Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Edition

If you haven’t read the latest by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar regarding the Bruce Levenson kerfuffle, you really should. Kareem gets it. I hope people listen to him.

Tweet of the Morning

John Calipari hosts @ComedyManiaShow w/ @BillEngvall & @Sinbad http://t.co/qxtHfZhqPB @UKCoachCalipari @SomethingKY pic.twitter.com/Szcz87W6So

— Cincinnati Social (@CincySocialMag) September 10, 2014

This is going to be awesome.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Dorian Baker is one UK freshman who’s been making a lot of noise this season, both catching the football and throwing nasty blocks on the competition. Consider:

  But it was never more apparent than in the third quarter when quarterback Patrick Towles scrambled and a defender tried to cut him off near the sideline. Baker raced into the picture and delivered a devastating block — a thud on the field followed by a roar from the stands.

  …

  “If he sees me coming, he knows not to step out,” Baker said. “I’m coming to lay somebody out. My (high school) coach pounded me with blocking. He always said, ‘You’re not going to play if you don’t block.’ So every game, I’m in there blocking, blocking, blocking like crazy, like a mad man. That’s one of my specialties.”

  That was a nasty block that the recipient will not soon forget, I promise. We need more guys like this.

• A look back at 27 straight years of losing to Florida. Must we?

• Patrick Towles on playing Florida:

  You know, the Florida game will be the first football game I get to watch in its entirety without doing something else at the same time. It had to be this game… but maybe the Wildcats will make it worth my while.

• A little trash-talk from Jojo Kemp? It seems so. Save it for the field, kid.

• Consider from Good Bull Hunting:

  Curious Stat: Kentucky’s defense might be legit. They held Ohio to 223 total yards and 2.6 yards per carry.

• Florida hopes opening blast carries over to Kentucky. I kind of hope it doesn’t.

• Florida will wear orange uniforms against UK. If you’re gonna go ugly, you might as well go full monty Tennessee ugly.

• Three things we learned from Florida’s rout of Eastern Michigan. I can condense it all down into two words: Not much.

Kentucky basketball

• 2015 UK target Caleb Swanigan has lots of suitors right now. UK is likely to visit soon, according to Ben Roberts.

• Only three UK players make ESPN’s early draft board. I expect that will change.

Other Kentucky sports

• UK volleyball takes down U of L in Louisville for the first time since 1993.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Wednesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Should college football teams police pot? Burnt Orange Nation has a round-table discussion that’s pretty interesting.

• Steve Spurrier weighs in on the Ray Rice matter in the context of his team:

  I’ve had a rule ever since I’ve been here that if you ever hit a girl, you’re not going to play on our team. You’re finished. And we’ve had two players here - one was about seven years ago, the other was about nine years ago.

  Seems like a fine rule to me.

• SEC quarterback tracker, week 2. Towles is called, “impressive.”

• A South Carolina hat that says, “Roll Tide.” Well, I’ve heard of SEC love, but this might be carrying it just a bit too far…

• Mike Leach has a great idea about holding officials accountable. I like it.

• SEC Morning Links

• This is just wrong. Via Hank.

College basketball

• Mark Fox lands a couple of four-star guards for 2016.

• Vitale: Roundball chatter.

• Jim Boeheim under legal assault from two former Syracuse ball boys.

• Rush The Court: Morning Five

• Big East must-see matchups.

Other sports news

• I haven’t spoken much about the Ray Rice controversy, because to me, there’s not much to be said. Men should not hit women. That’s what I was always taught, and that’s how I have lived my life. The consequences to his career he brought on himself.

  I think the NFL has been negligent in how they handle domestic violence. To me, it’s much worse than doing drugs, or packing a weapon illegally. Domestic violence is a serious crime, pure and simple, and something all employers should take very seriously and fortunately, most do. The NFL has sent a message that domestic violence is less important to them than things like marijuana or steroids, and to me, that’s absolutely the wrong message.

  What I don’t get is why the video galvanized them into action. Why do you have to see it on video to realize it was a vicious assault that should not be tolerated? Did the NFL believe it was some kind of “love tap” that knocked Rice’s wife out?

  It seems to me the reaction of the league was pure damage control, and a reflex to avoid further injury to their business. If they took this problem seriously, the wouldn’t have waited before the video surfaced, seems to me. Same with the sponsors that dropped him. They knew what he did before the video, and yet they didn’t act.

  We’re not exactly dealing with paragons of moral courage here, are we?

• Anthony Davis continues his roll of excellence for Team USA.

• An Unbridled Song cold tops the charts at the 2014 Keenland yearling sale.

• Mr. Big Shot is hanging up his sneakers. Man, what a great career Chauncey Billips had.

• Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones sued.

• Donald Sterling has not faded quietly into that good night.

Other news

• What’s wrong with McDonalds? Well, I don’t know, but the article made me crave a Big Mac. Is that wrong?

• Make no mistake, you don’t even want the measles. Via Fark

• I wouldn’t mind having one of these… about 30 years ago.

• The new iPhone 6, plus more, is coming from Apple.