Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: College Football Playoff First Rankings Edition

The College Football Playoff committee will reveal its first rankings today. Needless to say, this is a highly-anticipated event that will get much coverage.

Tweet of the Morning

The most impressive thing about Kentucky is that they assembled a team that talented without begging for 50 cents at area gas stations.

— Not Jerry Tipton (@NotJerryTipton) October 28, 2014

Heh. Started my day off with a laugh.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• 2015 linebacker Darius Smith (Scout #29 OLB) will announce his decision on Friday. UK is in the mix along with Miami, Louisville, North Carolina State and Missouri. Hat tip: NextCats.

• Mark Stoops talks briefly about the loss to Mississippi State, and looks forward to Missouri.

  Errors in fundamentals, missed assignments and technique "all rooted in discipline." I think that’s right. He thinks we’ll get Boom back next week, and that’s really great.

• Ira Combs talks about where the football team is headed, and lists the salaries of the Kentucky players in the NBA. DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall are the leading earners right now, but I expect Anthony Davis to join them soon.

• Kentucky hopes to end road woes against Missouri. I believe we can get that job done.

Kentucky basketball

• If by "exploitation" you mean "making them millionaires," then the answer must be "Yes."

  Is Kentucky's Coach John Calipari one of the BIGGEST exploiters of young African American "Black" male athletes (basketball)? Just asking

  — Jerry Riles (@jerryriles) October 28, 2014

  
  

• As promised, Coach Calipari will pay tuition for two students — Biosystems senior Catherine Wolf and integrated strategic communication (What??) freshman Hank Curtis.

• Cats showcase size and talent at Blue-White scrimmage. Consider:

  It would be hyperbole to say the University of Kentucky basketball team faced its stiffest competition of the season Monday night at Rupp Arena, but the Wildcats won’t play many more talented lineups than when they simply split up and held an intrasquad Blue-White scrimmage.

  Of the season, probably yes. Of this year, maybe not.

• Coach Cal’s post Blue-White scrimmage comments.

  Not really much new and different here, but worth the watch. It’s pretty short. One interesting thing is that he was switching pick and rolls with Willie, and he said he may do it with Karl-Anthony Towns as well. That’s really scary.

• Ivan Rabb, 2015 power forward, was present at the Blue-White scrimmage last night. He’s going to Kansas next.

Other Kentucky sports

• Jennifer O’Neill is ready for her senior season. She looked ready at Big Blue Madness.

Links posts

• John Clay’s Big Blue Links

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Tony Barnhart says the selection committee for the College Football Playoff is going fine, and that your moaning and gnashing of teeth is unjustified. I tend to agree with him.

• What to know before the first CFB Playoff rankings.

College basketball

• Ken Pomeroy has his ratings out for the pre-season. How does he have Duke ahead of Kentucky? Your guess is as good as mine, but it isn’t a matter of bias.

  Even for the pre-season, he uses an algorithm that takes into account the last five seasons. Keep in mind two things — that despite Kentucky’s ultimate success last season, they did lose a bunch of games on the back of an NIT season where they lost even more. And despite Duke’s ultimate lack of tournament success in the last two seasons, they had very good won-lost records and efficiency ratings.

  Plus, there are a number of fairly respectable basketball people who think Duke deserves to be #1. I don’t happen to agree and most likely, neither do you, but I’m okay with it. It’s relatively meaningless at this point, anyway.

  Will has more here, in case you missed it.

• In other ratings news, ESPN has UK #1 and Duke #4.

• Okay, you can be amused. Doug Gottlieb picks Kentucky 3rd, but he has a bit of company in Matt Norlander. What’s interesting is Gottlieb picks Wisconsin first. Now, I can’t agree with that. Yes, I buy Duke and yes, I get Arizona. But Wisconsin is pretty clearly not the best team in college basketball. UK is the only team that appears on the one line more than once.

  Gottlieb also places UNC a stunning 4th, and Louisville 17th. Even I wouldn’t place Louisville below 10th. Calling him an "expert" seems like a bit of a joke.

  Gottlieb is becoming the gift that keeps on giving.

Other sports news

• Patrick Patterson goes undercover at Sport Chek.

• Brooklyn traded Marquis Teague to Philadelphia, who promptly waived him. What’s next? Seems like Teague’s early-entry was too early after all.

Other news

• Apple CEO Tim Cook advises us that Apple is not "big brother." Good to know.

• Lexus, Toyota top Consumer Reports’ reliability rankings. Domestic cars basically stink.