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Remember Keith Van Horn? You should, we defeated his team in the 1998 (although he wasn’t there, having left Utah in 1997). Apparently he is into coaching now, and has his own blog. In this entry, he talks about "Delusional Parent Disorder," a condition first introduced to Kentucky by the mother of Alex Legion. Consider:
The parent suffering from DPD can cause their child to become a bad apple on their team. John Calipari, the current head men’s basketball coach at the University of Kentucky and my first head coach in the NBA once told me a story. When he was the head coach at the UMass, one year he had a top ten team that had a chance to win a national championship. They were struggling early and he had a very talented player who was constantly getting in trouble, causing problems at practice and just plain being a cancer to the team. After trying to help the player both on and off the court, his problems continued and eventually Calipari had to kick him off the team. After dismissing him from the team, the team began to play great and they made it all the way to the Final Four. Coach Calipari, after telling me the story said, "Our team that year was like a big tub of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. All of the ingredients mixed together so well and the result was something great. But when that player was on our team, he was like a little, itsty bit piece of (expletive that starts with an "S") in our tub of ice cream. You put one little, itsty bit piece of (expletive that starts with an "S") in your tub of ice cream, and all the ice cream is just absolutely (expletive that starts with an "F") RUINED." Parents suffering from severe cases of DPD are like the you-know-what in their child’s team ice cream, causing relationship problems with coaches and teammates.
This is absolutely right, and we see cases of DPD more and more frequently.
You should really read the whole thing, as it is a really good piece, thoughtfully written, and quite rightly skeptical of the "there are no losers" mentality that has pervaded our schools and warns us not to live our athletics dreams vicariously through our children.
Tweet of the Morning
If you're bragging about a year you lost in the Sweet 16, you might be an Indiana fan. Sad. RT @HoosierSmack: #1 in nation two seasons ago!
— Not Jerry Tipton (@NotJerryTipton) October 15, 2014
Heh. It’s so easy to mock the Hoosiers these days.
Your Quickies:
Kentucky football
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This could be a very exciting development. Ohio State has offered KeShawn Vaughn, a running back from Tennessee currently ranked as a 4-star. Why this is exciting is this comment:
"They didn’t really tell me about the running back situation but they were late to offer to see what another running back was going to do," he said. "They kept it real with me about why they hadn’t offer."
Could he be talking about Damien Harris here? If so … Ben Roberts has more.
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Sometimes, words are superfluous:
How much has Mark Stoops changed the atmosphere at UK? Toggle between these pics: http://t.co/2GLQDDHX07 pic.twitter.com/tJD1Jv6ewC
— Tyler Thompson (@MrsTylerKSR) October 15, 2014 -
"Charlie Weis got fired at Kansas (last month), and we were reaching out to kids that were committed to Kansas and none of them really had any other options. These kids that Kentucky is now recruiting have a lot of options."
That’s right, and that means we are likely to lose a few of them, especially when the big boys come calling. The better UK gets, the harder the big boys will try to flip recruits that UK gets. It comes with the territory.
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Mark Stoops has the look of a winner. Yes, he does.
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True:
One of biggest concerns for UK on Saturday has to be third down. Cats converting 36.5% (98th). LSU allowing just 29.8% conversions.
— Justin Rowland (@RowlandRIVALS) October 15, 2014 -
Two great catches that go great together:
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Blake Bone doesn’t think anybody can stop him inside the red zone. I think he might be right.
Kentucky basketball
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Oh, man, that first voicemail is priceless. I assume this guy is a Louisville fan, but he doesn’t self-identify as such.
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For Trey Lyles, Friday will be a first look. Indeed, we didn’t get to see him at Big Blue Bahamas. I’ll be anxious to see how he and Willie Cauley-Stein look.
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Big Blue Madness is still not going to be on live TV, and ESPN isn’t going to release the rights to local channels. This is pretty much a "This is how it is and you’re going to have to like it" wrapped up in nice words and reassurances.
I don’t think we’ve heard the end of this.
Other Kentucky sports
Links posts
College football
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When we attempt to be politically correct, sometimes we completely lose ourselves and wind up looking foolish. In this piece, Michael Rosenberg at SI tries to untangle Jameis Winston’s childish misbehavior and the allegation that he sexually assaulted a woman. That’s a good idea, and he does yeoman’s work. Unfortunately, he destroys his own credibility at the end when he implies Winston’s accuser is the only victim:
But the idea of Winston as any kind of victim is dangerous, because that other case is a lot more serious. The mind gets jumbled when it thinks of a man as both victim and predator. It also gets jumbled when we think of a man as both serial knucklehead and potential rapist. But maybe we should not be so worried about the effect of Winston’s actions on his football career, and wonder more about the effect on the woman who has accused him of rape.
We don’t know what happened, mainly because the police botched the investigation, an investigation that, incidentally, might have exonerated Winston and found his accuser falsely alleged the assault. Consequently, we have no real idea who the victim is in this alleged rape — Winston or his accuser — but the truth is, both are victims in their own right.
Winston is undeniably a victim of police incompetence, and so is his accuser. Neither will receive the justice our system is set up to provide, because the process failed them. So it’s right that we should feel for both of them in this matter, because whatever the outcome of the likely kangaroo court to be held at Florida State, Winston will be forever tarnished with the accusation, whether objectively true or false, that he is a rapist.
Arguably worse but no less tragic is the concomitant possibility that a victim of rape will see her accuser walk with only a damaged reputation as punishment.
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Vegas betting line for Notre Dame-Florida State taken down due to concerns about Jameis Winston being able to play.
College basketball
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Heh.
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UCLA still unable to practice at Pauley Pavilion after the flooding incident this summer.
Other sports news
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Tragic: Apprentice jockey Juan Saez dies after falling from a horse.
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Mike Slive to retire as SEC commissioner next summer. He’s been a good one.
Other news
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Samsung Galaxy Note 4 performs well compared to the iPhone 6 plus. I recently left the iPhone for a Samsung Galaxy 5. It just fits in better with my other tech.
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Top 100 wine list. Surprising strength being shown from Midwest and Southern wine producers, apparently. I’m going to have to look for some of these.
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Buyers want self-driving cars. Pretty soon, it will be robots. Can Skynet be far behind?