Entries from January 2010 ↓

Those attending Saturday’s Kentucky-Vanderbilt game will see a new sight: a “jib” camera.
ESPN asked UK for permission to use the camera, which sets on the end of a long giraffe-neck like extension from a three-wheel platform. ESPN wants to use it to pan the crowd.
Russ Pear, UK’s Associate Athletic Director for Operations and Facilities, said the school had two concerns: that the camera not block anyone’s view of the game and that it be wheeled out of the way when not in use.
So ESPN agreed not to use the camera during game action. It will be used before the game, during timeouts and at halftime, Pear said.
The jib camera will come out of the corner tunnel across the end line from the Vanderbilt bench.
If there are no problems, UK will allow ESPN to use the camera in future telecasts from Rupp Arena, Pear said.

Ray “Rock” Oliver, the strength coach during Rick Pitino’s time as Kentucky basketball coach, is returning to UK, the Cincinnati Bengals said on the team website Friday morning.
Oliver, who worked for the Bengals as associate strength coach, has been named UK’s director of performance, the NFL team said.
The posting made it sound as if Oliver will be in charge of conditioning for several, if not all, UK athletic teams.
“I’m going to Lexington to help (UK football coach) Joker Phillips win a SEC championship,” Oliver is quoted as saying on the posting, “and work again with one of my best friends in Coach Cal.”
Oliver worked with John Calipari at Kansas, Memphis, Pittsburgh and the NBA’s New Jersey Nets.

Vanderbilt’s record against No. 1-ranked teams is 7-14.

Vanderbilt’s record against Kentucky when UK is ranked No. 1 is 4-10. Vanderbilt is 0-8 on a No. 1-ranked teams’s home court, and 0-6 in Lexington when UK is ranked No. 1.

South Carolina had a 0-7 record against No. 1 teams until beating Kentucky on Tuesday.

With a winter storm advisory set to begin at 7 p.m. in Lexington, Vanderbilt decided to change its travel plans to beat the snow.
Normally, Vandy would leave Nashville after practice around 6 p.m. CST to travel to an away game.
Because of the weather, the Commodores planned to leave for Lexington around 11:30 a.m. CST Friday. The change will cause Vandy to practice in Lexington Friday night.
UK and Vandy are scheduled to play at 4 p.m. EST Saturday in Rupp Arena.

In a light-hearted exchange with reporters Thursday, Vanderbilt Coach Kevin Stallings suggested that a call from President Barack Obama earlier in the day might have distracted Kentucky in its game at South Carolina Tuesday night.
When a reporter suggested that South Carolina proved how UK was beatable, Stallings said:
“Oh, I don’t know. They probably got caught on the right time, the right night. How hard would it be to get a group of 18-21 year olds to focus after the President of the United States calls you that day? That was almost like a setup, I think. I’m not sure the President wasn’t for South Carolina.
“I don’t know how John could have possibly gotten them to focus in on that game. That probably makes our job that much harder, because their edge is going to be way up. They’re good enough as it is, we don’t need them to be any edgier than what they would have been naturally.”
When someone asked if he wished Obama would not call Vandy’s team, Stallings said:
“No, but he can call them again if he wants to, though.”

Tickets to the ESPN College GameDay on Feb. 13 have been sold out, UK says in a news release citing Ticketmaster.

The GameDay event will take place at Rupp Arena on Feb. 13 from 11:00 – noon, prior to the Kentucky-Tennessee game, which is scheduled to tip-off at 9:00 p.m. on ESPN.

Tickets to ESPN College GameDay are not good for admission to the basketball game, but to the College Gameday event itself.

As illogical as it sounds, Kentucky big man DeMarcus Cousins had an us-against-the-world reaction to being voted No. 1 in The Associated Press media poll this week. The Cats became the first unanimous choice for No. 1 this season. North Carolina received every first-place vote last season in the pre-season poll and the first seven of the regular season.
“It shows the world we really are No. 1,” Cousins said last week when it became obvious Kentucky would be No. 1. “I mean, people already are saying we don’t deserve it. . . . Some people saying we’re the third-best team.”
Citing “just stuff I heard,” Cousins suggested that many detractors pick at Kentucky.
“They hate us,” he said. “They hate the fact we’re doing big things. Everybody’s saying we’re good, but we’re not able to do anything because we’re so young. We’re the last undefeated team, but we’re so young.
“So much of it is back-firing in their faces, and they don’t know how to handle it.”
Kentucky achieved its first No. 1 ranking since the final wire service poll of the 2002-03 season.
After Kentucky solidified its hold on No. 1 by beating Arkansas 101-70 last weekend, Coach John Calipari said the top ranking was an honor and not a burden.
“We’ll see how we’ll react,” he said. This week’s schedule has Kentucky playing at South Carolina on Tuesday and then returning home to play Vanderbilt on Saturday.
Calipari is no stranger to a high ranking. Several of his Memphis teams reached the rarefied air of The AP poll.
But this time is different.
“They were all veteran teams,” he said of his past experience with highly-ranked teams. “(Memphis) had been to the Elite 8 the year before.
“This was a NIT team and a bunch of children. But they’re very good children.”

For the eighth time in 11 chances, the Southeastern Conference named a Kentucky player its Freshman of the Week.
This time is was big man DeMarcus Cousins, who scored 16 points and pulled down 14 rebounds in only 17 minutes in helping lead Kentucky beat Arkansas 101-70 on Saturday.

It was Cousins’ 10th double-double of the season, one shy of the UK freshman record of 11 (Chris Mills) in a season. He has recorded two straight double-doubles and has recorded six double-doubles this season while playing less than 20 minutes in the game.

Cousins had previously won one SEC Freshman of the Week award. Teammates John Wall (four) and Eric Bledsoe (two ) have combined to win the award six times.

This week brought increased speculation that Kentucky freshman Eric Bledsoe might enter the 2010 NBA Draft.
When asked about that possibility on Friday, UK Coach John Calipari seemed to accept such a departure as the price a program pays for success.
“If we do something unique and special, we’ll lose a bunch of guys,” Calipari said when asked about the Bledsoe-to-NBA speculation. “I’ll be happy.”
Calipari equated a less successful season with the increased likelihood of players returning next season.
But the UK coach welcomed a mass departure.
“It’s reload,” he said. “Who’s next?”

Kentucky Coach John Calipari appeared on the Dan Patrick Show on Thursday.
During the show, Patrick asked Calipari if Wall might play for Kentucky next season.
“He better not be. . . .,” Calipari said according to a transcript. “I am saying that if he came to me and he was the No. One pick in the draft and he said that the wanted to come back, we would probably be wrestling around on the floor. Because there is no reason other than me trying to win more games than he should come back. I also have a couple of other guys that are in here and if they are in the top fifteen to twenty picks and they tell me that they want to come back, I say for one reason, that is if you want to be the No. One pick in the draft or you don’t come back.
“Why would you come back if you are going to be the same pick next year as you are here? If you are telling me that you are coming back on a mission to be the number one pick in the draft then I would say to come on back. Short of that, you got to go because you are not helping yourself. Now you are helping my program coming back and you are going to help me win more games but you won’t believe this. I am OK and my program is OK and the next 50 years what you do is not going to have, will not be a pimple on the butt of this program.”