Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Rihanna Edition

Pop singer Rihanna was upset about CBS for pulling her song from Thursday Night Football’s opening game, so she tweeted out the F-bomb in their general direction. Nice manners, babe.

Tweet of the Morning

Apparently, someone informed Blakeney that Pitino & Louisville are 1-6 against Calipari & Kentucky.

— Not Jerry Tipton (@NotJerryTipton) September 16, 2014

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Garrett Johnson named SEC freshman of the week. Well deserved, in my opinion.

• Kentucky looks statistically decent. Of course, they have only one SEC game under their belt, so let’s not go too far into irrational optimism.

• A UK football commitment, wide receiver Alex Stump, now plays on the #1 high school football team in America.

Kentucky basketball

• John Calipari visiting 2016 recruits this week, including Malik Monk and Derryck Thornton.

• UK-Georgetown exhibition game moved to November 9th from November 7th.

• Mixtape for top UK 2015 target Jaylen Brown:

  Note the use of both hands to finish. Very important. Hat tip: NBC Sports

• Nice article on top 2015 UK target Malik Newman.

• Big Blue Nation already getting wound up over Big Blue Madness.

Other Kentucky sports

• Callum Ivring named C-USA defensive player of the week for UK men’s soccer.

• Jackie Napper named SEC Defensive Player of the Week for volleyball.

• Two members of the Kentucky rifle team are competing in the International Shooting Sport Federation’s World Championship in Grenada, Spain.

• Men’s golf finishes fifth at Kiawah Island.

• Women’s soccer falls in overtime to Pepperdine.

Links posts

• John Clay’s Big Blue Links

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Adam Himmelsbach says Louisville’s loss to Virginia is more concerning than UK’s loss to Florida. Well, Kentucky certainly looked better, and Florida has not sucked anywhere near as much as Virginia in recent history.

• Miami QB Kevin Olsen has been arrested, and this time, it might be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Look for a dismissal, and for Bobby Petrino to come running to Miami to try to get him to Fifth Chance U.

• How Boston College’s running game broke Southern Cal’s will.

• SEC Links for Tuesday: ESPN

• Football.com names blown delay of game call at Florida the "Worst of the SEC" in week 3. No argument here.

College basketball

• Antonio Blakeney, #22 by Rivals.com in 2015, has decommited from Louisville. He was intrested in Kentucky before he committed, so presumably Calipari & Co. will resume recruiting him. More here. Mike at Card Chronicle thinks he’s Kentucky bound, and comments are predictably suffused with unintended hilarity. Some are claiming it has to do with shoe companies. I’m highly skeptical.

• Bill Self holding his annual two week boot camp. Sounds Gillispie-ish to me.

• Richard Pitino warns Minnesota fans not to trust his father. It was a joke, but perhaps it shouldn’t be. I don’t think I need to say more.

• Only 37 players in the top 100 are left uncommitted for 2015. Sorry, guys, Kentucky just doesn’t have that many scholarships.

• John Octeus has been denied admission to UCLA after transferring from Colorado State, where he was a starter.

• Dick Vitale, Roundball Chatter.

• Rush The Court: Morning Five

Other sports news

• Wildcats in the NFL, week 2. Two words — Randall Cobb.

• Anthony Davis talks about his Team USA experience.

• The NCAA adopts a new rules philosophy regarding student athlete support. Interesting. If it stops or even minimizes the often brain-dead strictness of rules interpretation, it is an unalloyed good thing.

Other news

• Virginia is for (oyster) lovers. I don’t know, the best oysters I ever had were in British Columbia, Canada.

• Best deals for Caribbean vacations start about now. Avoid Thanksgiving. My cousin Pam and her daughter are on a Caribbean cruise as we speak.

• USA Today has their picks for some of the most iconic restaurants in the south. I’ve never been to any of these, I’m afraid.

• Service industry people you should tip. The garbage collector? Really? I guess if he came into my yard and collected the garbage, I could see it. But I’m not sure a guy driving a truck who operates a lifer to pick up the garbage that I must carry to the curb is tip-worthy, and I am a very generous tipper. Heck, I even tip on take-out.

  Also, I disagree with the reduction in tip for a waiter for "poor" service — unless, of course, he or she gives some kind of nasty attitude or is blatantly incompetent — then all bets are off. My tip starts at 20%, period, and goes up from there depending on service quality.

  If I get poor service, I call the manager over and discuss it with him or her, but I don’t short the server. Usually, poor service reflects inadequate training, and the proper place to direct that issue is to management. If it continues, I simply don’t return to the restaurant. I’ve occasionally been forced to have very pointed conversations with management. It works for me, your mileage may vary.

• One bad thing about living on Hawai’i: Lava flows.

• Hannibal Lechter, is that you?