Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Zach Thompson Edition

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

It was a big night last night for UK baseball, despite the disappointing 2019 season. Kentucky hurler Zach Thompson was picked #19 in the MLB draft last night. He is now off to the St. Louis Cardinals organization. I am very happy for this young man, who could’ve gone pro earlier but came to UK and raised his draft stock from the eleventh round to the first. He is the highest-picked pitcher in history for UK in the MLB Draft.

Thompson was 16-5 in 34 starts at Kentucky, had 268 strikeouts and an ERA of 3.2. He was named Second-Team All SEC, which just goes to show you how tough baseball is in this league.

The Courier-Journal has more on Zach Thompson here.

Also, this bit of trivia: The 2017 UK Wildcats had two first-rounders among them:

More from the coach:

Tweet of the Morning

Congrats, Zach Thompson!

Okay, this isn’t Kentucky related, but for those of you who watch Jeopardy, the second-winningest player of all time lost last night, and it looked to me like he did so on purpose. This tweet adds some fuel to the debate, and in a good way, I think.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Gotta be a little excited to see if football can back up last year’s success.

• Snell Yeah!

• Kentucky is coming the hardest for in-state wide receiver target Izayah Cummings of Louisville Male. Stoops has to keep Kentucky players in state.
• Tim Couch named to 2020 College Football Hall of Fame ballot.
• UK reveals the fate of Josh Allen’s banner that was removed by the NFL during the 2019 NFL Draft.

Kentucky basketball

• Can Kentucky end it’s four-year drought landing a top-five recruit in 2020?
• Jersey numbers for the incoming UK players
• Kentucky is coming the hardest for in-state wide receiver target Izayah Cummings of Louisville Male. Stoops has to keep Kentucky players in state.
• Kentucky basketball returnees press conference (note - this event is later today, so check back often).
• Erin Calipari jokes about Brad’s transfer destination.

Other Kentucky sports

• Track and field star Daniel Roberts has a chance to break one of college T&F’s longest-standing records – the 110 meter hurdles record set by Maryland’s Renaldo Nehemiah back in 1979.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Every SEC team’s most dangerous game next season.

College basketball

• Michigan State is the early betting favorite to win the 2020 NCAA Tournament. Kentucky and Duke come in second.
• Former St. Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli is going to be an assistant to Michigan’s new coach and former Fab Fiver, Juwan Howard. Sounds like a smart decision on Howard’s part.
• Former 5-star recruit and Villanova player Jahvon Quinerly has transferred to Alabama. Big get for the Tide.

Other sports news

• Kentucky’s next class of high school stars took on Indiana on Sunday, and were down by 19 early in the first half. They wound up winning 115-104.
• Congratulations!

Other news

• Quantum scientists appear to have saved Schrödinger’s cat at last:

You might be familiar with Schrödinger’s cat. It’s a thought experiment in which a cat’s life depends on some two-state quantum process, and according to the rules of quantum mechanics, once the experiment is set in motion, the cat is alive and dead simultaneously until you open the box. In this case, the cat being alive is the ground state, and the cat being dead is the excited state. The implication of this research is that the scientists can indirectly watch the “cat” move from the alive state to the alive-and-dead simultaneously state, and intervene to save the cat.

• Radiation is a bitch – If we sent astronauts to Mars right now, they’d almost certainly die.
• Is the Great Red Spot on Jupiter dying?