Kentucky Wildcats Afternoon Quickies: "Rivalry" Edition

Andy Hutchinson has an annoying article up regarding the dustup between Adrian Wojnarowski and Mike Krzyzewski. Consider:

That sort of reads like something the world’s most eloquent Kentucky message board insider would relay from a chance meeting with World Wide Wes, but it’s the world’s most influential basketball reporter hammering one of the world’s most powerful basketball coaches. And, to be clear, Woj has a point: Krzyzewski, the true mainstay of the United States’ last two Olympic teams, has been able to burnish his résumé and bask in reflected glory that would probably be there for any of 20-plus excellent coaches who could lead top-line U.S. talent to gold.

After reading this article, you’ll come away mostly convinced, as was I, that he used a legitimate critique of Wojnarowski’s piece to take shots Kentucky and John Calipari. It deserves to be said, but never was, that Calipari was dragged into the Krzyzewski-Team USA kerfuffle by Jim Boeheim, who disclosed a complaint Calipari made to him which was clearly not intended for public consumption, a fact I’m sure he reminded his "friend" Boeheim about when he called after Boeheim’s comments to Syracuse.com.

The thing that drives me crazy about all this is that Calipari should never have been dragged into this sideshow at all, and you can see in Andy’s article that it’s more about critiquing Calipari than Krzyzewski. I suppose that’s to be expected of the Florida blogger, who’s school can’t even have a great basketball team without winding up in the shadow of the Wildcats, and even when they beat them three times on the court last year they couldn’t bring themselves to cheer for their fellow SEC school-mate.

Florida desperately wants a rivalry with Kentucky in basketball, but their performance against the Wildcats just doesn’t support that notion, even after last season. Florida has three straight wins against UK, but that’s coming off a Kentucky streak of 8-2, and a historical shortfall of 94-37 against the Wildcats, and a 17-27 record (.37) against Kentucky while Donovan has been coach (by my quick and dirty math). Kentucky’s historical winning percentage against Florida football is only slightly worse (.27) than Florida’s basketball historical record against Kentucky (.28). Heck, our 2013 train-wreck of a team even managed to beat Florida without Nerlens Noel in Rupp Arena.

Rivalry? Whatever.

Tweet of the morning

Stoops said corner J.D. Harmon now on scholarship. Harmon and OL Max Godby the two Stoops has put on scholarship. Mosier soon to join club.

— Kyle Tucker (@KyleTucker_CJ) September 24, 2014

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Derek Mason talks about the Kentucky offense and defense. Mason seems like a good guy, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get it together at Vanderbilt in a few years. But we all know how hard it can be to succeed a successful coach.

• Will alerted us to this yesterday, but Ben Roberts at the Herald-Leader has more on the decommitment of Darius Fullwood. I was pretty surprised when we got him, I always thought Maryland was a more likely destination. Virginia Tech, of course, is also involved, which is fine. Losing him to a home town university or a traditional football program is no shame. Roberts also muses about who will replace him.

• Both Keith at A Sea of Blue and Joshua at Wildcat Blue Nation agree that the Vanderbilt game is critical to Kentucky’s success this season.

• Campus Insiders previews the Vanderbilt-Kentucky game.

• SEC Nation coming to Lexington on October 25th for the Mississippi State game.

Kentucky Basketball

• Kyle Wiltjer is getting close to returning to the court after serving his year in residence at Gonzaga. Consider:

  The divorce is final but apparently amicable. Wiltjer still keeps in contact with his former Wildcat teammates like Alex Poythress and Willie Cauley-Stein. He’s even in regular communication with coach John Calipari. When UK reached the NCAA title game last year without Wiltjer, he rooted for his old team.

  Awesome. I hope this works out really well for Kyle. I’ll be watching Gonzaga play a lot this season.

• Rumble in the Garden talks about Isaiah Briscoe, their hopes to land him, and the competition from Kentucky. It’s a good piece. I wouldn’t rule out Steve Lavin in a recruiting battle with Calipari, and it doesn’t hurt that Briscoe lives a lot closer to the Johnnies than to Kentucky. But having said that, Michael Kidd-Gilcrhist was from New Jersey, and we know where he wound up.

• Could Kentucky recruit Jaylen Brown follow Emmanuel Mudiay’s example and go overseas? According to Scout’s Evan Daniels, it’s not out of the question.

Other UK sports

• Kentucky soccer drops their rivalry game to Louisville 2-1 on a late goal.

• Softball shuts out Georgetown 10-0.

Links post

• The Leach Report: Wednesday Wildcat Links

• John Clay’s Big Blue Links

• Rush the Court: Morning Five

College football

• The SEC is once again dominating college football. And this is news because … Oh, that’s right — it’s not.

• More Jameis Winston drama, but this is just the continuation of last year’s rape accusation heating up again.

• Nick Saban does not want to hear your Lane Kiffin questions.

• SEC suspends Mississippi State’s Dillon Day for stomping on people. He’s apparently done this in at least a couple of games. For Whom the Cowbell Tolls has more.

College basketball

• Josh Pastner finally upgrades from a flip phone to an iPhone 5s because his old phone couldn’t hold all his contacts. Welcome to the present, Josh.

Other sports news

• Eric Bledsoe and the Phoenix Suns finally getting somewhere in contract talks, according to Adrian Wojnarowski. The Bright Side of the Sun has more. Hat tip: Aaron’s Blog.

Other news

• Five questions you should never ask on a job interview. Most of these seem really obvious to me.

• Celebrities who are legitimately broke. It’s amazing how people can go through that much money.