Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Kentucky Bragging Rights Edition

The Wall Street Journal says Kentucky has the all-time bragging rights for college basketball. Duke is second, and Louisville comes in 9th, probably about where they should be. UConn is surprisingly weak at 15th, and UCLA, the NCAA Tournament championship leader, is only 4th.

Check out the table here.

Tweet of the Morning

@AllKindsWeather Mike Gundy, Mark Stoops, Dan Mullen, John Gruden and Josh McDaniels

— Kenneth Dryden (@kennydryden1) November 17, 2014

It’s cute, all these Gator fans putting Mark Stoops on their list. So let me see … the gripe I’ve heard is that Muschamp’s teams weren’t exciting enough because he was an ex-defensive coordinator. So ya’ll want to replace him with Stoops, an ex-defensive coordinator.

There must be some kind of Florida logic in there, but when I process it through my high-powered computer, the answer I keep getting is "delusional."

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Wildcats stagger down the stretch. Yeah, I guess we all should’ve seen this coming, although I was surprised to see Kentucky get crushed like that two weekends in a row.

  At the risk of repetition, improved physicality is code for getting bigger and recruiting better and over a prolonged period. Typically, these fixes are not accomplished quickly but as slow, incremental improvements. On the bottom end of the powerful Southeastern Conference, this can look a lot like running in place.

  Absolutely right. Bigger, faster, stronger players is what Kentucky needs. It’s up to Mark Stoops to go get them.

• Tennessee game an "all systems failure." Yeah, that’s pretty much how it was. I think Tennessee just scored another touchdown. Or was that Georgia? It’s hard to tell.

Kentucky basketball

• Coach Cal has the per-34 minute average. I’m not sure what the rationale is for choosing 34 minutes over 40. I suppose it’s an attempt to normalize the stats with the average college player minutes. I prefer the per-40 myself, but I’m old-fashioned like that.

  Observationally, you have to be really impressed with Dakari Johnson, Willie Cauley-Stein and Karl-Anthony Towns all averaging a double-double. Also, Tyler Ulis is impressive with 7.2 assists. I’m less impressed with Andrew Harrison’s 3.3 assists, and Alex Poythress’ 5.4 rebounds.

• WCS is on the wrong end of a Dunk of the Year nominee.

Other Kentucky sports

• Kentucky is on the verge of packing the house for the women’s basketball game against Baylor in Rupp Arena.

• Women's soccer through to second round of NCAA Tournament.

Links posts

• John Clay’s Big Blue Links

• The Leach Report: Monday Wildcat Links

College football

• Florida State shuts up their critics — for now. Miami was the trendy pick to pull the upset, but it didn’t happen.

• Georgia running back and Heisman front-runner Todd Gurley has torn his ACL. Very sad to hear.

• Charlie Strong manages to get Texas bowl-eligible. Remember when they used to be in the national championship conversation every year?

• Will Muschamp officially got the ax at Florida, surprising nobody. Alligator Army has more coverage here.

College basketball

• One-handed Florida freshman makes college debut. Very cool.

• Very reasonable ballot from Rick Bozich. Color me surprised.

Other sports news

• Trying to take violent hits out of the NFL is like trying to take the jelly out of a PBJ.

• Randall Cobb is awesome. But you knew that.

Other news

• Airbus wins the contract for space capsule Orion. Remember when the USA used to make its own spacecraft?

• I didn’t need to know this.

• Mental illness is not the biggest reason young people carry guns. Whew! That’s a relief.

• Just when you thought dark matter was strange enough, it gets stranger.