:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/42291836/457464836.0.jpg)
Kentucky needs to snap back from their loss to LSU, because it gets even harder with #1 ranked Mississippi State coming in to Lexington this weekend. Perhaps a perusal of John Calipari's Bounce Back would be useful.
Raise your hand if you had MSU figured to be ranked #1 this year. I know I didn’t.
Tweet of the Morning
I'd suspect this weekend will mark Damien Harris' fourth consecutive UK game. Would help if Cats have good showing against No. 1 Bulldogs.
— Justin Rowland (@RowlandRIVALS) October 20, 2014
Hope he didn’t have time to watch the LSU game …
Your Quickies:
Kentucky football
-
Ira Combs didn’t think UK would upset LSU, but he also didn’t see such a lopsided loss:
Many people across college football and I mean well respected members of the media and several of the retired coaching fraternity who specialize in analyzing today’s college football landscape thought the UK – LSU matchup would be a competitive if not down to the wire type battle on the gridiron and a select few even predicted a UK upset.
Not me , but I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t vision the train wreck that happened.
I feel that. I had no real hopes of beating LSU, but I did think we’d be competitive. Not so much, as it turned out.
-
Wildcat Blue Nation says it’s time to rebound from adversity:
This is where we, the Big Blue Nation comes in. Our team is reeling right now. Luckily for us, the youth of this team will allow them to rebound quickly, as they haven’t experienced enough loss to let it affect them. I am fully confident that Mark Stoops will have this team ready to go next week, but the fans need to show up in a big way and be loud from start to finish. Adversity will be overcome, but it won’t be easy. Not next week, and not the rest of the season.
Well, youth isn’t what normally enhances the process of a rebound. Older players are better at that than young players are, because remember, "older" in terms of a college football player is not the same thing as it is in, say, professional sports. I’d like our chances of rebound better if we had more veterans.
Having said that, I do think Kentucky can and will play better against Mississippi State if they just avoid gimmicks, play straight-up hard-nosed football, and get back some of that swagger that LSU ripped from them Saturday.
-
Kentucky won’t let the LSU loss define them. They’d better not, or this once-promising year will be remembered more as a collapse than redemption.
-
"Boom" Williams suffered a head injury in the LSU game that we still don’t know the extent of.
-
Was the team rattled or not down on the Bayou? Patrick Towles thinks so, and Demarco Robinson said some guys gave up a little.
This is the problem with younger players, they really don’t quite have the experience to fight through a game where opponents dominate them throughout much of the game.
-
Les Miles says this was the best overall game LSU has played.
I would agree, and that takes some of the sting out of the beat-down. There’s not too much you can do when your mistakes help the opponent to a big lead, and then they play their best football. Just ask Texas A&M, who took a much more savage thrashing at Alabama than we did at LSU.
Kentucky basketball
-
Carlton Bragg talks about Kentucky visit. There is talk of one of those famous "package deals" including Bragg, Jaylen Brown and Brandon Ingram. I’m putting no credence in those per se, although some combination is not too hard to envision happening organically. Consider:
As for his experience at Kentucky, Bragg said, "It was great. I was blown away. I mean, it was crazy."
-
Malik Newman also seems to have enjoyed his trip to UK:
"It was really great because I didn’t realize how much Kentucky loved basketball," Newman said. "It was good because I could go and see it for myself."
What, were you raised in a cave, young man? Because I can’t imagine how anyone could be unaware of Kentucky’s fixation on basketball in the Internet age. Maybe what he meant was, he didn’t believe the hype. Believe it, it’s real.
-
Tyus Battle (2016) also enjoyed Big Blue Madness:
"Coach Cal is an amazing guy," Tyus told SNY.tv in reference to Kentucky’s John Calipari before the visit. "He keeps it real with you. He produces a lot of pros, develops his guys really well, and it’s a winning program."
-
Calipari "unfazed" by #1 ranking.
I hate to quibble, but what does that mean, exactly? When has a coach been "fazed" by a #1 ranking? Nobody should be surprised by Kentucky being ranked #1, they return most of their guys from a team that played in the final NCAA Tournament game of the season. If UConn did that, they’d be ranked #1.
Other Kentucky sports
- Women’s soccer takes down #4 Florida in Lexington. Woohoo! Not all the news from this weekend was bad!
Links posts
College football
-
Man, Oklahoma really made a mess of their game with Kansas State, missing several field goals and an extra point that could have secured a victory. It was one of the more lopsided cases of self-destruction I’ve seen in a while.
-
Jameis Winston must order humble pie for desert.
Yes, nobody likes a cocky winner. Then again, if you keep winning, they’ll come to respect you. I think some self-effacement would be good PR for Winston, but I somehow doubt he can pull it off.
College basketball
- Small forward transfer Sheldon McClellan, who went from Texas to Miami, figures to be an impact player. I admit to some curiosity about how good Miami will be this season. They’ve been knocking on the door for a while, had a really good 2013. This is Jim Larranaga’s 4th season, and I’d say he needs to show some significant improvement over last year. McClellan’s addition may help that happen.