John Clay's Sidelines

(H-L photo/David Perry)

Big Blue Links for Monday:

The Kentucky women rally to beat Alabama 82-69, reports the Tuscaloosa News. It was the final women’s game at Coleman Coliseum. The women are moving to newly-renovated Foster Auditorium. Victoria Dunlap keyed the Kentucky comeback and finished with 25 points and 15 rebounds. After losing their first two SEC games, the Cats have reeled off six straight wins. They play host to Auburn on Thursday. Both teams are 6-2 in the league, and tied for second with Georgia behind first-place Tennessee. Matthew Mitchell’s team plays host to the Vols a week from tonight.

Coach Cal’s site has an interesting tidbit about a motivational tool John Calipari left in his player’s lockers on Friday. Nation of Blue picked up on it, as well. It’s the “Law of the Price Tag.” Be prepared for some jokes from the Louisville message boards on the “price tag” angle. The U of L boards also had a field day with the video of Ashley Judd talking to Terrence Jones. One prize comment said that Jones seemed to be thinking, “Coach Cal told me there would be hot girls in our locker room, not middle-aged cougars.”

Tom Leach writes that Saturday was a good day for the Big Blue Nation on a pair of fronts. He sites UK’s basketball win over Georgia, of course. But he also applauds the efforts made to keep Tee Martin on the Cats’ football sideline. And Eric Lindsey of Cat Scratches also chimes in with the “couldn’t-afford-to-lose” Tee Martin angle. As for football recruiting, Bleed Blue Kentucky reports that hopes of stealing one recruit from Alabama were dashed over the weekend.

After Saturday’s basketball win, John Calipari said he would like some of his nice guys to be meaner. The toughness angle has been a season-long theme with Cal. Now, the finishing angle has to be the focus. You have to wonder how much the longer minutes Cal’s super six are getting contributes to the lack of focus down the stretch. The coach’s newest kick is to say that the old guys are telling him that’s the way they used to do it, that Rupp only played five guys. But that was a different game. Meanwhile, Wildcat Blue Nation thinks Cal is the master at making do.

My friend Brian Rickerd over at the Frankfort State Journal thinks that Cal’s veterans need to step up. He writes, “Calipari then touched on another recurring theme of this season: His upper class guys, especially senior center Josh Harrellson and junior forwards Darius Miller and DeAndre Liggins, have to pick it up. Those three have got to be the consistent ones, to show the freshmen the way it needs to be done. Instead, more often than not, it seems to be the other way around for the Wildcats. The older players get sucked into some of the bad habits of their younger teammates.”

Kentucky Sports Radio appears to be pushing for a new arena, and sees it as a good sign that Jim Gray and Lee Todd had dinner on Friday. I guess the hope is that Dr. Todd will say, just because we don’t have the money to build a new arena, you should still let us tell you to build a new arena. Seriously, a new arena would be great. But in this economic climate, does Lexington and the state really have the funds to build a $250 million arena? Can it justify that to the voters? Heard Larry Glove make a good point on Sunday morning, saying that the people who would be asked to pay for it would never really get to use the arena. That’s true.

And Anthony Wireman of All Ky Hoops has his five keys for UK’s success. Here’s one: ” Where is the killer instinct: I won’t go into great detail on this one but it’s no secret that the young Wildcats have struggled in putting teams away. After basically mopping the Rupp Arena floor with Georgia in the first half Saturday, UK only managed to win by six points. There was a similar plot line at South Carolina. I’ll attribute some of that to the aforementioned depth issue, but that’s not an excuse. At some point, it will come back to bite the Wildcats if they continue to allow teams to get back in the game. With the three-point line in play, there is no such thing as going into cruise control after building a big lead. Kentucky must learn to ‘kick ‘em when they’re down.’”

Meanwhile, Darius Miller tells Wildcat-Den that UK is not quite mature enough yet to handle prosperity.

Jeff Drummond of Big Blue 247 breaks down the Kentucky-Georgia game in good, bad and ugly terms. (On a side note, saw Jeff at the Reds Caravan on Sunday morning.) Kentucky Sports Network also has a thunbs-up/thumbs-down recap of the Cats’ win over Georgia.

A Sea of Blue has a post filled with charts, only this time tracking Kentucky’s defensive performance against Georgia. An excerpt: “This just in. DeAndre Liggins is really active defensively. Liggins leads the team in deflections again and forced 4 turnovers. Actually, he had a hand in 5 TO’s, forcing 3 by himself and hooking up with a teammate a couple of times.”

Ryan Clark of the Kentucky Enquirer gives a former Kentucky coach a little praise. He writes: “I’m still not sure how they did it, but Louisville knocked off the Huskies in their place in double-OT. Unreal. (and what’s even more surprising is there was a Terrence Jennings appearance, too! And he played the game of his life!) Can the Cards keep it up and win the Big East? I have no idea. I know the Big East is starting to look a little more human after all its good teams continue to lose, but this Cardinals team is hurt – and most of all, they don’t have a ton of talent. Yet somehow, they seem to get things done. Very admirable. And they deserve all the praise their team and their coach will receive over the next week.”