John Clay's Sidelines

Due to a lack of wireless access, I’m not live-blogging the game … check back for postgame notes.

Click the continue button for a chart of SEC basketball results so far.

You’ll notice that Florida is hot, and Arkansas is not so hot. Alabama had a nice win over Michigan over the weekend to finish third in the Orlando tournament. LSU had a tough time against good competition at the NIT in New York. And Ole Miss remains my sleeper pick in the league. The Rebs only loss was to a good Villanova team.

Continue reading ‘SEC basketball results (so far)’

Jerry Meyer

Over the weekend, Rivals.com chief scout Jerry Meyer did a mailbag post in which he was asked about Kentucky’s recruiting class, and the fact UK fans are a bit restless right now considering the lack of hoops commitments.

Meyer had this to say about UK target Doron Lamb:

Five-star shooting guard Doron Lamb has Kentucky in his top five, but Kentucky doesn’t appear to be at the top of Lamb’s list at this point.

Read the entire post for Meyer’s breakdown of UK’s prospects. There’s also other good recruiting info in there.

Blog commenter “Double Take” points out that the Oregonian has now changed the Terrence Jones story to include Kentucky.

Big Blue Links for Monday:

• Doug Binder of the Oregonian does not list UK among Terrence Jones’ choices: “Jones spent much of the fall traveling to campuses, taking visits designed to acquire the information and build relationships necessary to pick a school. But the early signing came and went and Jones still has five that he is considering – Oregon, Washington, UCLA, Oklahoma and Kansas.” (Hat tip to Aaron’s UK Basketball Blog.)

• Jerry Tipton of H-L reports on UK’s open basketball practice at Freedom Hall: “A fan asked All-American candidate Patrick Patterson to stomp on the Louisville Cardinal logo at center court. ‘OK,’ Patterson said, ‘if you want me to.’”

• Tipton also writes that John Calipari wants to expand UK’s presence in Louisville: “Calipari asked to make UK’s game with North Carolina-Asheville on Monday a sellout in order to help him sell the administration on the idea of several “home” games in Louisville each season.”

• My column saying that Joker Phillips, UK’s coach-in-waiting, is already on the hot seat: “Can a head coach be on the hot seat before he’s a head coach? He can if he’s Joker Phillips. Such is the down side of the succession plan, that recent collegiate trend to address the pesky problem of recruits asking the dreaded retirement question of aging head coaches.” (Note: Need to make a correction to the column. For some reason I wrote there are 200 teams in FBS. There are actually 120.)

• Brett Dawson of the Courier-Journal reports on the logo stomping: “So when the University of Kentucky basketball coach learned, toward the end of a media session Sunday night, that several of his players had stomped on the University of Louisville’s halfcourt Cardinal logo during an open practice at Freedom Hall, it was another criticism to add to the list. during an open practice at Freedom Hall, it was another criticism to add to the list.”

Continue reading ‘BBL: Has Terrence Jones eliminated Kentucky?’

SEC links for Monday:

• Ray Melick of the Birmingham News writes that one-game season arrives for Alabama and Florida.
• Tommy Hicks of the Mobile Press-Register writes that Auburn did Alabama a favor.
• Chase Goodbread of the Tuscaloosa News writes about the Tide and the Gators.
• Robbie Andreu of the Gainesville Sun calls it a dream matchup.
• David Jones of Florida Today writes that this matchup has been hyped all year long.
• Chris Low of ESPN goes over what we learned from final week of regular season.
• Don Kausler of the News reports that Alabama basketball finished third in Orlando tournament.

Continue reading ‘SEC links: Alabama-Florida ready for dream matchup’

Here is a chart detailing UK’s plays Saturday night against Tennessee in the WildCobb formation. Note that Cobb also picked up 17 yards on a reverse.

Update: ESPN’s Chris Low has UK headed to the Papajohns.com Bowl, but I just don’t see it. That’s the same day as the UK-U of L basketball game. But Chris does have excellent SEC sources, and the WWL does have that SEC contract.

Get ready for the bowl projections, that annual early-December rite of passage when every college grid writer and every web site thinks it can climb inside the heads of the conference reps and the bowl reps, roll the dice, and decipher the destinations for the bowl eligible.

As for Kentucky, CBS SportsLine sees the Cats headed back to the Music City Bowl for the third time in four years. That seems a logical choice, given the logjam that occurred after Saturday’s games. Kentucky, Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Auburn are all 7-5. That’s six teams that could go to any of six different bowls. And the Music City is on Dec. 27, two days after Christmas, so it would love a school with a shorter travel plan. Kentucky is next door. It knows the way to Nashville. It’s been there before.

Meanwhile, pay no attention to this Bleacher Report rundown from someone named Chris Yow, who thinks UK played in the Music City Bowl last year.

Check back as other sites will be offering their projections throughout the day.

Here are my SEC projections:

• BCS title game (Jan. 7, Pasadena): Florida, after beating Alabama in the SEC Championship game.

• Sugar Bowl (Jan. 1, New Orleans): Alabama, after losing to Florida in SEC Championship game.

• Capital One (Jan. 1, Orlando): LSU, which saved the berth thanks to 33-30 overtime win over Arkansas.

• Outback (Jan. 1, Tampa): Tennessee, as Vols get the nod thanks to wins over Georgia and Kentucky.

• Cotton (Jan. 2, Dallas): Ole Miss, though the Rebels don’t want to go and Dallas doesn’t really want them.

• Chick-fil-A (Dec. 31, Atlanta): Georgia, thanks to big win over Georgia Tech which revitalized fan base.

• Music City (Dec. 27, Nashville): Kentucky, as Cats have to settle after heartbreaking loss to Tennessee.

• Papajohns.com (Jan. 2, Birmingham): Auburn, though Tigers could climb higher thanks to good showing versus Bama.

• Liberty (Jan. 2, Memphis): Arkansas, as Memphis wants the Razorbacks to play Houston.

• Independence (Dec. 28, Shreveport): South Carolina, as Gamecocks make another trip to Shreveport.

(H-L photo/Pablo Alcala)

Big Blue Links for Sunday:

• Chip Cosby of the Herald-Leader writes game story of the UK loss to Tennessee: “The tears flowed freely from the eyes of Corey Peters during Kentucky’s Senior Day festivities before the Tennessee game. But those tears paled in comparison the ones Peters shed after the game, as the Wildcats were forced to deal with yet another heartbreaking loss to the Vols.”

• My column saying Big Blue Nation came ready for a celebration that never came: “And for 30 minutes last night at Commonwealth Stadium, it looked for all the world that the UK band would play, the balloons would drop and the Cats could celebrate long into the November night. Then the second half began. And the clock struck orange.“

• Mark Story of H-L writes Randall Cobb was denied, in more ways than one: “From that point, you’d like to think Kentucky would make sure to keep the ball in the hands of its best playmaker. Cobb never touched the ball again on the series.“

• David Climer of the Tennessee says it was Deja Vol for UK: “You could fill up your tank for 20 bucks, thanks to gas that was $1.10 a gallon. A ticket to new movies like Ghostbusters and Terminator cost $2.50. A point of reference for this walk down Memory Lane: The year was 1984. And that’s the last time Kentucky beat Tennessee on the football field. The beatings go on.”

• John Adams of the News-Sentinel writes that for UT, it was all about comebacks: “As Montario Hardesty broke through the heart of the Kentucky defense, the entire Tennessee team wasn’t that far behind.“

• Mike Strange of the Knoxville News-Sentinel writes that the streak is alive at 25: “But when Montario Hardesty ended the game with a 20-yard touchdown run in the first overtime period, both sides were talking about anything but the longest winning streak in a major college football rivalry. ‘It’s not about the streak at all,’ said UT junior Ben Martin. ‘It’s about each individual win.’”

• Richard Skinner of the Cats Pause writes that Cats blew chance to end woe: “What appeared at halftime as if 24 years of Kentucky football frustration against and domination by Tennessee was just 30 minutes from being over turned into almost 30 minutes of frustration against and domination by Tennessee.”

• Jennifer Smith of the H-L writes on Madison Southern’s Luke Stocker, the UT tight end: “Stocker’s fumble, forced by Kentucky’s Ashton Cobb and picked up by Taylor Wyndham in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter, could have spelled the end of the streak.”

Continue reading ‘BBL: “Kentucky experiences Deja Vol”’