Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Sweet Sixteen Edition

Here is your Sweet Sixteen, Big Blue Nation:

Tweet of the Morning

Among the Sweet 16 coaches, five have won National Championships (Coach K, Williams, Pitino, Izzo, Calipari). Combined, they have won ten.

— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) March 23, 2015

Outstanding field for the last weekend before the Final Four.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky basketball

• Three things about Kentucky’s next opponent, West Virginia. Offensive rebounding will be a real concern for Kentucky, but I am not concerned about the trapping press — all that does is make lob dunks and layups easier.

• WVU embracing Kentucky challenge. Good. No excuses.

• Coach Cal expected to have West Virginia in the same bracket as UK. Not sure why. Probably one of those conspiracy theory things again.

• Mike DeCourcy says West Virginia’s advancement throws a "curve ball" at Kentucky:

  West Virginia is like facing a knuckleball pitcher and a wishbone offense while running a Ninja Warriors obstacle course that’s 40 minutes long. The Mountaineers play differently. They play physically. They count on making you think too much, too fast. They expect you to beat them in the race to fatigue.

  If they expect to fatigue Kentucky, they are likely to be disappointed.

• Bill Packer continues to live in the past, ignores advice about not comparing eras. What a clown.

• Kentucky is probably making a lot of upset-pickers look bad.

• "There will be a lot of blue in Cleveland." There will, indeed.

• Love him, hate him, whatever. Calipari can handle it.

Other Kentucky sports

• Baseball takes two of three off Mississippi State this weekend.

• UK Swim and Dive is doing well in the NCAA Tournament. Read about it here.

Links posts

• John Clay’s Big Blue Links

College football

• Why college fooball players should be encouraged to major in football. You heard it here first, folks. Glad to see others are getting it.

College basketball

• Mississippi State expected to hire Ben Howland to replace the fired Rick Ray.

• College coaches find no consensus on one and done. That doesn’t surprise me.

• Burnt Orange Nation wonders if it’s time to send Rick Barnes packing. He certainly underachieved this season, that’s for sure.

Other sports news

• Is the NFL thinking about expanding the playoffs?

• Tim Duncan does a little dance.

• Boogie leaves Nene’s lingerie on the deck:

  Hat tip: SB Nation

Other news

• The Large Hadron Collider could debunk the Big Bang Theory. I wonder what Sheldon Cooper would have to say about that? I think I know:

• Yes! Plasma shields! Faster, please.

• An electric plane with 18 motors? Well, that’s a lot of backup, I guess…