John Clay’s Sidelines

Videos from UK press luncheon today, starting with Trevard Lindley.

Corey Peters talks about his sprained wrist and the opener.

Randall Cobb talks about the freshmen quarterbacks.

Zipp Duncan talks about the line heading into Miami of Ohio.

UK football coach Rich Brooks said after practice today that sophomore wide receiver Aaron Boyd will redshirt, and that senior middle linebacker Micah Johnson is nursing a strained foot. Brooks said x-rays did not reveal any breaks in Johnson’s foot, but that it is sore and his status is uncertain.

Lunch break:

• Even George Mason coach Jim Larranaga is impressed by the new Kentucky coach. Here is a Larranaga tweet from this morning: “Cal is non-stop. Kentucky is #1 on ESPN Insider’s list of five teams on the rise next season in men’s basketball. http://bit.ly/QYbMJ”

• Brandon Phillips has drawn Dusty Baker’s ire for not hustling, this time on a first-inning single that should have been in a double in the fading Reds’ 7-5 loss at Los Angeles last night. Phillips’ fly ball to right surprisingly dropped in front of a confused Dodger outfield. Only Phillips didn’t see the play. He had his head down, moping, about not getting a hit, and by the time the Red realized what had happened he was late getting to second base and was thrown out. it was the first out of what turned out to be a three-run inning off the Dodgers’ Jason Schmidt. Only it should have been more than three runs. “That was a rally-killer for us,” said Baker. Phillips is a terrific player with an electric smile, but he sometimes allows his lesser instincts to get the best of him. (At Redleg Nation, they can’t believe that Dusty finally called Brandon out.)

• Kentucky Sports Network passes along a video interview it did with Joe Jackson, a 5-foot-10 guard out of Memphis that is being recruited by the Cats.

Continue reading ‘LB: Even other coaches are tweeting about Calipari’

Great stuff from Hall of Famer Hal McCoy’s Dayton Daily News blog on Joey Votto’s press conference today in Toronto.

The Reds first baseman was activated from the Disabled List and will be in the lineup, batting third, when Cincinnati takes on the Blue Jays tonight. Votto is from Toronto.

But Votto held a 4 p.m. press conference to discuss the details of his absence, and it all goes back to dealing with the unexpected death of his 52-year-old father last August.

An excerpt:

“The days I was taken off the field were miniature versions of what I was dealing with by myself. Ever since late May I have been struggling with this in my private life. I’d go on the field and try to play well, but I couldn’t do it any more because I was overwhelmed physically with the stuff I was dealing with off the field finally seeped its way onto the field and I finally just had to put an end to it. I really couldn’t go out there. I physically couldn’t do my job.”

Be sure and read Hal’s entire post. It’s illuminating proof that no matter how big and strong an athlete may be, he can be subjected to the same emotions and struggles as everyone else.

John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer also has details on his blog.

I know it’s not John Calipari and it’s not Kentucky basketball, and therefore it’s not going to get a ton of page views, but some impressions from up in Cincinnati for the Reds’ opening day.

• For some reason, Xavier basketball news follows me here and none of it good. I was here at GABP last year when the news came that ex-Xavier coach Skip Prosser had died at Wake Forest of a heart attack after jogging. It was surreal being in the press box at that time, given that so many in the Cincinnati media were still friends with Prosser, or thought so highly of him form his Muskie days. Now, here I am again, and the news came early that Sean Miller, the coach at Xavier, had changed his mind and decided to take the Arizona job. Here’s a press box full of Cincinnati journalists, watching the city’s big even, and the coach of the best basketball team in town, is making news by reversing course and heading out West.

• Who might Xavier chase now that Miller is off to Tucson? Muskie assistant Chris Mack will reportedly be in the mix. But Shannon Russell of the Cincinnati Enquirer mentions Siena coach Fran McCaffrey, and he seems like a worthy choice. A friend told me that Louisville coach Rick Pitino is pushing Steve Masiello for the job, but the U of L assistant has no head coaching experince and the Muskies are loaded for next season. He’d be a longshot, at best.

Continue reading ‘Basketball news on baseball’s opening day’

And now, a break for baseball. It is spring training, after all.

If you’re a fan of the Cincinnati Reds, Fox Sports Ohio has released its 145-game television schedule for this season.

You can see it by clicking this link.

You can credit Edgar Sosa’s 26-foot bomb that gave Louisville its 7-471 win over Kentucky on Sunday. You can harp on the ‘Ville’s surprisingly accurate 55 percent shooting from three-point land – previous season-best was 47.8 versus Ohio University. You can blame the Billy Gillispie technical foul that squelched his own team’s momentum. You can cite a dozen reasons for the Cats loss at Freedom Hall.

But it really boils down to one.

The same one.

Turnovers.

Same old story, same old song and dance. Broken record, yes, but it’s also true that until Kentucky cuts down on its viral tendency to turn the ball over,  this ’08-09 edition will never reach its full potential, and Sunday presented a definite example as to why, or why not.

Kentucky shot 46.9 percent. Louisville shot 46.8 percent. Kentucky made 23 field goals. Louisville made 22 field goals. Kentucky made 19 of 22 free throws. Louisville made 19 of 23 free throws. Those numbers seem to suggest that the difference in the game was the fact the Cards made 11 of 20 three-pointers, while Kentucky was just six of 16 from beyond the stripe. And there is no doubting the significance of that.

But here’s the thing. Coming in, a reasonable Kentucky concern was rebounding. Talking to Mike Pratt before the game, the UK radio analyst expressed a fear that the Cats might be bludgeoned on the boards. A legitimate fear. Louisville had outrebounded its last eight opponents. The better teams had battered the Cats on the boards. UK lost the boards by 14 to North Carolina, by 19 to Kansas State, by 13 to West Virginia, even by 7 to Indiana.

But the Cats didn’t lose the boards Sunday. They actually whipped Louisville 32-22 on the glass. Even better, the Cats pulled down twice as many offensive rebounds (14-7) as did the host Cardinals. Louisville had 15 defensive rebounds, which means there were 29 available rebounds on the U of L end of the floor UK’s offensive end. Amazingly, Kentucky got nearly 50 percent of those boards.

Continue reading ‘UK’s turnover virus’

College basketball on TV for Friday, Nov. 28:

Georgia had 11 offensive plays of 20+ yards in the Bulldogs’ 42-38 win over Kentucky.

Four of those came in the fourth quarter:

Just before the midnight deadline, Reds do ink top draft pick Yonder Alonso.

Here's official release: