Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Willie Cauley-Stein Edition

Willie Cauley-Stein has been named UK’s 25th consensus first-team All-American. That is just awesome for Willie. Remember when Montrezl Harrell was all the rage?

Tweet of the Morning

Just saw a ~13-year-old wearing a "Succeed and Proceed" shirt at Union Station. UK fans followed me home. Nowhere is safe.

— Eamonn Brennan (@eamonnbrennan) March 30, 2015

Heh. The Big Blue Mist strikes again!

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Spring practice report: Stoops seems pretty pleased overall.

• Can Alvin "Bud" Dupree realize his immense potential in the NFL? I think he absolutely will, and it’s very exciting seeing him as a lilkely first-rounder. I don’t consider him the riskiest pick in the draft by any means.

Kentucky basketball

• Karl-Anthony Towns is moving up over Jahlil Okafor on just about everybody’s draft board.

• Where are they now: Ramel Bradley. Nice story. I met a relative of Chris Lofton’s at the Fresh Market the other day, and she told me that Chris loved playing in Turkey, where Ramel is now.

• Speaking of ex-Wildcats, Eloy Vargas talks with Ridiculous Upside about the current team’s NCAA Championship run.

• Malik Newman says he’d fit right in with Kentucky’s back court. I think so as well.

Other Kentucky sports

• Baseball hosts the Indiana Hoosiers today at 4 PM.

• Kelsey Nunley is the Co-SEC Pitcher of the Week.

Links

• The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links

College football

• Jameis Winston on center stage again at Florida State’s Pro Day.

College basketball

• To nobody’s surprise, Montrezl Harrell and Terry Rozier will be placing their names in the NBA Draft.

• Temple is making the best of their NCAA snub. They are in the NIT semis.

• Eastern Kentucky’s Jeff Neubauer is new Fordham Coach.

• Great news, Mick Cronin has been cleared to return to coaching.

• It’s starting to look like Rick Barnes may be headed to Tennessee. It makes sense to me.

• The Champaign Room asks, "How would Kentucky fare against historic Illinois Teams?" They then use WhatIfSports to simulate the matchup 10 times and Illinois wins 6-4.

  Ken Pomeroy would beg to differ:

  Year	Team	Adj.OE	Adj. DE	Delta
  2004-05	Illinois	120.9	89.8	31.1
  2014-15	Kentucky	119.4	85.6	33.8

  So Kenpom would have the matchup at about 65% in favor of Kentucky. The 2005 Illini have exactly the same delta as the 2015 Wisconsin Badgers.

• Final Four teams: perception vs. reality

• Is Oklahoma State considering a buyout of Travis Ford’s contract?

• Sam Dekkar: Wisconsin’s Prodigal Son

• Texas is reportedly talking to Shaka Smart. I thought from the day Rick Barnes was fired that Smart would be a great place for the Longhorns to look. Burnt Orange Nation has more here.

Other sports news

• Not only is this Final Four week, but it’s also McDonald’s All-America week. Here’s some good intel by Eric Bossi of Rivals.com, including a lot of comments about Kentucky commits and recruits.

Other news

• IBM sets new record in quantum computing. Quantum computing is an interesting, but esoteric area of computer science.

• Worst state for retirement? Arkansas. Well, that was never on my list of possible destinations, that’s for sure.

• Two astronauts begin one-year stay on the International Space Station.