John Clay’s Sidelines

Here’s SEC basketball roundup after first weekend:

• Mississippi State, ranked 18th, passed out SEC Tournament title rings in a pre-game ceremony, then went out and lost to Rider 88-74 before 7,421 at Humphrey Coliseum.

• Remember, Rider plays Kentucky next Saturday in Rupp.

• In Kyle Veazey’s game story for Clarion-Ledger, Rider coach Tommy Dempsey said, “I know that most of you don’t know much about us, about Rider, or even the MAAC conference, but we have a good basketball team and we play in a great conference.”

• State coach Rick Stansbury: “Everybody understands now when I said how good Rider is, how good they are. They were just better than us.”

• Rider made 10 of 16 of its 3-point shots and committed all of six turnovers.

• Kodi Augustus, who scored nine points and had five rebounds in 15 minutes after starting, told reporters after the game that he wasn’t pleased with his playing time. “I played all these minutes in the exhibition games and I played 15 minutes? Wow,” Augustus said.

• Alabama lost to Cornell 71-67 in Anthony Grant’s debut. Cornell is the two-time defending Ivy League champion.

• Ex-Kentucky forward Mark Coury had six points and five rebounds for Cornell, which had not beaten a current SEC team since 1972-73.

• JaMychal Green led the Tide with 17 points and 10 rebounds.

• Crowd was listed at 10,135 fans, and attendance was surely hurt by football team playing 90 minutes away Saturday night at Mississippi State.

Continue reading ‘SEC basketball roundup after first weekend’

Update: And this from one happy customer — @jwh323: After the student only practice, all I can say is @UKCoachCalipari is no doubt the right man for the job and this team is going to be sick.

Update No. 2: This from former Kernel columnist and Facebook friend Jon Hale: “most interesting part was Wayne Turner, technically a student I guess, watching from the front row.”

UK students are at the student-only UK basketball practice — no media — and students being students, they know how to (a) take pictures with their phones, and (b) use Twitter.

BTW, my friends over at Kentucky Sports Radio also have some student-only practice pix.

Eric Lindsey at Cat Scratches, who did nothing to save me when I was nearly flattened at the UK volleyball match Wednesday, has more pictures from the student-only practice.

Photo by @chubbarth)

(Photo by @SIX_EIGHT)

(Photo by @justinmc44)

Continue reading ‘Twitter pix from student-only UK practice’

If you know of one I’ve missed let me know, but here looks to be the college football games on TV this weekend:

WLEX-TV is reporting that former UK basketball coach Billy Gillispie was arrested at 2:45 a.m. this morning in Anderson County on U.S. 127 and charged with DUI.

The NBC affiliate has video of Gillispie being led handcuffed into a van. He and 42-year-old Charles O’Connor are being held in the Franklin County jail, according to the station.

According to the report, Gillispie told police  he had been playing golf. Apparently someone called 911 saying a Mercedes with Texas plates was swerving on U.S. 127 in Anderson County.

WTVQ in Lexington also has a report on the Gillispie arrest.

As of 6:16 a.m., WKYT is gathering information on the story.

Here’s a Herald-Leader report on Gillispie’s previous two DUI arrests.

Links pertaining to report of U of L and ex-UK coach Rick Pitino’s admission that he had sex with Karen Sypher and gave her $3,000 to have an abortion:

• NEW: Pitino story on front page of Huffington Post.
• NEW: Mark Bradley of the AJC on Pitino affair.
• New York Times’ The Quad blog on what’s next for Pitino.
• Dick Weiss reports that Pitino scandal is the talk of Boston.
• New York Times headline, “Pitino says he paid for abortion.”
• Ken Howlett of A Sea of Blue asks, “Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio?”
• Card Chronicle says it is a very, very bad day to be a Louisville basketball fan.
• Cathy Burke of the New York Post calls it, “PITINO BOMBSHELL.”
• Larry Vaught of the Danville Advocate-Messenger writes that Pitino’s image is tarnished forever.
• USA Today wants to know what is Pitino’s next move?
• Deadspin thinks it will be fun watching the media fumble helplessly on the Pitino story.
• Kentucky Sports Radio refers to it as the news “hits the fan.”

Continue reading ‘Rick Pitino sex scandal links’

Update: Blog commenter wanted me to add Patterson to the mix, so I did.

Update II: Jeff Goodman at Fox Sports has Meeks No. 7 and Thornton No. 10 in his national Player of the Year rankings.

I still think Kentucky’s Jodie Meeks will be named the SEC’s Player of the Year. But in my column this morning, I note that Kentucky’s point machine has more competition than we once might have expected. Here’s a chart comparison of the top contenders:

Conference and non-conference games included. Leader in each category marked by gold box.

SEC links for Tuesday:

• In the Mobile Press-Register, Paul Finebaum asks if its time for a historic hire at Alabama.
• Mike Strange of the Knoxville News-Sentinel writes that talent is more than skin deep.
• Gary Laney of the Baton Rouge Advocate reports that LSU’s focus is on visiting Florida.
• Kevin Brockway of the Gainesville Sun writes on the ultimate Gator hangout, the barber shop.
• In the Tennessean, Bryan Mullen writes that Tennessee is struggling to keep focus on the court.
• Also in the Tennessean, Joe Biddle writes on a high-scoring high school star headed to Vandy.
• And Maurice Patton of the Tennessean reports that Vandy’s three-point shooting has not good.
• In the News-Sentinel, Mike Griffith reports that UT’s Scotty Hopson knows he must do more.
• In the Huntsville Times, Mark McCarter writes on Andre Smith’s problems.
• The AJC reports that Matt Stafford and Knowshon Moreno got passing grades at the NFL Combine.
• David Brandt of the Clarion-Ledger writes that Ole Miss is still searching for a 12th football game.
• Gentry Estes of the Mobile Press-Register writes on former Arkansas assistant and UAB head coach Mike Anderson who has found his groove at Missouri.

Watching Louisville be blasted by Notre Dame, Bennie just sent me an e-mail pointing out something I noticed, as well.

Bennie writes:

John, I know you work for the Lexington paper, not the Louisville paper.  However, in the name of fair reporting, I would hope that you could find room somewhere in one of your columns to mention the fact that Rick Pitino flat out declined to be interviewed at halftime of the UL/Notre Dame game by Holly Rowe.  You might also mention that Pitino’s team just got the crap kicked out of them by a team that had lost seven in row.  Of course, knowing Rick like we all do, he’ll come up with some subtle excuse as to why his team didn’t perform well, and because he is such a media darling everyone will just buy the excuse and no one will criticize him for ducking out of the interview.

He’s right. Holly Rowe, ESPN’s sideline reporter for the game, mentioned that Rick turned down the halftime interview. In fairness to Rick, I have seen him interviewed at the half many times. I guess, down 18, this game he felt like had better things to do.

At this point, I’d rather Gillispie turn down the interview than leave the boorish impression he has been giving viewers. What bothers me more is that he doesn’t have to do it. By and large, Billy is pretty good with we media that cover UK on a regular basis. He has his moments, as all coaches do. And he sometime will tell you if he doesn’t like a question. But he does have a lot of interesting ideas and thoughts on the game. He studies it. I’m just not sure why he takes the attitude with the halftime interview, and with Edwards, that he does.

Joe Lunardi’s new NCAA Tournament bracket projections are out, and the ESPN analyst has moved Kentucky up to a No. 6 seed. He had the Cats as a No. 9 seed last week.

Lunardi has a No. 6 Kentucky playing a No. 11 seed Utah in Minneapolis as part of the Midwest Region.

In all, Lunadri has four SEC teams making the tournament:

• Kentucky as a No. 6 seed.
• Tennessee as a No. 8 seed.
• Florida as a No. 9 seed.
• Mississippi State as a No. 12 seed.

Bobby Maze

A key for Kentucky on Tuesday night at Thompson-Boling Arena could be containing Tennessee point guard Bobby Maze, the junior college point guard who is coming off possibly his best game of the season.

The former Oklahoma Sooner contributed 16 points, six rebounds, two assists and two steals to the Vols’ come-from-behind 86-77 win at Georgia on Saturday. The Allen Iverson-look alike — Maze wears No. 3; has the cornrows and the tattoos — made some key plays down the stretch, scoring 11 of his 16 points in the second half. His three-pointer with 9:07 left pulled the Vols to within 61-58. He fed Tyler Smith for a jam that kept the Vols within five, at 67-62. He fed Cameron Tatum for a basket as part of the Vols’ 13-0 run that put the game away over the final three minutes.

Maze did all that after a forceful pep talk from Tennessee assistant Steve Forbes, according to Wes Rucker of the Chattanooga Times Free Press and Mike Strange in the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

An excerpt from Strange’s column:

Good point-guard play elevates a team. Tennessee hadn’t been getting much of it for a few games. Maze had been struggling, to put it mildly.

It’s never a good sign when your point guard goes 36 minutes without an assist and shoots 1-of-9. That was Maze’s forlorn box score against Gonzaga on Wednesday. Maybe one assist and UT wins in regulation rather than losing 89-79 in overtime.

So when Maze went a ho-hum 13 minutes in the first half Saturday without an assist, Steve Forbes had seen enough.

UT’s once 11-point lead was down to 36-32 at the break. When the teams went back on the court to warm up, Forbes grabbed Maze by the jersey and pulled him over to the bench.

An excerpt from Rucker’s story:

“I can’t repeat what I said … but I meant it,” said Forbes, who played a pivotal role in signing Maze out of Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College.

“I expect more from Bobby, and he knows that,” Forbes continued. “He’s the kind of kid who could handle it. He’s tough.”

Maze didn’t repeat many specifics of Forbes “pep talk,” either, but the gist is that it started with a grabbed jersey and ended with a Southeastern Conference road victory.

And with rival Kentucky (12-4, 1-0 SEC) arriving in town today for a Tuesday night showdown, it might have given the Vols (10-4, 1-0) a better chance of getting an early leg up in the Eastern Division race.

“Coach Forbes … grabbed me before the second half and said, ‘This is what you’re here for,’” Maze said. “I hadn’t been playing well, and in order for us to win, I’m going to have to play well. He grabbed my chest, and that meant a lot to me, because he could have easily just not said anything to me.

“By him getting on me, that put a lot of pride in me and led me to a good second half.”

Maze’s last four games: