John Clay's Sidelines

Big Blue Links and morning notes for Tuesday before we head to Houston:

- On tap for today: UK is holding a players media opp this afternoon. Check the blog for video, etc.

- I’ll be on a Houston Chronicle live chat previewing the Final Four, starting at 1 p.m. I’ll have the Cover it Live frame up on the blog a little later this morning.

- And I’m sitting in for Larry Glover Live tonight from 6-8 p.m. on WVLK-590. Please tune in, and call in.

- UK is taking public applications for Final Four tickets.

- Next Cats has all the news from the All-Star festivities, including UK signee Kyle Wiltjer winning the three-point contest last night at the Powerade Jam. Here’s the video, with a hat tip to Cat Scratches.

- Josh Harrellson was on with Scott Van Pelt, an ESPN radio host who actually knows college hoops. You can listen to Josh’s interview here.

- Congrats to Lexington Catholic product Natalie Novosel who scored 17 points last night to help Notre Dame beat Tennessee and earn a trip in the women’s Final Four.

- On a teleconference with the Final Four coaches yesterday, UConn coach Jim Calhoun referred to UK coach John Calipari as “my problem child.” Writes Neil Ostrut of the Connecticut Post, “When talking about 33-year-old Shaka Smart of VCU, 34-year-old Brad Stevens of Butler, and 52-year-old John Calipari of Kentucky Monday, Calhoun at first referred to the trio as ‘my three sons.’ He then corrected himself. ‘Actually, it’s my two sons plus my problem child,’ the 68-year-old Calhoun said. ‘Since I’m the oldest of the group, that’s what I feel like.’”

- Remember when John Calipari dismissed that players-only meeting the team had back in February. On a teleconference with the Final Four coaches on Monday, the Kentucky coach changed his tune. ”They had a players-only meeting,” he said of the UK players. “Normally, those meetings don’t do anything. But I think they wanted to understand each other. The veterans talked about committing to what they had to do. The young kids committed to what they had to do. I think they just came together.”

- Calipari is the college game’s best coach, says Tom Sorenson of the Charlotte Observer. “Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and North Carolina’s Roy Williams are among the best in their sport. But if there’s evidence that either is better than Calipari, I don’t see it.”

- Ken Pomeroy has the probability of UK winning the national title at 45 percent. UConn is at 30 percent. Butler is at 15 percent, and VCU at 10 percent.

- Mayor Jim Gray announced Monday he is appointing a task force to study if the city needs a new arena, or whether re-doing Rupp is the best bet. I still side with re-doing Rupp. The mayor was just back from Newark, where he attended the East final on Sunday.

- Merlene Davis of the H-L has a column about fans doing whatever they can to help the Cats get a win.

- My column says that what you know, these Cats could go all the way.

- Ted Keith of SI.com writes that not even UK’s rabid fans saw this coming. “In the locker room the young men who had just made Kentucky’s 76-69 victory over North Carolina possible were merry, happy and bright, but it was an old man — the oldest in the room, to be precise — who may have been the happiest of all,” writes Keith. “Bob Wiggins, 83, stood in the hallway of the cramped room with a Kentucky hat on his head and a broad smile on his face. Wiggins, who lives in Falmouth, Ky. (population 2,058), has been such a fixture in the stands at Wildcats games since the 1940s that one of John Calipari’s first acts as Kentucky coach was to grant Wiggins a sort of platinum status, complete with an open invitation to practice, school-supplied tickets to NCAA tournament games and behind-the-scenes access like the kind Wiggins was enjoying at that very moment.”

- The naming of Cuonzo Martin as Tennessee’s new head basketball coach was sort of lost in the weekend wash. The former Purdue assistant did a good job in three years at Missouri State. He’s a young, energetic coach who can do a good job, but expect that program to be a mess for the next couple of years, with the NCAA hammer about ready to fall. Andrew Gribble of the Knoxville News-Sentinel writes about Martin’s leadership qualities. Meanwhile, former UK assistant athletic director Kyle Moats, now the AD at Missouri State, is looking for a new coach.

- Rick Bozich of the Courier-Journal on a far-fetched Final Four. He writes, “”Only one in this group – Butler – won even a piece of itsconference regular-season title. It has lost a combined 37 games. Fourteen of the losses were to teams that failed to make the NCAA Tournament, including goodies such as Georgia State (VCU), Youngstown State (Butler) and Arkansas (UK). Heck this group has a combined record of 2-3 against the University of Louisville, not that I expect that nugget to translate into much consolation for the Cardinals.”

- There’s still a lot of buzz about Jay-Z showing up in the Kentucky locker room, so writes Aaron Smith of the Kentucky Kernel.

- Bob Raissman, who covers television sports for the New York Daily News, says this Final Four is not good for TV. He writes, “CBS/Turner’s NCAA tourney ratings, which have registered on the high side, are about to fall off a cliff. That’s what happens when the VCUs and Butlers of the world reach higher ground. Nothing against the little guys, which Butler ain’t exactly. No, this has little to do with either team’s performance or the compelling story lines surrounding them. It’s just that VCU-Butler, head-to-head, doesn’t register with the casual fan, those coveted eyeballs transcending the hard core and driving the ratings.”

- Did you see where out of 5.9 million brackets submitted to ESPN, only two picked the Final Four correctly?

- Eammon Brennan of ESPN gives you 10 things about this Final Four.

- Why would Matt Painter leave Purdue for Missouri? Me thinks he wants more money from Purdue.

- Don’t forget the Reds open at home (of course) on Thursday.

- Do me a favor and hit the like button on the KentuckySports.com Facebook page. You’ll get a steady diet of UK sports news.

- And if you hit the like button on Kentucky.com Facebook page, you could win a gift pack worth $125.

- Speaking of Facebook, my Facebook friend and former UK Wildcat Tom Heitz wrote on his Facebook page, “I’m sure I have several people on my Facebook friend list, who secretly hate Kentucky basketball but would never admit it to me. It’s alright.”