LB: Even other coaches are tweeting about Calipari

Lunch break:

Even George Mason coach Jim Larranaga is impressed by the new Kentucky coach. Here is a Larranaga tweet from this morning: “Cal is non-stop. Kentucky is #1 on ESPN Insider’s list of five teams on the rise next season in men’s basketball. http://bit.ly/QYbMJ”

Brandon Phillips has drawn Dusty Baker’s ire for not hustling, this time on a first-inning single that should have been in a double in the fading Reds’ 7-5 loss at Los Angeles last night. Phillips’ fly ball to right surprisingly dropped in front of a confused Dodger outfield. Only Phillips didn’t see the play. He had his head down, moping, about not getting a hit, and by the time the Red realized what had happened he was late getting to second base and was thrown out. it was the first out of what turned out to be a three-run inning off the Dodgers’ Jason Schmidt. Only it should have been more than three runs. “That was a rally-killer for us,” said Baker. Phillips is a terrific player with an electric smile, but he sometimes allows his lesser instincts to get the best of him. (At Redleg Nation, they can’t believe that Dusty finally called Brandon out.)

Kentucky Sports Network passes along a video interview it did with Joe Jackson, a 5-foot-10 guard out of Memphis that is being recruited by the Cats.

CBS Sportsline’s Gregg Doyel says it’s idiots, not Urban Meyer, making Urban Meyer news. That includes Paul Finebaum, about whom Doyel writes, “As for Finebaum, well, it doesn’t matter what I hope happens to that guy. He’ll scuttle on unscathed. Cockroaches always do”

Was randomly chosen to have my gas meter changed this morning, and the man from the gas company turned out to be a UK football fan of long-standing. He told me that in his mind, other than Bear Bryant, Fran Curci was the best Kentucky football coach. He said Fran the Man could take a group of players and devise a system to fit their skills. And there is something to be said for that. Curci’s problem was taking too many chances on players who turned out to be bad eggs.

Madison Scott, a high school sophomore from Texas and billed as Smarty Jones’ No. 1 fan, received an invitation from owner Pat Chapman to visit her hero in the flesh. So Scott came to Three Chimneys and did just that. Thoroughbred Times has the video.

Maysville native and former H-L columnist Mark Bradley blogs for the AJC that Tim Tebow is not the greatest college football player of all-time. The honor goes to Herschel Walker, and I have to agree. Nobody was better in college than Georgia’s No. 34.