Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Explosive Defense Edition

I talked about Kentucky’s explosive defense in the postmortem of yesterday, but here’s a tweet from Justin Rowland amplifying that:

Statistically Kentucky, Mississippi State and Ole Miss have the best "big play" defenses in the SEC (sacks/INTs).

— Justin Rowland (@RowlandRIVALS) October 7, 2014

It’s so unusual for Kentucky to have a defense that is a genuine threat to score, it’s hard to wrap my head around. But the defense has scored 21 points in the last two games.

Tweet of the Morning

Birthday s/o to my boy 5! I know it will be a good one @LowwUK5 pic.twitter.com/WipCa4yc5B

— Josh Clemons (@J_Clem20) October 13, 2014

Happy birthday, Ashely. Great game on Saturday. Let that be a big present.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• 4-star receiver decommits from USF, plans visit to Kentucky. It would sure be nice if we could replace Alex Stump with an equal talent.

• UK releases report on Brad Durham’s fall in Commonwealth Stadium. It’s pretty much what you would expect, but let’s just hope he gets better quickly and completely.

• Jojo Kemp isn’t perfect. He’ll learn from his mistakes, no doubt.

• Kentucky is actually tied for the SEC East lead in the loss column. I’m not crazy enough to think they might win, but hey, with this crazy season, I wouldn’t rule out anything.

• Kentucky gets more votes than Louisville in the AP poll. That has to make you smile.

Kentucky basketball

• Tony Delk says that Kentucky needs to sacrifice for the good of the team:

  "They’re going to have a lot of draft picks, but they gotta be willing to sacrifice for the good of the team," Delk said.

  I think Tony’s right.

• Meet the Cats: Andrew Harrison. Also, I don’t believe we’ve linked:

  • Brian Long
  • Dominique Hawkins
  • Marcus Lee
  • Karl-Anthony Towns

• Mike DeCourcy asks if the televised Kentucky "combine" will help UK win, and points out that most other college coaches hated it:

  The buzz the "pro day" created for Kentucky did not increase Calipari’s popularity with his peers, not that he particularly cares. Of seven who responded to a question about watching, only one replied he would.

  Whether it will serve any tangible purpose for the Wildcats won’t be established for a while — at least a few weeks, the period of time Calipari won’t have to be concerned with the pro scouts lining up on folding chairs adjacent to the practice court; and perhaps several months, as the players involved either do or do not set aside their individual goals to assure UK achieves everything possible in the coming season.

  The unpopularity of the tactic among fellow coaches is… let’s just be honest here… green-eyed jealousy and butt hurt in the first degree.

• Adam Himmelsbach: The Genius of Calipari’s NBA Combine. I like how he’s a genius now, and not a brat. Still, I think this is right:

  The genius is that it serves so many purposes, both obvious and unspoken. Calipari will tell you that it is about his players. He wants them to shine in front of the largest collection of talent evaluators possible.

  And:

  Surely, other athletic departments will scramble to enter the fray somehow. Calipari knows this, and on Friday he even took a subtle jab at the competition, diluting it with a bit of self-deprecation.

  "This will probably get outlawed," he said of the combine. "All you coaches that think you’re going to start doing this, believe me, since I did it first, it’s outlawed."

  Nothing would surprise me less.

Other Kentucky sports

• Kentucky set a new record with blocks, sweep Auburn in volleyball and now have won ten straight matches. UK returns to action on Friday.

• Men’s soccer takes down the Marshall Thundering Herd.

Links posts

• John Clay’s SEC Links

• John Clay’s Big Blue Links

• The Leach Report: Monday Wildcat Links

College football

• What do we know at college football’s midway point?

  We were correct that the Mississippi schools had their best teams in years, but we underestimated just how good they would be. Raise your hand if you predicted we would come to a point this fall when Mississippi State would be ranked No. 1 and Ole Miss would be ranked No. 3 and receiving first place votes in both polls. To paraphrase Bulldogs coach Dan Mullen: Put your hand down. You’re a liar.

  My hand wasn’t up. Trust me.

• Louisville player cited for drug trafficking. Don’t laugh, we have problems of our own.

• Mississippi State takes over at #1 in both polls, UK moves closer and closer to top 25:

  • AP Poll
  • Coaches

• Jameis Winston facing disciplinary hearing at FSU. These things have become kangaroo courts at a lot of places. Let’s hope FSU does better, but I have my doubts.

• SEC Week 7 Roundup.

College basketball

• College basketball’s 50 can’t miss non-conference games for 2014-15. Kentucky is a contestant in five of these.

Other sports news

• Heh. Classic.

  First rule of sports: Keep your eyes on the ball. http://t.co/xiCNz2YkIW pic.twitter.com/RPr8ZSnqbN

  — SB Nation (@SBNation) October 13, 2014

Other news

• Esquire picks Penelope Cruz as the sexiest woman alive. I must dissent. I think I would have selected Sophia Vergara.

• Are traffic lanes too wide? Via Fark

• Giant squid attacks Greenpeace submarine. I didn’t know Greenpeace had a submarine. Via Fark