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Kentucky Wildcats Sunday Quickies: Elite Eight Sunday Edition

News and commentary from around the Big Blue Internet. Bat Cats tied 1-1 in series with LSU. Sofball takes series from LSU 2-0, 3rd game today. More.

By Glenn Logan

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Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports

Welcome to Elite Eight Sunday. I’ll have a separate game thread for today’s contests up shortly, but after today, we’ll have our Final Four and once again, the Wildcats are there.

How cool is four Final Fours in six years? This is beginning to eclipse the halcyon days of the latter half of the 1990’s as one of Kentucky’s greatest eras, and it’s still ongoing.

Tweet of the Morning

I think Elmore was talking about as an offensive post player he isn’t very skilled, and he’s not really wrong about that. WCS is a great defender and an adequate post player, but he is not nearly as good in that particular role as Karl-Anthony Towns and Trey Lyles. He will be, probably, but isn’t right now.

Also:

Heh. Gets my vote.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football
Kentucky basketball

  • Notre Dame-Kentucky draws highest-ever cable overnight rating for college basketball.

  • Both very good points:

    I’ll have more on our pick and roll problems in the postmortem sometime later today.

  • Matt Norlander is right — every great team deserves, and usually gets a close call in the NCAA Tournament. Up until last night, Kentucky looked indomitable, but last night, they looked vulnerable. The truth is, every team is vulnerable to really sharp offensive execution, but Kentucky made its plight worse by doing a very poor job in pick and roll defense, and by over-helping.

    It feels good that Kentucky’s still in this tournament, this beautiful and wicked bracket, because it’s the most riveting story of the year in sports to this point. But the story line is significantly bolstered because of how UK has made it to college basketball’s final weekend. With Kentucky 68, Notre Dame 66, we witnessed the best game of this year’s tournament take place on Saturday night at Quicken Loans Arena – with the outrageous and totally plausible reality that it could well be topped next Saturday night.

    Wisconsin cannot do to Kentucky what Notre Dame did. They may still beat us, but they are going to have to do it differently.

  • "We’re undefeated, but we’re not perfect." I beg to differ, a little. This comment reminds me of "Remember the Titans":

    Just like the Titans, this team is perfect. They have won every game up to now, and until someone ends that, their record is perfect.

  • Kentucky is still perfect, but far from unbeatable. This makes no sense whatsoever. A team comes up, plays their best game of the year against a Kentucky team that did not play their best, gets within two, and that makes UK "far from unbeatable?"

    Right now, Kentucky is unbeatable. They are. Coming close is one thing — others, even lesser teams than Notre Dame have come close. Not one of them has successfully done it, not with their best shot.

    I am not saying that Kentucky cannot lose, and I am not saying that they will not lose. Mainly, I am saying that the headline "Kentucky is still perfect" and the closing paragraph…

    Kentucky is undefeated, but they aren’t perfect, not by a long shot. After Saturday’s battle, 40-0, once thought to be a mere formality, now looks further away then ever.

    … is utterly incoherent and self-defeating. How can 40-0 look further away at 38-0 than 37-0? Because of a close game? Seriously?

  • Notre Dame-Kentucky was sports perfection. Now this is much better, and it’s not pro-Kentucky, it’s just pro-college basketball.

  • Yet another "way to beat Kentucky" has been shown to us. For the love of Mike, guys.

  • Notre Dame falls "agonizingly short"

  • Embrace the hate. It never stops.

  • Rudy would be proud of Notre Dame, but it wasn’t enough.

  • This guy decides to hate on Notre Dame, accusing them of mailing it in and ripping Mike Brey. The number of stupid people writing for publications on the Internet is shameful.

  • Billy Packer hates Kentucky. But we knew this. And we hate dislike him strongly back.

    Packer does consider the 2015 Wildcats the best squad of the one-and-done era. Yet he’s no admirer of coach John Calipari’s program. Earlier this season, Calipari said his goal for the season was to see eight of his players get drafted. "How did we get from what used to be the objective of a college coach, to that?" Packer wonders disdainfully. That’s one Packer stand most fans will surely embrace.

  • Wildcats lament their sluggish start against Irish. Interesting:

    "I said, ‘You’re playing too cool,’" he said. "It’s hard to be loose when the other team is playing harder than you. And I felt their guards were playing more aggressive than our guards on both offense and defense.

  • Andrew and Aaron drive this team, according to Calipari. Absolutely right.

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