Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Bria Goss Edition

Bria Goss has been down in Tampa, site of the women’s Final Four as a member of the Allstate Good Works team taking part in community service projects. Bria was named a member of the Good Works Team in February of this year, a very high honor.

Thank you, Bria, for being an outstanding member of our community and representing the University of Kentucky in ways that are far more meaningful than basketball.

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Can we double check with Austin Kendall? I'm pretty sure he meant Mark, not Bob Stoops

— Nick Roush (@RoushKSR) April 7, 2015

If only.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Kentucky loses a major football recruit. He was always a bit of a long shot, and the good news is that the Wildcats were right there to the end. Still, it’s frustrating.

• Football to host an open practice this Saturday.

Kentucky basketball

• Kentucky and Virginia open up as Las Vegas favorites for next season’s NCAA Tournament title.

• An unnamed general manager claims the Harrison twins will not both be first-rounders:

  "To say that they’re first rounders, Cal knows better than to think that both those kids are first-rounders," the GM told Adam Zagoria of zagsblog.com. "I mean, come on, no chance. I’ll bet a million dollars they’re both not drafted in the first round. I don’t care if they go and interview well and they’re good kids. I don’t see it happening. I think he wants them gone, too."

  What a stupid jerk. He may be right, but to take a shot at Calipari by saying he “wants them gone” it just straight-up unethical, especially when offering his advice anonymously. I don’t care who said that, I think he’s a coward.

• Rick Barnes and Coach Cal are good friends, and now they are rivals as well.

• Memphians whine at Calipari’s perceived sight of them:

  “I always wanted to have a job like the other guys. It’s not that I had any disrespect for Massachusetts or Memphis. I loved those places. I loved those jobs. But you were at the little table. You weren’t at the big table. You never got to carve the turkey. You had plastic forks and plates,” he said during a press conference.

  Memphis needs to get over themselves. Win something, or shut up. Whether you like it or not, your program does not compare to Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, or Kansas. In my opinion, you don’t even compare to Louisville or Indiana. Your last Final Four was when Calipari was coaching there.

• Is Willie Cauley-Stein ready for the NBA? Ready enough, I’d say. Perhaps one or two players per year who leave early are “ready” for the NBA in any meaningful sense.

• 2015 UK commitment Skal Labissiere is now projected to be the #1 draft pick in 2016.

• Coach Call wins the Adolph Rupp Coach of the Year award. Well deserved.

Other Kentucky sports

• Hittin’ Kittens are at home today vs. Marshall.

• Bat Cats travel to Louisville today. This will be their 15th top 25 opponent in their first 32 games, and their record shows it.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Wednesday Wildcat Links

College football

• The NCAA is apparently going to relax the rules for playoff games in conferences. That would allow 10-team conferences to have a championship game.

College basketball

• Critics silent about Duke taking one-and-done route. I may have a lot more to say about this, but it’s good to see some people not in the state of Kentucky have taken notice.

• I get so tired of everyone pigeonholing college basketball teams into either “one-and-done” or … well, not. There are lots of in-betweens.

• Incompetence, thy name is NCAA officials. There is simply no excuse for this. None.

• Behind SEC basketball’s power move. I hope it works out, I really do. This league is getting better, and it needs to.

  Avery Johnson needs a lot of help. If he’s not careful, he’ll get Alabama into the NCAA trick bag. It’s tough coming to college from the NBA if you’ve never coached here before.

• Ouch.

• Purdue community Hammer and Rails says that they are still alive for star 2015 big man Caleb Sawnigan.

• State of the U’s top ten for next season. I’m not sure about that Miami pick, guys, but they will probably be somewhere in the top 25.

Other sports news

• UConn wins their third consecutive NCAA Tournament championship. That is Geno Auriemma’s 10th NCAA Tournament championship.

• Former Kentucky Wildcats players’ teams are mostly in the playoff hunt, it seems.

• Eric Bledsoe got tossed from a game last night arguing a call that went in his favor. Um, Eric, a bit of advice — when things are going your way, just be happy about it.

Other news

• Russian nuclear submarine catches fire. That’s never good. As an ex-submariner, I can tell you fire on a submarine is the most dangerous casualty, even in port. I hope everyone escaped alive.

• Beware buying retirement properties. The biggest problem is their unfortunate tendency to lose value.