John Clay's Sidelines

(H-L photo/Mark Cornelison)

Big Blue Links for Sunday:

Jerry Tipton of the Herald-Leader writes that Kentucky put away Tennessee late: ” Eric Bledsoe found the soft spot in Tennessee’s surprising zone defense and had his best scoring game in a month as Kentucky beat the Volunteers 73-62 Saturday night. Bledsoe, who had missed his previous 11 three-point attempts by midway through the first half, led Kentucky to victory with his second-half sharpshooting. Bledsoe’s three-pointers from the right and left corners fueled a 20-4 breakout that finally put away 12th-ranked Tennessee.”

My column says UK went from GameDay to the Bled-show: “‘Show’ being the operative term of the day, starting with ESPN’s College GameDay, featuring Rece Davis, Hubert Davis, Jay Bilas and Digger Phelps, and a record crowd of crazies filling Rupp just to set another record. Of course, if Digger is in the house, you know Kentucky is going to win.”

Herald-Leader photo slide show of UK-UT game.

Herald-Leader photo slide show of College GameDay.

Jason King of Yahoo Sports writes that UK’s talent is growing up fast: “When Kentucky’s Eric Bledsoe burst into John Wall’s bedroom around 10:30 Saturday morning, the nation’s best college basketball player was still asleep, his pillow draped over his head. Bledsoe yelled at Wall to wake up. Then he nudged his leg and poked his arm. Nothing worked. ‘So I turned on the TV,’ Bledsoe said.

Mike Griffith of the Knoxville News-Sentinel writes that the Vols hit a Wall: “Tennessee battled Kentucky even through the first 30 minutes before hitting a wall. Wildcats freshman sensation John Wall heated up late, scoring 12 of his game-high 24 points during the final 10 1/2 minutes to lead No. 3-ranked Kentucky to a 73-62 victory over No. 12 Tennessee on Saturday night in Rupp Arena.”

Mark Wiedmer of the Chattanooga Times Free Press on the Randy Sanders-Tee Martin reunion: “‘I’ll always be a Volunteer,’ former Tennessee quarterback Tee Martin insists. But when the Tennessee basketball team visited Kentucky on Saturday night, Martin was ‘pulling for the Cats. Go, Blue. I’m at UK now.’”

Video of John Calipari’s opening remarks last night:

Continue reading ‘BBL: Kentucky stalls the Vols links roundup’

(AP photo)

SEC links for Sunday:

Kyle Veazey of the Clarion-Ledger on Mississippi State’s win over Auburn: “Given the result, State fans couldn’t care less about the explanation. The announced 8,854 saw Bost make 11 of 19 field goals, hit 7 of 12 3-pointers, make all three of his free throws and come a rebound shy of a double-double. Four assists, too. Thanks in large part to Bost, State dominated overtime. Bost had a driving layup and the pull-up 3-pointer with 1:06 to play that essentially sealed the win.”

Kevin Brockway of the Gainesville Sun on Florida’s important loss to Xavier: “Florida had a chance in its final non-conference game of the season to change its recent perception as February fade artists. Xavier’s bigger, more physical front line had other ideas. Behind a dominant performance on the glass and in the paint, Xavier turned the O’Connell Center into its own house of horrors. The Musketeers took Florida to the woodshed, winning 76-64 and delivering another blow to UF’s NCAA Tournament hopes.”

Pat Dooley of the Sun writes that depth is doing in the Gators: “This was supposed to be the big opportunity, one more chance in a non-conference game to show they belonged. Instead, Florida showed exactly what it is. Not bad. Worthy of consideration. But not in the same league with the teams who know they’ll be in the NCAA Tournament.”

David Climer of the Tennessean on Vandy’s 77-69 win over LSU: “With about 6½ minutes remaining in the first half of Vanderblit’s game with LSU on Saturday afternoon, Stallings spun around and aimed his right foot at the chair he previously had occupied. Sometimes you just have to channel your inner Bob Knight, I guess.”

Seth Emerson of The State says South Carolina lacked execution in loss to Georgia: “This was a game it could not lose. Not with postseason hopes on the line, not with a big lead late in the game. If this were a test of South Carolina’s ability to play under pressure on the road, it failed – and the ramifications could be severe. USC lost 66-61 at Georgia on Saturday after leading by 10 points with nine minutes left, and by nine points with 5:49 left.”

Continue reading ‘SEC links: Mississippi State will welcome UK off a win’

(Photo by John Clay)

I’m back in Lexington after we wrapped up the second and final day of the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament Mock Selection Exercise in Indiana. We selected the rest of the field, seeded the 65 teams (or about half of them), then put them into brackets. If the real committee does what we did today, Kentucky fans will be headed for New Orleans, and if two victories follow, then Syracuse.

Note: Eammon Brennan of espn.com was also a mock committee member who blogged on the happenings.

Note: If you missed it, here is my write-up on the first day.

Highlights from today, the final day:

• We started at 8:30 a.m. and were told that Georgetown had won the Big East Tournament and UNLV had won the Mountain West Tournament. That put two of the “at-large” selections into the “automatic qualifier” category, and brought the at-large total to the 34 needed. We were also told that Oklahoma State had won the Big 12 Tournament, and the Cowboys had been in the “under consideration” pool.

• A note about the conference tournaments. Once a team loses in the conference tournament, it is no longer a conference team. It is basically in the large pool of at-large candidates with the rest of the conference tournament losers, in all other conferences.

• Because some at-large teams would win their “mock’ conference tournaments, we had to select more at-large teams. After listing, and then ranking, St. Mary’s, Charlotte and South Florida increased the list to 37. We were then told that three of the “at-large” teams won their conference tournaments. That meant that the three we just picked we’re now in the tournament. The fourth team was Florida. We were told that Duke and Virginia had made the ACC Tournament finals. If Duke beat Virginia, Florida was in the field of 65. If Duke lost, Florida was out.

• We then returned to seeding. We ended up seeing New Mexico 13th, followed by Vanderbilt at No. 14, Temple at No. 15 and Texas at No. 16. Then we went through another seeding group and put Wake Forest at No. 17, followed by Pittsburgh at No. 18, Gonzaga at No. 19 and BYU at 20th.

• We were then told that Sam Houston State, Temple, Kentucky and Purdue had all won their respective conference tournaments. And, drum roll please, Duke had beaten Virginia in the ACC final. That put Florida in the NCAA Tournament.

• Turned out that California was the team with the highest RPI, No. 25, that we left out of the field.

Continue reading ‘Second day NCAA Tourney Mock Selection report’

Rock Oliver (H-L photo)

Big Blue Links for Friday:

• Jennifer Smith of the H-L on Kentucky women’s win over Georgia.
• Jerry Tipton of the Herald-Leader on Saturday’s College GameDay arrival.
• Mark Story of the H-L writes that UK women get an imperfect win, which is a great sign.
• Nick Craddock of the Kentucky Kernel on the win by the UK women.
• H-L brief on the opening of the Untouchables of Kentucky.
• Chip Cosby of the H-L on how Rock Oliver is changing the game at UK.
• Brett Dawson of the Courier-Journal writes on GameDay.
• Kenny Colston of the Kernel writes that UK needs more production from Darius Miller.
• C.L. Brown of the C-J reports that Rick Pitino tries to cut down the Nets story.
• Larry Vaught of the Danville Advocate-Messenger writes on Daniel Orton’s knee.

It comes from Ian O’Connor, of the Bergen Record, a terrific writer with great connections, who knows his stuff:

Back in my hotel room after we wrapped up the first day of the NCAA Men’s Division I College Basketball Tournament Mock Selection Exercise, in association with the US Basketball Writers, here at the NCAA National Center in Indianapolis. Long day. Lot of numbers. Here’s a wrap-up:

• You can see a video about today’s happenings here. (The pic above is a grainy frame of the video.)

• After a series of votes involving moving teams from the “under consideration” category to the “at-large” category, we started seeding teams. The idea is to seed the teams 1-65. As it stands now, and we were told this could all change before we wrap up early tomorrow afternoon, Kansas is the overall No. 1 seed, followed by Syracuse at No. 2, Kentucky at No. 3 and Villanova at No. 4. That would mean that UK would be a No. 1 seed in a particular region. We will start assigning teams to regions tomorrow.

• We ended up seeding just 12 teams. Purdue came in at No. 5, followed by Georgetown, Duke, West Virginia, Kansas State, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Michigan State.

• After our initial ballot, 19 teams were moved into the “at-large” category, meaning teams that would fill the 34 at-large slots to go along with the 31 conference automatic qualifiers, or AQs, as they are called by the committee. The first 19 were, in alphabetical order: BYU, Duke, Georgetown, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, Michigan State, New Mexico, Ohio State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Syracuase, Temple, Tennessee, Texas, Vanderbilt, Villanova, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

• After the initial ballot, there were 53 teams that went in the “under consideration” category. Judging by the reaction of the NCAA staff members, that appeared to be a high number.

• The next four to go from “under consideration” to “at-large” were Baylor, Georgia Tech, Texas A&M and Wake Forest. That brought the at-large total to 23.

• The next four to go in were UNLV, Rhode Island, Richmond and Northern Iowa. That brought the at-large total to 27.

Continue reading ‘First day NCAA Tournament Mock Selection report’

I’m in Indianapolis the next couple of days as part of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship Mock Selection Exercise, in association with the United States Basketball Writers Association.

I was fortunate enough to be invited as one of 20 participants, including print media, internet media, conference administrators and broadcast analysts, including CBS Sports’ Clark Kellogg.

For the next day and a half, the NCAA will guide us through the process of selecting and seeding the NCAA Tournament, so that we can learn more about how the process works. We will do everything the committee does on selection weekend, from selections to seedings to placing teams at tournament sites, etc.

I’ll be blogging whenever I can, though today’s session is not scheduled to be completed until 9 p.m. tonight.

Check back for details, and reports.

(AP Photo/Ed Reinke)

Update: Of course, Pitino says no truth to report.

Big Blue Links for Thursday:

• Jennifer Smith of the Herald-Leader on the rise of Victoria Dunlap.
• Jerry Tipton of the H-L on Kentucky seeing so much zone.
• Newark Star-Ledger on rumors Rick Pitino is interested in the New Jersey Nets. (Hat tip to Bluegrass State Basketball.)
• Brett Dawson of the C-J also hits on the zone defense theme.
• Eric Crawford of the Courier-Journal thought UK looked sleepy after Tuesday’s late tipoff.
• Tom Leach looks toward March.
• Larry Vaught of the Danville Advocate-Messenger tackles the UK MVP question.
• Metz Camfield of the Kentucky Kernel on UK’s new uniforms.
• Nick Craddock of the Kernel on the UK women’s rematch with Georgia.
• Cat Scratches writes that UK’s basketball teams are feeding off each other.
• Kentucky Sports Network’s thumbs-up/thumbs-down from UK-Alabama.

Continue reading ‘BBL: Is Rick Pitino headed to the New Jersey Nets?’