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DeMarcus Cousins is one of my favorite Wildcats for a very good reason — he doesn’t take stuff off anybody.
Tweet of the Morning
Classic U.S. moment: European journalist to DeMarcus Cousins: "Do you know where Slovenia is?" Cousins: "No, do you know where Alabama is?"
— Brian Mahoney (@briancmahoney) September 8, 2014
Oh, man, that’s a classic. You go, Boogie. Hat tip: SB Nation
Your Quickies:
Kentucky football
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Neal Brown suggests a "lack of focus" as a possible reason for Kentucky’s lackluster offense after the first quarter.
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Mark Stoops says he thinks his players understand the challenge of going to Florida and facing the Gators. Okay, well, whatever. But for those who’ve never been there, I would like to suggest that they probably don’t understand it. But they will.
There I go, being negative. But hey, Florida is a hill we haven’t been able to climb with better teams than this one.
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Bud Dupree’s lengthy absence from the game on Saturday was apparently due to cramps.
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John Clay says UK and Florida football are "inextricably intertwined." Yes, but in the worst possible way for Kentucky, by my lights, vis-a-vis a 27-year losing streak, currently 8th in FBS. There is only one losing streak longer than Kentucky-Florida still active: Penn St.-Temple.
Kentucky basketball
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Devin Booker surprises a local family who had a little boy in a wheelchair. Nice.
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Jaylen Brown’s reported intention to choose his college after the season could benefit Kentucky. Yes, indeed. But it does provide a bit of stress for the Big Blue Nation.
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John Calipari is going to have in-home visits with Malik Newman and Jaylen Brown on Tuesday. Lets git-r-done, coach.
Other Kentucky sports
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Volleyball won two out of three this weekend in tournament action. The lone loss was against Southern Cal, a top ten team.
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Kentucky’s cross-country teams finish in the top three at the Utah Open Invitational this weekend.
Links posts
College football
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Are you enjoying Charlie Strong’s "failure?" I think losing a football game to a good team is not exactly the same thing as "failure," except in a very micro sense. Apparently some Louisville fans are happy about it:
Still, the celebratory tenor raises questions about the act of rooting for a person to fail. Particularly in this case, where the original offending action was simply moving on to a new opportunity. (It is worth pointing out that much of the giddiness appeared on Twitter, which is probably not an accurate reflection of society as a whole. Nevertheless, here we are.)
Dear Mr. Himmelsbach — Schadenfruede is a well-known perk of being a fan. If Louisville fans want to indulge themselves, you should let them. It’s part of sports fandom, and if that bothers you, tough.
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Team Speed Kills engages in what, for an SEC blog mostly populated by more successful programs, seems nothing less than effulgent praise of Kentucky’s performance so far. Consider:
An Ohio team that had looked impressive last week against Kent State, despite four turnovers, could only manage 223 yards of total offense Saturday. Kentucky’s defense often swaps between 3-4 and 4-3 fronts with a heavy dose of nickel personnel. It should be susceptible to a power running game, but on Saturday, UK’s front seven shut down a rushing attack that features two All-MAC interior offensive linemen. The strength of UK’s defense is its secondary and pass-rushers, and they also played well, all of which resulted in Ohio’s starting quarterback being yanked before halftime. The defense has caused six turnovers in two games.
I’d love for us to be competitive with Florida next weekend, but I don’t hold out too many hopes. I think we can stay in the game for at least a half, and possibly longer if Florida takes us lightly. I don’t expect them to, though.
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Western Kentucky almost got Illinois on Saturday. They wound up losing 42-34. Western’s football program is really on the rise, and hiring Jeff Brohm to coach them was a great move by the AD.
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Heh: "Jim Delany reminds us that it wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor."
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Bob Stoops is the SEC’s gadfly. Well, he certainly likes to mouth off, but we have a coach around here that’s good at that, too.
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Charlie Strong is about to figure out what it means to be Texas’ football coach, according to Burnt Orange Nation.
College basketball
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College basketball is no longer represented in the FIBA World Cup as New Zealand loses to Lithuania.
Other sports news
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Kentuckians in the NFL — how they are doing.
Other news
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Stephen Hawking warns of a possible doomsday scenario for scientists studding the Higgs boson, also know as the "God Particle." This isn’t anything new, really, but it’s always fascinating for those of us interested in theoretical physics.
How this works is thus: It is possible that the universe exists in what is known as a "metastable" state — a state that seems stable, but is only temporarily so. Nature has many examples of this: A snow cliff that seems stable, but which requires only a loud noise to produce an avalanche. A sand castle is another example of metastability, and so is a diamond, which sufficient energy transforms into a more stable graphite matrix. With respect to the Higgs Boson, a particle that interacts with the very fabric of the universe itself, it’s possible our universe exists in an elevated "inflated" energy state, and that there is a more stable, lower energy state for it to occupy. This is known as a "false vacuum."
So what could happen is that if enough energy were expended, it’s possible to push a Higgs boson up a small hill of energy that keeps it stable to a tipping point, it will drop down to a lower energy, more stable state.
The effect on our universe of such an event would theoretically be catastrophic. It would essentially change all the rules by which our universe exists — theoretical constants such as the speed of light, how chemical bonds are formed, the very components of sub-nuclear and nuclear particles, the weak and strong nuclear force — making existence of the current structure impossible. Such a phenomenon would "bubble nucleate," and spread out in a sphere at something just below the speed of light, effectively ending the existence as we know it of anything in its path and changing it into something else. Eventually, the entire universe would be consumed, although at the speed of light, that would take time out of mortal ken.
The good news is that the universe may not in fact be metastable, but actually stable. More "good" news is that this phenomenon theoretically would occur at energies in the giga-electron volt range (GeV) which is beyond our ability to produce. However, cosmic particle collisions occur at even higher energies, into the terra-electron volt (TeV) range, so if the universe we know is actually a false vacuum, it’s possible that the transition has already occurred somewhere in the firmament and is speeding toward us at near the speed of light. We would never know if this happened, as we'd be consumed in the blink of an eye, and it is impossible to "see" a phenomenon approaching us at approximately the speed of light.
Finally, and perhaps most reassuring, if this ever does happen, it is likely to happen so far away from us that it won’t matter to the existence of our galaxy, which would be burned out and dead long before the cataclysm arrived locally.
There. Now don’t you feel better?
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The Fairfield Inn in Lexington blew up and partially collapsed due to an apparent gas explosion. Nobody was hurt, apparently, which seems rather miraculous to me.
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One of the things you never want to know from experience: What does a lightning strike feel like?
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Ever wonder what would happen if a volcano and tornado met? This, and it’s pretty awesome.