John Clay's Sidelines

(H-L photo/David Perry)

Updated with this from ESPN’s Chris Low: “If Kentucky does this coming Saturday what it’s failed to do every year since 1984 – and that’s beat Tennessee – the SEC Coach of the Year Award this season should take its rightful place in Lexington, Ky. The more you watch this team play, the more respect you gain for what Rich Brooks has done with this team.”

Big Blue Links for Sunday:

• Chip Cosby of the Herald-Leader reports from Athens on UK’s football win over Georgia: “But in the final two quarters, the Wildcats morphed into a team that looked ready to make a trip to Tampa or Atlanta for bowl season.”

• My column from Athens saying Rich Brooks was proud of the second-half win.

• Herald-Leader’s Mark Story writes on John Wall: “Wall’s arsenal of new-age weaponry was on full display in Kentucky’s 92-63 spanking of cold-shooting Rider on Saturday in Rupp Arena. Yet the 6-foot-4 freshman’s ability to wow was not the most encouraging aspect of his third college game.”

• The H-L’s Jerry Tipton reports on UK’s win over Rider: “Offense. Defense. The Cats put on a five-star performance in its last warm-up before going to the five-star Moon Palace resort for the Cancun Challenge semifinals Tuesday.”

• Brett Dawson of the Courier-Journal was also in Athens for the UK football win: It was UK’s first win in Athens since 1977 – the year the Cats’ current coach, Rich Brooks, took Oregon to Sanford Stadium in his first game as a collegiate head coach. In that game 32 years ago, Brooks’ team held a late lead and lost.”

• Darrell Bird of the Cats Pause was at Sanford Stadium for UK’s breakthrough: “It took exactly one play for the tide to turn. On the opening kickoff of the second half, Moncell Allen delivered a crushing tackle that jarred the ball loose and Matt Roark recovered. Two plays and 14 yards later, Kentucky had made it a ball game at 20-13 less than one minute into the second half.”

• My old Lexington Leader friend C. Ray Hall, of the Courier-Journal, covered UK’s basketball win: Basketball can be a funny game. Even at Kentucky. Preparing for Saturday’s game against Rider, the University of Kentucky men’s team watched film of its recent defensive lapses. It could have been a horror show for the players. It turned into a comedy.”

• B.W. Jones of the Kentucky Kernel also made the long drive to Athens: “The noise was deafening. It came through concrete walls and steel doors, a beat on a metal locker loud enough to march armies and chants so earsplitting they could have woken the dead. Hearing the UK football team celebrate in the locker room after its 34-27 upset win over the Georgia Bulldogs, a nervous police officer gripped the doorknob, as though he had to physically keep the chaos inside from escaping into the outside world.”

• Tom Leach says give Rich Brooks a perfect 10: “It used to be that everyone associated with the Cats feared the fourth–even if UK was ahead. Now, going into the fourth quarter trailing means Kentucky has the opponent just where it wants it.”

• Jeff Schultz of the AJC writes about another Georgia loss: “This won’t make things any easier for Richt. He has been fielding questions about the future of the program and what changes he might make, both in direction and his coaching staff. All this has been going with games still left in the season. Richt has been trying to lay out some tangible goals for his players – one of them was to close the season with five straight wins, which would have led to a respectable final record of 9-4.”

• David Ching of the Athens Banner-Herald wrote: It’s especially unfortunate that it ended this way for a crop of seniors who deserved better. Instead of walking off the Sanford Stadium field for the final time with their heads held high and a packed house cheering their effort, Georgia’s seniors walked out with the stands mostly empty. Save, of course, for the smattering of blue-clad Kentucky fans on the other end of the field who cheered wildly before serenading the visiting team with ‘My Old Kentucky Home.’”

• A Sea of Blue gives its thoughts on Kentucky’s huge grid win: “It’s time to party, Kentucky fans! The Big Blue Nation has pulled a notable upset on the road versus a Georgia team that absolutely shot themselves in the foot not once, but so often that they were operating on one leg and a peg from the knee down.”

• Larry Vaught of the Danville Advocate-Messenger writes on DeMarcus Cousins giving up his starting spot to start second half: “Numbers don’t always indicate what a coach likes best in a game.”

• Wildcat Blue Blog writes of the UK football win: “Whatever Rich Brooks is telling his teams at halftime, it is working. It’s working so good, he needs to copyright it, record it, and have it encrypted into the harddrive of his player’s Ipods and MP3 players and have them listen to it before the first halves of games as well. After a lackluster first half, Brook’s Wildcats dug deep and erased a 14 point deficit and defeated the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens for the first time since 1977.”

• Wildcat-Den says that the basketball Cats are growing up: “Rider caught a glimpse of the potential Kentucky has this season. In perhaps their best outing of the year, the Wildcats showed flashes of brilliance in a 92-63 win over the Bronc Saturday at Rupp Arena. It marked the first time Kentucky coach John Calipari felt at ease after giving up 29 shots from long-range in the previous two contests.“

• Rob Gidel of Kentucky Sports Radio is pretty excited by the football win: “It wasn’t pretty, but damn was it sweet. To the haters, ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?!?!”