Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Kentucky Basketball Returns Edition

Kentucky welcomes the Mississippi Rebels into legendary Rupp Arena tonight. The Wildcats have been laid off for so long I am almost prostrate with basketball withdrawal. Even watching the UNC-Notre Dame and Texas-Oklahoma games last night no longer satisfies my craving.

Tweet of the Morning

We're coming up with a drinking game for the Ole Miss-KY hoops game tonight. Who's got ideas for rules?

— Red Cup Rebellion (@RedCupRebellion) January 6, 2015

Share ‘em if you’ve got ‘em!

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Vince Marrow signs a contract extension through 2018 and gets his second salary bump in two years.

Kentucky basketball

• 2016 prospect Jayson Tatum in the game Calipari watched the other day where he scored 39 points:

  Hat tip: NextCats.

• Jerry Meyer changes a few of his predictions. I still think we’re going to wind up with Malik Newman.

• Kentucky remains at the top of both polls. That one stubborn duke voter remains.

• Calipari expects Ole Miss to shoot 25 or more 3-point shots. That would be higher than their average, but against UK that sounds about right. Scoring inside against the Wildcats is tough even for a team with some really good bigs, and Ole Miss is not one of those.

• Calipari talks about the things his players want to improve about their game.

• John Clay asks if anyone can beat the Wildcats. That isn’t the right question — of course several teams can, we see upsets every day. The real question is will anyone accomplish it, and the first step is not to be intimidated — it sounds easy, but it isn’t/

Other Kentucky sports

• Jenee Thompson named SEC Player of the Week. Congratulations.

• Softball announces 2015 schedule. It’s getting close!

Links posts

• John Clay’s Big Blue Links

• John Clay’s SEC Links

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops massively shakes up the coaching staff after embarrassing bowl season.

College basketball

• I don’t know what the heck kind of a clunker Texas threw in last night, but it was a horror show. Bitterwhiteguy at Barking Carnival reviews the carnage of the Red River Rivalry game where the Longhorns looked like Grambling St. or something. Thanks for messing up our RPI there, guys.

  He did have this as a positive, though:

  I found a pretty good stout while watching this game. The Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Stout is pretty good, guys.

• The SEC East made strides during bowl season. I guess so, but I think it might be more accurate to say the West collapsed like a sandcastle in a storm.

• Sam Snelling at Rock M Nation talks about good spacing vs. bad spacing. Well done.

• Bruins Nation wonders if Steve Alford has lost the team. That’s a fair question after thier most recent thumping.

Other sports news

• Big trade in the NBA last night, and it puts Oklahoma City potentially in line to pay the luxury tax.

• Louisville’s Tom Jurich is the second-highest paid AD.

• James Young had a big night last night for the Celtics.

• Officiating is under the microscope in the NFL.

Other news

• SpaceX calls off a scheduled rocket launch at the last minute. They have a few days left to fix the problem before the space station comes back into the proper place for them to resupply it.

• Does anybody really know who was behind the Sony hack? North Korea has been accused, but was it really them?