John Clay's Sidelines

UK point guard Marquis Teague was one of the players made available at today’s pre-Vanderbilt media opp, and with good reason. The freshman will be experiencing something for the first time on Saturday, trying to run a team while his head coach is on the other baseline.

Teague said that John Calipari has told him to try and get the play calls at the free throw line when the other team is shooting free throws. He said that at this point of the year he feels comfortable enough to make some of the play calls himself. “It’s about half-and-half,” he said.

He also talked about feeding Anthony Davis lobs for dunks. The key is penetrating enough to make the defender commit. Sometimes, Davis gives Teague a signal. Sometimes, they both know the lob is there. “You just throw it up and he goes and gets it,” said the point guard.

Teague said that after the Florida game they were watching ESPN highlights in which they saw Davis go as high as “the top of the square” to get a lob pass before dunking it in.

“That’s crazy,” Teague said.

A three-spot from the just-completed John Calipari media opportunity:

1. Happy Birthday: The UK head coach turns 53 today, but he joked that two of his years had been vacated so he is actually 51. He said as is Calipari family tradition he received breakfast in bed this morning. That was about it for the birthday banter.

2. Vandy’s GameDay day: Told about a supposed UK fan movement to spoil Vanderbilt’s appearance on GameDay on Saturday morning, Calipari said he was hearing of this for the first time. After hemming and hawing a bit, he said, “If our fans are ruining their day, don’t do it. If that’s Vandy’s day, don’t do it.”

3. The late show: Calipari describes most every game “as a hard game,” but he may mean it a little more this time. One of the more difficult things may be the fact that this is a 9 p.m. away game on a Saturday. Cal said the team will visit Memorial tonight just to get a look around, then it will go together to a movie. There will be a short meeting afterward in Calipari’s room. He said he will let them sleep until 10 or so in the morning. The team will eat, have a shoot-around, have the pre-game meal (without the head coach) and then it’ll be gametime.

Some early afternoon notes:

UK basketball has a media opportunity starting at 1:30. Check the blog for video, notes, etc. later this afternoon.

The NCAA football rules committee has proposed moving kickoffs from the 30-yard line to the 35 and to limit the running start by players on the kicking team to 5 yards as a way of keeping players safer. NCAA says its injury data indicates injuries during kickoffs occur more often than in other phases of the game. The NFL moved up kickoffs 5 yards this past season and touchbacks increased dramatically.

If you haven’t heard, Murray State lost its first game last night, falling to visiting Tennessee State. Robert Covington scored 17 points and grabbed eight rebounds for TSU. Murray State was last unbeaten D-1 team. The Racers had won 23 straight games. Isaiah Canaan had 31 points for Murray in the loss.

Hail Mark Gottfried. In the announcement of the McDonald’s All-American team yesterday, North Carolina State has the most signees, with three. State has signed point guard Tyler Lewis of Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.), shooting guard Rodney Purvis of Upper Room Christian (Raleigh, N.C.) and small forward T.J. Warren of Brewster Academy (Wolfeboro, N.H.).

North Carolina State improved to 7-3 in the ACC with a win over Georgia Tech last night.

We should have mentioned this morning that Kentucky signee Janee Thompson was also named to women’s McDonald’s All-American team.

Continue reading ‘Football rule changes, Mark Gottfried and other notes’

Big Blue Links for Friday:

Despite those reports that Shabazz Muhammad is UCLA’s to lose, Muhammad says that he is a long way from deciding. “I don’t think I’m that close at all,” the 6-foot-6 Muhammad out of Las Vegas Bishop Gorman told ESPNU after he was named a McDonald’s All-American. “I really havne’t been looking at it. Just been working on this season for high school, but when I get down to it it’s going to be really stressful for me. But I’m just going to talk to my family and talk it over with them.”

The Providence College students newspaper thinks that Nerlens Noel could join his friends on the Friars. James Kirby writes, “Without a doubt, Cooley has already made an impact that is yet to be felt in Friartown with the acquisitions of Kris Dunn and Ricardo Ledo, both of whom are in ESPNU’s Top 25.  . . . And now, Cooley wants even more. Enter Nerlens Noel. . . .  In fact, reports that have neither been confirmed nor denied state that he may be leaning to team up with his good friends, Ledo and Dunn, and bring the Friars back to the forefront of college basketball.” (H/T Aaron’s UK Basketball Blog)

Greg Kocher of the Herald-Leader reports that UK has asked people to stop selling those Anthony Davis wingspan posters on the internet. UK can ask all it wants. It can send out a cease-and-desist order. But it can’t stop people from selling them. I have the poster. There is nothing printed on it that says it cannot be re-sold. This appears to be a simple case of the school trying to cover itself in case the NCAA gets its nose out of joint.

Continue reading ‘BBL: Shabazz, Nerlens Noel and that Davis poster’

Mike Nance

Updated: Earlier version had same officials working both Tennessee games.

Do you know the name Mike Nance? If you are a Kentucky basketball fan, you should. Nance has worked more UK games than any other college basketball referee this season. Nance leads the list with seven six. Five Four of the seven six have been at Rupp Arena. Doug Shows is second with five.

Here’s the list of officials who have worked UK games this year:

• Mike Nance – 6 - North Carolina, Chattanooga, at Auburn, at Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama
• Doug Shows – 5 - vs. Kansas, St. John’s, Loyola (MD), Alabama, Tennessee
• Joe Lindsay – 4 - Chattanooga, South Carolina, Arkansas, at South Carolina
• J.B. Caldwell – 3 - Marist, Lamar, at LSU
• Tom Eades – 3 - at Indiana, South Carolina, at Georgia
• Tony Greene – 3 - North Carolina, Louisville, Arkansas
• Anthony Jordan – 3 - Portland, at Tennessee,  Florida

(H-L photo)

Check out the Herald-Leader fans gallery from the UK-Florida game.

Big Blue Links for Thursday:

• Players stepping up as Cats are clicking, writes Aaron Smith of Kernel.
• Kidd-Gilchrist a virtuoso again, writes Matt May of Cats Pause.
• MKG excelling in all areas, writes Jordan Schultz of Huffington Post.
• Davis making case to be nation’s No. 1, says Jake Curtis of Chronicle.
• This is Calipari’s best team, says my notes column.
• After flattening Florida, UK looks for challenge, writes Jerry Tipton of H-L.
• Basketball stats to get ready for Vandy, from Herald-Leader.
• Kidd-Gilchrist gives Davis a soothing feeling, says Sun’s Keith Taylor.
• Teague now knows UK is “my” team, writes Larry Vaught of A-M.
• Teague keeps improving, writes Jon Hale of KyForward.

(Photo by Chet White of UK Athletics)

As of 8 p.m., I counted 138 limited edition Anthony Davis posters for sale on E-bay.

The highest bid for one of the posters is $152.50.

The poster, designed and shot by Chet White of UK Athletics, was placed on each seat for last night’s game with Florida. Because of their limited nature, they have been quite the topic of conversation, and the objects of desire.

Not everyone is happy, however.

David writes:

I am emailing all of you at the same time because I have hopes one of you will give voice to those of us out here that aren’t the ‘fat cats’ or the very fortunate who attended last night’s game vs. Florida and were able to walk away with a poster of Anthony Davis that is an obvious keepsake (I can already picture having it framed and hung on my office wall).

Why would UK do this “special favor” to just the 24K fans attending this game. What about the several million of us out here that can’t afford to make the game?

Are we supposed to buy ours via eBay for $50 to $150??? Further I understand they printed 30K of them – what happens to the other 6K?

My response: It shouldn’t be a surprise that UK would take care of those who buy the tickets.

Paul Daugherty, sports columnist for the Cincinnati Enquirer, writes a popular morning blog entitled The Morning Line, or TML for short. Thing is, Paul is currently on a leave of absence to finish a book he is writing on his daughter, Jillian, or J The M for Jillian the Magnificent, as she is known to TML readers.

In his absence, guest bloggers have been taking a crack at TML. One each weekday.

This morning, former Herald-Leader colleague and huge Kentucky fan Jennifer Scroggins, a former Enquirer editor, was the guest blogger and gave TML a definite Kentucky blue hue.

In fact, the headline reads: The Morning Line, 2/8 (Big Blue Nation Edition).

In no surprise to her friends, Jennifer lets us know exactly how she feels.

An example:

In other news, I hate Duke. I loathe Duke. This is a surprise to no one, but that’s OK. I’m Doc today, so I get to do whatever I want, and what I want to do is to document for all eternity that I hate Duke. It feels good. A friend of mine — a great Michigan sympathizer in his own right — once told me he thought I enjoyed Duke losses more than Kentucky wins. At the time, I was wildly offended by that. In hindsight, he’s probably right. And I’m cool with that.

Thought that was timely what with Duke playing North Carolina tonight at 9 p.m. on ESPN.

Check it out. It’s an entertaining read.

At the post-game press conference last night, Florida’s Billy Donovan was asked about Kentucky and the rest of the league. Now 10-0, the Cats still have two games with Vanderbilt and one each with Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Florida remaining.

Bruce Pearl at last night's UK-Florida game. (H-L photo/Mark Cornelison)

More notes on Kentucky-Florida:

- Former Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl was at the game, sitting in the big-money seats across from the Florida bench.

- Remember, Florida scored the game’s first six points. Erik Murphy hit an outside shot — at first I thought it was three — at 18:19 to make it 2-0. Kenny Boynton scored on a fast break at 17:35 for a 4-0 lead. After a John Calipari timeout, Patric Young scored on a baby hook at 16:34 and the Gators led 6-0. Florida was outscored 78-52 the rest of the way.

- UK’s Kyle Wiltjer hit the game’s first three-pointer. The freshman came off the bench to hit one from the left of the key, which gave the Cats a 9-6 lead at 14:22.

- Kentucky missed nine of its first 13 shots. After that, the Cats made 25 of 42 shots for 59.5 percent.

- A key stretch came when the score was tied at 17. The Cats went on a 10-2 run to take an eight-point lead. An unlikely contributor during that spurt was Eloy Vargas. The former Gator came off the bench to play good defense on Young. In fact, when Vargas came out he got a big hand from the crowd.

- Florida’s first made three-pointer came at the 11:22 mark. Murphy did the honors. Florida’s second made three came at 2:44 mark when Boynton cut the Kentucky lead to 27-22.

- Kentucky somehow manages to string together three-pointers. Marquis Teague hit a three at 1:34 to make it 32-22 UK. With 45 seconds left in the half, Doron Lamb rang the ball from three to make it 35-24. Then just before the halftime buzzer, Lamb did it again for a 38-26 Kentucky lead. Then after Florida scored the first four points of the second half, Teague (18:40) and Darius Miller (18:14) nailed triples to push the home team’s lead back out to 44-30.

- Florida was two-of-17 from three before hitting four of its last 10.

- Florida’s Erving Walker had not been held scoreless in a game since Dec. 30, 2008.

Continue reading ‘A Pearl and some more notes from Kentucky-Florida’