Loge Level

Kentucky fans being Kentucky fans, we’ve been discussing the odds of the Wildcats making the NCAA tournament since the upset of Vanderbilt (home losses to Gardner-Webb and San Diego and zero road wins be damned). And now that the Cats have strung back-to-back wins together for the first time since November, non-Blue-Goggle-wearing observers are joining in.

In his chat on ESPN.com earlier today, certified Bracketologist Joe Lunardi had this to say about the Cats’ NCAA chances:

Kurt (Wilmington, NC): Joe, please tell me there is some hope for my Kentucky Wildcats. At 9-9, with 11 games to go before the SEC tourney, could the Wildcats sneak into the dance with a strong finish? They are finally getting healthy and are playing well right now. How would they have to finish to receive consideration? Hopefully their strong history plays a role in voters minds.

Joe Lunardi: (2:15 PM ET ) I suspect this will be an ongoing question as January churns toward March. My best guess is that Kentucky needs to post more than just a winning SEC record, but something in the 11- or 12-win range. The ‘Cats then need to avoid any kind of potential “bubble loss” in the conference tournament.

[Link]

I think 10-6 and a couple of wins in the SEC Tournament would be enough to get us in, but then again, I’m not an objective observer or a Bracketologist. And I do think 10-6 (and even 11-5) is doable. No tempering expectations for me, thank you. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

Richard Justice, in a column about college football coaches takes a shot at Gillispie.

Sometimes, coaches negotiate deals and announce they’re happy to be staying put. Only they never sign the new deal and keep listening to offers. Hey, Billy Gillispie, know anyone like that?

Kentucky Wildcats fans have plenty to be encouraged about, and I’ll be the first to admit that I was among the first to proudly proclaim the Cats had turned the corner. And they have.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves — the corner they turned was a meager hurdle in the lanscape of expectations that generally accompany this storied program. The Cats are still only 8-9, 2-2 in the Southeastern Conference. Yes, Tuesday was the first time they’ve had 100 percent of their roster at Coach Billy Gillispie’s disposal, and I can see them rattling off eight or nine wins in their final 12 SEC contests.

But the Cats still have one more roadblock to overcome before we seriously start crowning them SEC contenders and on the NCAA bubble. UK has not won a road game this season. They’ve come close against very competitive teams their last two times away against Mississippi State and Florida, so they’re on the brink of turning that corner, too.

But the Cats are far from being seriously considered for the NCAA bubble. Sure, the NCAA selection committee may give the Cats some sympathy given they played their first 16 games with some combination of a diminished roster. If they’re playing like a 20-8 team down the stretch and are 10-3 with a healthy roster they may get a bid after a couple wins in the SEC Tournament and an 18-14 or a 19-13 record. But even then, their RPI (144th) is going to spell R.I.P.

And until they beat a Georgia, a Vandy, a Tennessee or a South Carolina on the road then that scenario is not a realistic expectation.

And there’s not a home game that should be considered a given with this team. A loss to LSU, Alabama or USC would be a huge disappointment at this stage but not a shock. The Cats have to fight for every point, every rebound and every win.

Even if we assume the Cats win the home games they are supposed to (USC and Alabama), win the road games they are supposed to (Auburn and LSU), lose to Tennessee and Vandy on the road, split their tough home games (Georgia, Arkansas, Ole Miss and Florida) and split the rest of their road games (Georgia and USC), it will have been a great salvage of the season. Their final regular season record would be 15-14 and their conference record would be 9-7.

So, winning on the road will become of utmost importance, especially stealing games at Vandy, Georgia and USC plus getting revenge against Florida in Rupp on Senior Day, which would catch the nation’s attention on the last day of the regular season.

Optimistically, yes, we could be looking at a 17-12 record heading to CATlanta. And an internal optimist might even predict an 18- or 19-win regular season. But, let’s see the Cats win on the road before we expect this .500 team to finish any better than 9-7 in the SEC, which would be a great accomplishment.

Then, let’s win the SEC Tourney and erase all doubt!

While many UK fans are exited about the team’s recent play, Seth Davis would like to point out that Cats are still a major disappointment.  About Kentucky he writes:

Wildcats were ranked No. 20 in the preseason AP poll, but even after knocking off Tennessee Tuesday night, they’re a game under .500 and sitting at No. 147 in the RPI. (Link)

Granted this is a short blurb and he’s covering a lot of teams, but he could have at least mentioned the injury problems.

We’re a few days late on this, but — as promised — here are our thoughts on the University of Kentucky’s decision to name Joker Phillips as Rich Brooks’ eventual successor:

It’s a great move and an important move. It’s a great move because of the continuity it provides. (We certainly won’t claim to be the first to proclaim this.) It’s important because Phillips would be Kentucky’s first African American football coach and the Southeastern Conference’s second. (Again, we’re not breaking new ground by stating this.) (more…)

The lyrics don’t ring literal, but they are, nevertheless, appropriate in the wake of the University of Kentucky’s phenomenal upset of No. 3 Tennessee on Tuesday night:

How do you like me now,
Now that I’m on my way?
Do you still think I’m crazy
Standin here today?
I couldnt make you love me
But I always dreamed about living in your radio
How do you like me now?

It’s been years since country music grasped my attention, and Toby Keith makes my blood boil, but that refrain rang in my head around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.

All the naysayers expected the Cats to self-destruct by now. UK’s fans, administration and boosters were “insane” for at worst running former coach Tubby Smith off, or at the least allowing him to flee for Minnesota.

Well, how do you like us, now? Minnesota media? National media? Local media? Dick Vitale? Tubby Smith? Billy Gillispie bashers?

I love it, and I realize this very limited squad is still only 8-9 and not making the NCAA Tournament unless it does one of two things: 1.) Win about 10 of their next 12 regular games, or 2.) Win the Southeastern Conference Tournament title.

And let me be the first to say that Alternative No. 1 has no chance of happening, but No. 2 is very realistic. I’m optimistic enough to think that if UK can beat the hands-down top team in the league (Tennessee) then the Cats can beat any team in the league. But they still haven’t won a road game. So, to expect more than just a couple of their SEC road games (LSU, South Carolina, Auburn?) to go their way would be overly optimistic.

But on a neutral court — if you call 25,000 rabid UK fans in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome a neutral court — I think UK is as good as any team in the conference, and I like their odds of playing on Selection Sunday.

For that matter, if UK had played either of their two SEC losses at home, or even CATlanta, they would have won those two nailbiters. Mississippi State’s Jarvis Varnado — who played an incredibly dominant game — would have been called for at least a couple of contact fouls on any of his 10 blocked shots at The Hump. And at least a few of the borderline charge/blocking calls that went against the Cats in Gainesville might have gone the other way at Rupp Arena.

Point is, this team was never as bad as the haters hoped. They were playing with half a deck — no Jodie Meeks, no Derrick Jasper, a limited Joe Crawford, a battered Patrick Patterson, a disinterested Alex Legion — and learning a new system.

Now, they’ve turned the corner and are calling themselves a family. And Gillispie has done what Tubby Smith couldn’t with twice the talent the last two years: beat a top 10 team, coach a team who makes free throws consistently and infuse life into a fan base on the brink.

And Tubby Smith has lost two in a row — well on his way to four losses in five games, and maybe five in a row if Michigan can man up – while playing to the level of his competition and still hasn’t defeated a team of note.

Even Patrick Reusse has opened his eyes.

The Cats are re-writing a lot of uninformed columns from a few weeks ago, so why not re-write the song with more fitting lyrics:

 

How do you like us now?
How do you like us now,
Now that the Cats are on their way?
Do you still think we’re crazy
Standin here today?
I couldnt make you love Billy
But I always dreamed about ripping up your column
How do you like me now? 

When the Cats played Tennessee
I heard you lost all sanity
Never imagined they’d make it this far
Then Tubby lost two in a row
Aint it a cruel and funny show?
He took our dreams and tore them apart.

He’s on the phone
And we’re on our own
No Final Four in 10 years
Mitch’s phone starts ringin
Who could that be singin
It’s Billy G, with our wake up call!

How do you like us now?
How do you like us now,
Now that we’re on our way?
Do you still think we’re crazy
Standin here today?
I couldn’t make you love Billy
But I always dreamed about ripping up your column
How do you like us now?

Tell us baby …
We will play on …

Per Chip Cosby of the Athens of the West’s leading newpaper, the Herald-Leader, our beloved Kentucky Wildcats are going all Florida State and Purdue on us and announcing today that Offensive Coordinator Joker Phillips will be Head Coach Rich Brooks’ eventual successor. 
 
We’re going out of town for the holiday weekend, but we promise eventual analysis. (We know you wait with baited breath.)  We’ll hazard a quick guess that Phillips must have gotten a pretty sweet offer over the last couple of weeks

According to SoccerAmerica, John Harkes will replace Eric Wynalda as the lead analyst for ESPN’s MLS telecasts:

Word is spreading at the NSCAA Convention in Baltimore, where the MLS SuperDraft will be staged Friday, that Harkes is replacing Eric Wynalda as lead analyst on MLS telecasts this season. Officially, Wynalda - who is in the third year of a five-year contract - will be assigned other events, but since his contract specifies he will work soccer events, ESPN may scramble to find enough non-MLS soccer events to fulfill his portfolio.

Wynalda angered ESPN executives last year when disparaging remarks he uttered to a group of fans in a bar about ESPN host Jim Rome were disseminated in a blog. He was suspended for a game, fined $5,000, and replaced by former women’s international Julie Foudy. For most subsequent MLS games he shared analyst duties with Tommy Smyth, the lead analyst for Champions League telecasts.

Harkes left his assistant coaching position with Red Bull New York two weeks ago. He has worked on soccer telecasts for the ESPN networks in the past, including the 2006 World Cup and Women’s College Cup, and for two seasons was Fox Soccer Channel’s studio analyst on “MLS Wrap.”

[Link].
 
We’re OK with this. Wynalda earned a lot of praise for his work as a studio analyst during ABC and ESPN’s coverage of the 2006 World Cup.  And he earned a lot of street cred when the infamous Fulham USA interview was posted.  (Although after his ESPN-forced apology, said street cred must be considerably discounted.)  But we’ve never much liked him as an in-game commentator. He’s simply too opinionated and doesn’t provide enough analysis for our liking. 
 
Then there’s this: 

According to sources, veteran soccer commentator JP Dellacamera has been offered the job as lead play-by-play announcer on soccer telecasts, including MLS. Dave O’Brien, who landed 2006 World Cup duties as a condition of signing a new contract three years ago, is overloaded with baseball assignments this year for the Red Sox and ESPN. 

Poor O’Brien endured a considerable amount of grief for his work as the lead anouncer during the 2006 World Cup.  We didn’t think he did too bad, and at least he called MLS games last year to get a better grasp of the game.  But it looks like that experiment has ended (say goodbye to baseball analogies!).  If he doesn’t want to call the games, that’s fine, but we hope ESPN doesn’t send him to South Africa in 2010 without further seasoning. But of course they will. 
 
Finally, this note:

[Tommy] Smyth will continue to do Champions League games on ESPN2 and other international games for ESPN International but is off regular duty on MLS telecasts. 

Another change we’re OK with.  Smyth added little if anything to MLS telecasts, except the routine reference to bulging the ol’ onion bag.

I just noticed last week that UK has already posted the 2008 football schedule on Limestone.  A quick glance at revels that there are not a lot of appealing home games.  Based on Stewart Mandel’s projected power rankings (Link) UK will only play one team at home in the top 25 (#1 UGA).

I was posting this because it’s pretty ridiculous. (Link) Mr. Donegan’s point that Hicks and Gillett should show more respect to Benitez because of the Champions League victory might be a fair one.  However, his claim that this is happening because they are American is preposterous. I see no difference in the Liverpool situation than what happened at Tottenham, Newcastle, and Chelsea.  And unless I’m mistaken none of those clubs are owned by Americans.

Great Britain and the United States; two nations divided by an ocean and a wildly differing view of the manager’s place in the hierarchy of a sports team or, if you prefer, sports franchise.

Over here, team managers enjoy great power and influence for as long as they occupy the office. The great ones become legends. They have stands named after them and gates erected in their honour; Shankley, Paisley, Busby, Stein and, when he retires no doubt, Ferguson.

It’s different in the world of North American baseball, where the team manager is the guy who picks the team, executes the match-day tactics and, if he has a strong personality or a death wish, isn’t scared to challenge the club’s general manager or owners - aka. the real bosses - about the club’s signing policies. Nothing more. In baseball, the great managers are no longer exalted, they are treated like day workers, to be summarily dismissed at the owner’s whim, as Joe Torre, who brought great success to the New York Yankees, discovered to his cost at the end of the 2007 Major League Baseball season.

Once upon a time British football fans could afford to ignore this particular quirk of the American sports world. No longer. The recent influx of American money in British football has meant an influx of American attitudes, most notably at Liverpool, which has now been owned by the American pair of Tom Hicks and George Gillett for nine months.

Saturday’s double-overtime victory against No. 13 Vanderbilt was more than just Kentucky’s first meaningful win of the Billy Gillispie era. It was more than just a win over a ranked opponent.

Hopefully it turns out to be more than just one of a handful of wins for the Wildcats this season. More than a few have already speculated that maybe this will be the turning point for this so-far disappointing UK team.

And that’s what I choose to believe. We’ve been waiting for a seminal moment. There’s bound to be one, eventually, and why not Saturday?

There’s the fact that it’s the best the Cats have played all season and for long stretches, even despite some of the same bone-headed miscues. They threw away a 16-point lead in regulation — one that was four points with less than a minute — and were burned in the final 20 seconds in both regulation and the first overtime.

They lost Derrick Jasper — again — but still overcame adversity. The defense — even in spite of some terrible breakdowns on backdoor cuts and Shan Foster’s unconcious shooting — was at its best this season.

Joe Crawford, a player I’d almost written off because of his apparent unwillingness to give 100 percent on defense, was terrific. I’d nearly filed him in my least favorite Cats category along with Rodrick Rhodes, Antoine Walker, Antwain Barbour and Marvin Stone. But he played inspired and unselfishly on Saturday. Even though Foster made shot after shot in Crawford’s face, Joe was all up on Foster on nearly every shot. It wasn’t for lack of effort and wasn’t for lack of execution. Foster’s jsut a really good player who made really tough shots.

More than anything, this feels like a signature win because of the effort the Cats gave and the intensity with which they played — an intensity that seemed to both fuel the crowd and feed UK’s performance.

I spent five years in Lexington and attended about 80 percent of the home games and virtually all the major games from the fall of 1998 through the spring of 2003. I can remember four games that elicited the kind of emotion on display Saturday: 1998 vs. Maryland, Traitor Rick’s return to Rupp and two Florida games.

So, for all the criticism UK fans have received all season for not accepting mediocrity (or worse), they’ve still packed a 24,000-seat arena and still cheered the Cats when given something to cheer about. I saw 20,000+ show up for a game against an also-ran (Florida International) on New Year’s Eve when the best football team in the school’s last 30 years was playing a bowl game on the same day. Florida would be lucky to get 7,000 under similar circumstances.

UK basketball is still alive and kicking. And hopefully Saturday will be a defining moment in turning the tide toward reclaiming its rightful place in college basketball.

Billy Gillispie isn’t the only new facing media scrutiny. Check out what Jay Bilas wrote about Michigan and John Beilein.

“I detest having to bring this up again because I love John Beilein and think he was a great choice for Michigan, and that he will do a good job there in time. But, what is he talking about?! Beilein has taken great pains to suggest that his players don’t know a basketball from a bowling ball, that his players are “learning how to play college basketball” and that when the Michigan coaches “give their wisdom to them, it’s got to be almost a Montessori experience.” What?! Beilein makes his players sound so stupid and clueless that it is insulting. First, and I say this as a guy who thinks that basketball is far more complicated than most seem to understand, to refer to your own basketball understanding as “wisdom” seems a bit much. Knowledge, yes. Wisdom, take a pill. Even John Wooden wouldn’t refer to his own knowledge as “wisdom.” Second, if your system is so complicated that you need to refer to recruited athletes and students admitted to the University of Michigan as the basketball equivalent of toddlers, maybe you should simplify things so you can compete favorably with Harvard, Central Michigan or Western Kentucky. Beilein has no depth (because of attrition), but Manny Harris (consensus top-50 recruit), DeShawn Sims (consensus top-50 recruit), Kelvin Grady (heavily recruited) and Ekpe Udoh (heavily recruited) are all good enough and smart enough to be competitive. Heck, Purdue is full of freshmen and sophomores, and its players are not being referred to as if they are idiots. Michigan is off to its worst start in 25 years, and it is not all the players’ fault. Nobody is complaining about the poor play because Beilein deserves time to do it his way. Nobody asked me for my advice, and I understand that. But, if I were in Beilein’s situation, I would quit making so many excuses and save my breath for teaching. Or, maybe I’m not smart enough to get it, either.”

Making this more interesting is that Ann Arbor News columnist Jim Carty provides deconstructs Bilas’ logic on a point by point basis (Link).

Yet another columnist from the Land of Lakes piles on us and our “mentally unbalanced basketball universe.”

Good for Tubby Smith and the Gophers. He has them eating from his palm. There was a time when he had the Kentucky media and fans in a similar trance — it was 1998 and 1999, and even to a lesser extent in 2003 and 2004.

Things are going wonderfully for the former UK coach at Minnesota. They’ve won 11 games after a win Wednesday against Northwestern, and they only won nine games all last season.

Then again, check Minnesota’s schedule and you’ll see the Gophers have wins against only three winning clubs, and that includes Santa Clara (8-7) and North Dakota State (8-7). And the signature wins for Iowa State (10-5), whom Minnesota beat 68-58, were against Purdue (10-5), Iowa (7-9) and Oregon State (6-8).

And while Tubby may not have lost to San Diego, Gardner-Webb or UAB, it’s not fair to compare his 10-3 record to Billy Gillispie’s 6-7 without comparing his signature losses — Florida State, Michigan State and UNLV – to that of North Carolina, Indiana and Louisville. Because when either team has played a legit opponent they haven’t faired well.

Sure, Gillispie’s Cats have stumbled against far inferior teams – while Tubby has padded his media butt-kissing caravan at the expense of the Dakotas, Nicholls State and Kennesaw State — but Gillispie might be sitting at 10-3 had he been given a few more teams like Central Arkansas, Florida International and Liberty instead of UAB, Houston and San Diego (admittedly, there was no excuse for Gardner-Webb).

But I’m not even trying to argue that UK is as good as Minnesota. Far from it. Minnesota would handle UK, but then again that’s because Tubby left a brutal schedule and little talent for Gillispie to work with. The point is this: Tubby has Minnesota moving in the right direction, but he won’t get the Gophers to the NCAA Tournament, yet he’s being canonized in the Twin Cities.

Let’s see how much praise Tubby gets when things get competitive, and allow me to wish the Minnesota media and Gopher fans good luck as they embark on a potential five-game losing streak beginning Jan. 17 — a stretch that includes Indiana, Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin. But by then Jim Souhan and Patrick Reusse will have ignored the Gophers because they will have no longer mattered and the feel-good story will have subsided.

And five years from now when Tubby is registering his glorious 20-win seasons — which in this age isn’t always enough to get a team in the NCAA tournament, especially at a place like Minnesota, and can be considered nothing more than above average – with no conference titles and no Final Fours they’ll have better things to write about in the Twin Cities than correcting themselves and apologizing to a Final Four coach like Billy Gillispie and his mentally-disabled universe. (Think: Adrian Peterson, Justin Morneau, Al Harrington)

That’s right. Kentucky is actually part of the basketball universe, and if we have to go through hell to get back on top of that universe, then so be it.

Minnesota is in a nether-region, just satisfying a college basketball curiosity for the time being because the NFL’s Vikings failed to make the playoffs and because the NBA’s Timberwolves are utterly inept and depressing. And that’s exactly where Tubby belongs — where he can be loved and adored, maybe even fly under the radar — instead of being critiqued by the media and fans for his comparative above-average mediocrity.

Taking into account the recent steroid allegations against Roger Clemens we have created a script for a new AT&T commercial.   (Link to the original ad)

There was a time when our Bluegrass basketball armageddon was bigger and better than ESPN’s orgasm (a.k.a Duke vs. North Carolina). It was the 1980s, when UK vs. Louisville was known as the Dream Game.

Separated by only an hour’s drive but decades of not meeting on the court, it was a hostile rivalry that featured two of the top programs in the nation with two legendary coaches — Denny Crum and Joe Hall. The players were just as phenomenal — Rex Chapman, Pervis Ellison, Felton Spencer, Kenny Walker, etc.

But some time in the early 1990s the Wildcats began dominating the rivalry thanks to Rick Pitino, and Duke emerged as a top program. It also coincided with ESPN’s exclusive broadcasting rights to the Duke-UNC series, and the Worldwide Leader’s propoganda machine somehow convinced us the Tobacco Road rivalry was the greatest the sport had ever known (all the while ignoring the fact the series didn’t become interesting until ESPN became relevant).

But even the most ardent Cat or Card fan must admit the Dream Game has lost a bit of its luster. But I wanted to highlight this entry with some of my fondest memories of the Dream Game, with an assist from YouTube.

I’ll start with “King” Rex, the boy wonder. And no better way to start than a montage from the 85-51 beatdown in 1986. Rex had 26 points, four assists and one sick dunk. This steal and dunk highlighted UK’s 76-75 victory at Rupp Arena in 1987, which ended with a last-second tip-in by Cedric Jenkins.

Another rout, in 1996, was highlighted by another posterization by Derek Anderson. That was the last win in an era in which UK won six of seven from the Cards.

More recently, Patrick Sparks made me smile in 2004. That prevented a three-year losing streak to the Cards and began UK’s current reign that was extended to three in a row by Derrick Jasper and the Cats last year.

If that doesn’t get you excited for Saturday, then I don’t know what will.