John Clay's Sidelines

Some random notes for UK-Vanderbilt:

• Before Friday’s pratice, UK’s John Calipari said, “”I probably did Patrick and John (Wall) and a couple others a disservice by saying how good they are,” the UK coach said. “All that does is put more pressure on them to perform.”

• Vanderbilt’s 5-0 SEC mark is its best start since 1965-66.

• During the telecast of Vandy’s win at Tennessee on Wednesday, ex-Alabama coach Mark Gottfried said that Vandy freshman John Jenkins can become one of the all-time greats as far as shooting numbers. Gottfried said that th league has not seen one like him since Chris Lofton. Jenkins has made 52.4 percent of his three-pointers through five SEC games.

• Calipari joked (I think) that the local media wouldn’t do the work necessary to find out how his Memphis teams did after a loss. Jerry Tipton did the math and found that after his last 10 losses at Memphis, the Tigers won the next game by an average of 23.4 points. (The C-J’s Brett Dawson also put his calculator to work.)

• Brad Nessler and Jimmy Dykes will call the game for ESPN today.

• UK averaged just 0.912 points per possession at South Carolina, its second-lowest average of the year. The Cats averaged just 0.900 points per possession in the win over Connecticut.

• Vanderbilt has won 10 straight games.

• Calipari said that he did not return with the team from South Carolina, as he took a recruiting trip to Charlotte.

• Cal said that Vanderbilt reminds him of his old UMass teams: “Five guys, three guys off the bench – they all know what their jobs are, they’re tough,” Calipari said. “They’re not beating themselves. You either beat them, or they’re beating you.”

• Jeff Lockridge of the Tennessean points out that there will be six freshmen in today’s game that were ranked in the top 40 in the nation.

• Vanderbilt is 7-14 all-time against top-ranked teams.

• More Cal: “”I don’t know if I got intoxicated by us winning so much, if I lost my mind and got arrogant because they were playing so well and now I got a little arrogant because they were playing so well I could say some stuff I didn’t need to say,” Calipari said. “Hopefully we’ll pull back here and figure all this out.”

• DeMarcus Cousins has tied Chris Mills’ mark for double-doubles by a freshmen with 11.

• Last time UK played as a top-ranked team at Rupp Arena was 1996. The opponent was Vanderbilt. UK won 101-63.

• When playing as the No. 1 team in the polls, UK is 10-4 against the Commdores.

• The Cats are 61-2 at home when ranked as the nation’s No. 1 team.

• UK is 73-14 against Vanderbilt in Lexington.

• The Cats beat Vandy 70-60 at Rupp last year. The Cats needed double overtime to beat the ‘Dores 79-73 at Rupp in 2008. Vandy pulled out a 72-67 win over Kentucky at Rupp in 2007.

• Vanderbilt won the last meeting last year, 77-64 in Nashville.

• Vandy has won six of its last eight meetings with Kentucky.

• Vandy’s Jermaine Beal is coming off a season-high 25 points in win over Tennessee.

• The Commodores have trailed at the half in four of their five SEC games.

• This will be Vanderbilt’s fourth league road game in its first six games.

• Vanderbilt is shooting 55.2 percent in the second half of its five conference games.

• Vandy is ranked 21st in the AP poll.

• The Commodores are 20-1 when A.J. Ogilvy scores at least 20 points.

• Vanderbilt has made at least one three-pointer in 748 consecutive games. Vandy, UNLV and Princeton are the only three teams to make at least one three in every game since the shot was implemented in the 1986-87 season. (Kentucky has made at least on three in 731 consecutive games.)