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UK's entire starting five—freshmen Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and Marquis Teague, and sophomores Doron Lamb and Terrence Jones—announced they'll be leaving Lexington after a national championship. They'll be joined by senior Darius Miller, so John Calipari—as proud as he is of his one-and-dones—will have some giant shoes to fill. No problem: Kentucky's got the top-ranked recruiting class, for the fourth year in a row. More »
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John Calipari and the NCAA championship trophy kicked off a whistlestop tour of the state today, and one of the first stops was in Pikeville, Ky., where Calipari received the key to the city. Perhaps the ceremonial plaque was whipped up hastily, but it sports a pair of typos. [Twitter] More »
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Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Charles likes to start conspiracy theories. More »
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Now that John Calipari has finally won an NCAA championship, Adrian Wojnarowski has written something over at Yahoo that posits the Knicks' job as Calipari's potential next step. Wojnarowski is a terrific reporter, so the rationale behind his suggestion—money, the spotlight, leverage, Calipari's bitterness over his failed NBA tenure with the Nets, etc.—is not just naked speculation. There are plenty of obstacles to consider, of course, but the real takeaway is just how insecure Calipari was when he had the run of the place in New Jersey from 1996-99: More »
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Paul Bessire runs PredictionMachine.com and created the Predictalator, the most advanced sports forecasting software available today. The technology has the ability to account for all of the statistical interactions of the players, coaches, officials, and fans (homefield advantage) in each game. The Predictalator plays every game 50,000 times before it's actually played. Paul tackles the question everyone's been asking: could the best team in college basketball beat one of the worst in the NBA? More »
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If you weren't tuned in to the Lexington Police Department's radio scanner last night, you missed out on a wild world of sports celebrations that ranged from the violent to the perverse. (The #LexingtonPoliceScanner Twitter hashtag alone was trending worldwide, at one point.) We recorded the whole thing, and edited together some of the best—and worst—moments of Lexington authorities' attempts to corral unruly Kentucky Wildcats fans. More »
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Here's a shot from a few minutes ago on WKYT in Lexington of an ill-advised live shot from the middle of a gathering of Kentucky fans at the corner of Woodland and Euclid, near the UK campus. The horrified reactions of the "hosts" broadcasting from what appears to be an RV in New Orleans makes the clip that much better. More »
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Kentucky is your NCAA Division I men's basketball national champion, beating Kansas 67-59. They may or may not blow up Lexington tonight, but it's the explosion of confetti inside the Superdome that has this unidentified radio man concerned. [CBS] More »
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Tell Me When It's Over is an interview series in which we ask former athletes about the moment they knew their playing days were over. Today: Jeff Sheppard, two-time national champion and one of the best dunkers in Kentucky history. More »
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John Calipari is a smarmy greaseball with a habit of making enemies and racking up NCAA violations, and sometimes I think he's the only man who really understands college basketball. More »
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Louisville vs. Kentucky, by far the more compelling game in this year's Final Four, tips off at just after 6:00 p.m. this evening. There are a few reasons why this game has more going for it than Ohio State vs. Kansas (including not being Ohio State vs. Kansas), but none more interesting than the in-state rivalry and the coaches who serve as the faces for that rivalry. More »
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"The misconception is that there are tears coming out of my eyes," Thomas Hill told me on Thursday. "There weren't." Hill is the former Duke guard who in 1992 became the happily crumpled face of the Blue Devils' last-second victory over Kentucky in the Elite Eight—maybe the face of March Madness itself. After Christian Laettner sank his 15-footer through the heart of the Wildcats, the CBS camera caught Hill off near the far sideline, seemingly doing the death scene from Little Women. Now, two decades on, Hill would like the record to reflect that he wasn't actually crying. "It was just a facial expression," he said. More »
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No. More »
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Ah, computers. Is there nothing they can't simulate? More »
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Remember how John Calipari said fans take the UK-UL rivalry more seriously than the players? This is exactly what he's talking about. More »
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Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Not only aren't they from the Bluegrass State, but they don't stay there long enough to care. More »
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Bob Knight said the word "Kentucky" five times this morning on ESPN Radio's Mike & Mike In the Morning. Since this is, apparently, important, here's all five of his utterances. A full transcript of the relevant conversation appears below. [ESPN2] More »
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Did you know that Ashley Judd was a Kentucky superfan? I bet you didn't. It's kept fairly under wraps by everyone involved. So, you may not have known that Ashley was allowed in the locker room following Kentucky's 87-71 thumping in Iowa St. yesterday. Judd was so excited she apparently swiped Terrance Jone's phone and left town with it. More »
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The mystery of life: Using only a razor, this man has created an homage to that which Davis could destroy with the very same razor. More »
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Perhaps you've seen this UPS ad, which has aired since conference tournaments began. Seizing on their new tagline of "logistics," it features the famous 1992 regional final between Kentucky and Duke that ended on Christian Laettner's buzzer-beater. A dark moment for UK, but a legendary ending to one of the greatest games of college basketball ever played. Reasonable people would assume that UPS is marketing to college hoops fans this time of year, by featuring the most iconic moment in the sport's history. This story is not about reasonable people. More »
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Tell Me When It's Over is an interview series in which we ask former athletes about the moment they knew their playing days were over. Today: former basketball player Rick Robey. Robey was a fourth-year senior when Kentucky beat Duke 94-88 on March 27, 1978, to win its first national championship in 20 years. Teammate and Most Outstanding Player Jack Givens scored 41, but Robey made the all-tourney team by putting up 20 with 11 rebounds. Just over two months later he was the No. 3 pick in the NBA draft. More »
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Dickie V's one of ESPN's most polarizing personalities, with people falling either on the side of adoration of his positivity or dismissal of his antics. But we can't quite say we've ever seen anything like what happened at the end of ESPN's NCAA Tournament coverage, in which Vitale had a complete meltdown while predicting a Kentucky national championship. [ESPN] More »
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Kentucky beat Florida, at Florida, 74-59 and wrapped up an all but guaranteed No. 1 seed come Tournament time. The win was Kentucky's 22nd straight victory and capped a perfect season in the SEC. Florida fans wanted this one badly, so they distributed flyers to assist in distracting and psyching out Kentucky players. Some highlights include: More »
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Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin dropped by Lexington yesterday to check out the top-ranked Kentucky Wildcats' SEC match against Ole Miss as a guest of UK head coach John Calipari, a Pittsburgh-area native. More »
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Your morning roundup for Feb. 12, the day we occupied Palin. Got any stories or photos for us? Tip your editors. More »
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Kentucky basketball fans have invaded Nashville in an attempt to overwhelm Vanderbilt fans ahead of today's matchup between the Wildcats and Commodores, one which ESPN chose as its College GameDay site of the week. (They're not-so-cleverly calling it "Occupy Memorial.") More »
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Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Coach Cal isn't sure his Cats are tough enough yet. More »
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The Memphis Tigers, coached by Josh Pastner, lost 76-72 to unranked (and undefeated) Murray State yesterday. John Calipari did not get credited with the loss, because John Calipari stopped coaching Memphis two and a half years ago, when Kentucky offered him $31.65 million and free membership to a country club. Nonetheless, John Calipari did get introduced as "head coach of the Memphis Tigers" by the Memphis PA announcer. Oh, that's awkward. More »
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On a day that already saw the #2 team in the country fall, the Indiana Hoosiers brought down top-ranked Kentucky on this buzzer-beating three-pointer that left Dick Vitale a puddly mess of screams and IU coach Tom Crean shaking his head in disbelief.[ESPN] More »
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"It's just boring." [Kentucky Kernel] More »
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Christian Laettner is not particularly popular in the state of Kentucky. Indeed, it's argued he's the most hated man in the state, a characterization that reflects both Kentucky's basketball-first attitude and its long memory (it's been nearly 20 years since Laettner hit the buzzer-beater that led his Duke Blue Devils over the Wildcats in the 1992 NCAA Tournament). More »
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The outrage in at least one corner of the Bluegrass State today has been over Calipari's comments, beginning at the two-minute mark, in which he seems deliberately not to mention UK's in-state rivalry with Louisville. cn|2 "reporter" Will Mapes, whose station's coverage area includes Louisville, doesn't seem to notice, at least until he's back in the studio re-applying his blue and white face paint. But then again, cn|2's sports editor, Matt Jones, is a Kentucky sports blogger, and Mapes' own bio says he is "crazy about the Cats." Getting weak at the knees and passing it off as news is apparently what they do. More »
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Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Calipari on how to pay just the ones that bring in the money. More »
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ESPN's Marc Stein reports that the NBA has fined the New Jersey Nets $50k for Jay-Z's visit to the Kentucky Wildcats locker room. More »
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Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: maybe he'll get to keep this one! More »
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Once upon a time, complaining about exploitation in the NCAA made you the turd in the punch bowl and/or Jason Whitlock. "College athletes should be paid" marked troll territory. Rollie Massimino selflessly forges boys into men, damn it! He's never made a dime off basketball! More »
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Yesterday, the big news was that John Calipari had moved the Wildcats out of their Newark hotel, giving some excuse about wanting a place "on the outskirts of the city ... so they didn't have any distractions." I don't know if I buy that, because I don't think you can get any more outskirty than an airport Wyndham in North Jersey. More »
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Last Wednesday, UConn and Kentucky faced off in the Maui Invitational Final. Kemba Walker had blown the tournament up in the previous games and saw his NBA Draft stock rising, so why was Celtics GM Danny Ainge so bored with the proceedings? More »
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The one-and-done Kentucky stud needed an A in a certain high school class to be academically eligible for college. The grade report shows he made a C average. What gives? More »
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