in the way of advancing.

Wofford does one thing really well: shoot threes. But the Cats are superior in every other facet of them game. If they can shut down their opponent’s one dimension, then UK should win and rather comfortably.

BBN has been freaking out over Wofford the last few days and I just don’t get it. I’ll sum up the overreaction with the following tweets:

Maybe I’ll be wrong, but the Terriers have struggled shooting against long teams all season long and the Cats have that in spades.

Let’s ball.

Tweets of the Day

It wasn’t the best look for Nick Richards but now John Calipari has ammo to use for him to back it up.

That’s lowkey kinda creepy...

Quickies

Answering the tough questions about Wofford | WDRB- Here is all you need from coaches and players about Wofford and PJ Washington going forward. I think Cal feels they can beat Wofford without him therefore he’s holding him out. I expect him in the Sweet 16 if UK wins today.

Wofford point guard, “We’re legit” | Cats Pause- Storm Murphy doesn’t view his team as Cinderella and fully expects to beat Kentucky this afternoon.

Friday NCAA Tournament recap | CBS- There were some surprising results, even in victories as North Carolina, Virginia and (gasp!) Duke looked vulnerable against 16 seeds at times.

Cats understand challenge posed by Wofford | UK Athletics- Kentucky knows Wofford can shoot. They also know how embarrassing it would be to lose to them in the first weekend of the tournament.

Reseeding the Tournament for the round of 32 | ESPN- The Cats come in as the number five overall seed (the number one two) if the tournament was reseeded today.

John Calipari’s team was dominant in a win over Abilene Christian in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, despite not having PJ Washington, who was injured. Yeah, the Wildcats didn’t play a great team, but the 39-13 tally in the first half, sans the team’s best player, was a strong start for Keldon Johnson (25 points, 10-for-16 shooting) and the Wildcats.

Kentucky great talks about Wofford | WDRB- Scott Padgett is the head coach at Samford and he’s faced Wofford this season. In his estimation, if UK comes out and respects Wofford as a legit team then they should win. If they come out lazy and expecting to roll, then Wofford can beat them. I agree.

UK Hoops ready for return to the Big Dance | UK Athletics- The Cats kick off their tournament at they (6 seed) take on Princeton (11 seed) at 11:00 AM on ESPN 2.

Wofford coach not intimidated by Cats | Cats Pause- The coach has grown weary of the small school storyline.

“I hate it,” Young said. “What’s UK have, 35,000 undergraduate students? We’ve got 1,600. So? We’ve got really good players. Kentucky has got really good players. Let’s go play.

“I tire of the mid-major and the little guy and all this stuff,” he continued. “Come on, man. We have good players that are serious and love competing.”

Compete they have. Wofford’s four losses were to teams that made the NCAA Tournament this year – 78-67 to North Carolina in the season opener, 75-64 at Oklahoma, 72-47 at Kansas and 98-87 at Mississippi State. Wofford, which has won 21 straight, stands at 30-4.

Bring it on, big boy.

UK baseball loses SEC home season opener | UK Athletics- Things aren’t going great for the UK baseball team. They blew a 3-0 lead to lose 5-3. They are 14-8 overall and 0-4 in the SEC. So far it hasn’t been the season they had been expecting.

We are doing a special UK Pregame Show on ESPN 680 at 1:00 PM. We have a man down in Jacksonville so we will get all of the up-to-date info from the ground. Listen in and then come back for the Postgame Show with sound from players and Cal.