State of the Union Part Deux

I know everyone has been anxiously awaiting the second part of my State of the Union. Despite the common belief that I waited just because I was too lazy to update in the last couple of weeks, that is in fact not the case. I was waiting for a big win by the Cats (like the one to Tuesday) so we can have a bit of a positive update. Before getting to the current status of the Cats, we will give a little review of the season.

As everyone knows, the Cats opened with 2 home games for the 2K Sports College Classic. HOWEVER, despite what the national media (idiots) believe, Kentucky did not "open up the season with a loss to Gardner Webb." They did however lose to the runnin' bulldogs in the second game of the season, perhaps one of the worst in Rupp Arena history. Maybe this would feel better if G-W continued to have a great season. However, they currently stand at 9-11 on the season. It wouldn't, unfortunately, be the low point of the season.

With a loss to G-W on the books, the season continued with a number of disappointments after that. For starters, the Cats are still without a road win, and losses to IU, UL, San Diego (Yikes!), UAB (in which Robert Vaden played one of the best halves of basketball I have ever seen), Houston, Miss St and Florida.

At points, I have doubted my man crush Billy G. We have been decimated by injury, and have lost several games that we should not have. However, it appears that it is possible we have turned it around. We have competed in all our SEC games and came through the first 4 SEC games against the best competition with a 2-2 record. Recently rivals wrote at article about Billy Clyde's season thus far. Here is the link: http://collegebasketball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=766158 It talks about how hard CBC is on his players, but how powerful it was once they bought in. My favorite quote is from a role player on his A&M team: "But once Antoine and Acie bought it, it became contagious and we all bought in. Once the season began we started seeing that it was all worth it. I hated how hard it was at times but, looking back, I wouldn't trade it for the world." Folks, Joe and Ra Smooth have bought in, and it is gonna get nasty. Expect a prediction for the rest of the season after the Cats put a whoopin' on the Cocks 78-59 today.

**************BREAKING NEWS******************* Joe C will not play in today's game, I still feel confident the Cats winning but maybe by not as much.

State of the Union, Part 1

Well folks, I am sure everyone has been anxiously awaiting my take on this years Basketball Cats. It has been a rough couple of years for those of us in the "Roman Empire," but this season has the makings of the worst since Eddie "He who must not be named" Sutton attempted to drive the death nail into our beloved basketball coffin. Fortunately for Kentucky Fans, Rick "He who must not be named #2" Pitino rescued the Cats and put us back in the National Spotlight. Before season's end, is it going to be Tubby "He who must not be named #3" around the Bluegrass or will Billy Clyde be able to turn it around for the Cats? In fact, if Billy Clyde can't turn it around, he might become Billy "He who must not be named #4" around the Bluegrass. (That's right I just made a Harry Potter reference). Today's State of the Union will be more of a retrospective look at what got the Wildcats tho this particular state of Affairs. I write this on the Eve of the "Dream Game" as a a way to get everyone prepared for the big game. We depart for the big Honeymoon tomorrow, so expect post-game analysis and the other parts of the State of the Union at a later date.

• You probably never thought you would see the day where a picture of Rick Pitino (aka Slick Rick, aka Traitor Rick, aka Benedict Arnold, aka That piece of crap that had the audacity to coach for Little Brother after leading us back the promised land, aka "Cleveland Clinic" Rick, aka 3 game losing streak to Dayton Rick, etc) on derekaburden.blogspot.com did you? Well here it is, and for good reason. Despite the fact that I despise what he did when taking the Little Brother job, he should be credited for bringing the Cats back to dominance in the '80s. Also of note, the 1996 Kentucky Basketball team has to be the best team assembled since Walton or Alcindor roamed the court in Westwood. This team would absolutely destroy people, once notching 86 points in a half. 86 POINTS IN A HALF! And no it wasn't against souteast northern missiouri technical college, it was against an SEC opponent.
  
  Rick deserves his credit for turning us around. We went from a team full of no-talents with one Superstar (the Unforgettables) to a team full of superstars in 1996. The only problem was, he had no intentions of staying. Thinking he would hit the lottery with Tim Duncan, Tricky Dick bolted for Boston. The rest, as they say, is history. He instead got Chauncey Billups (pre Mr. Big Shot era) and tried to run a full court press in the NBA. This doesn't work in a league where 6'8" men dribble like they are 5'10" point guards. Humiliated, rich, and with his ego beaten down he stepped down (got fired) from the Celtics. In a whirlwind move, he accepted the job with little brother and found the college game much harder the second time around. Players no longer listened to their coach, and not everyone wanted to play on a campus whose most attractive feature is a series of silos proclaiming it "The best college sports town in America". The little known fact about this sign is that in small print at the bottom it says : "and by best in America, we mean second best in the state." Little Brudder fans proclaimed that they would be a "top 5 program in no time." This has not occurred, and despite the fact that Rick has a final 4 on his resume for the Tards, it is the only season he has played in the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.
  
  We have digressed a bit into the struggles of Traitor Rick, but who doesn't enjoy reveling in his misery? Moving on to the relevance of our current struggles, here was our recruiting class that Traitor Rick worked so hard to get us while negotiating with the Celtics prior to the 1998 season: Micheal Bradley (who transferred, Myron Anthony (who stole a car), and Ryan Hogan (who transferred). Well, one could excuse that, he was job shopping. So how did he do the year after winning it all in 1996 and sending four (4!) players to the NBA? His recruiting class was: Jamaal Magloire (all time great) and Steve Massiello (greatest ball boy ever). So in Ricks final 2 years while being atop the College basketball universe, he still somehow only got 1 impact recruit in 2 years. The effects of this would be seen a couple of years into Coach Smith's tenure

• So that leads us into the Tubby Smith era. As mentioned previously, the Tubster was left with an absolute ton of talent on his squad, and promptly took that squad to the National Championship in his first year. This calmed some people's fears about having an African-American as a head coach at the University of Kentucky. However, with Saint Rick (as he was known at the time before coaching for da Ville) going to 2 consecutive championship games, Tubby had one more year to live up to his mentor.




• So that takes us to the 1999 NCAA tournament. This is one that really sticks out to me, and I am quite bitter about because I witnessed it in person. In the round of 16, the Cats faced Miami (OH) and Wally's world. What I remember from that game is this: there were about 50 Miami fans there, but they were the 50 loudest and most obnoxious people you will ever meet. It seems like the same cars were doing loops around downtown St. Louis with "Wally's World" flags hanging out of their cars. I must give them props, because they really brought it. The next game we played the Spartans of Michigan State to give Wayne Turner his fourth final 4 in four years. That would have been a helluva accomplishment. It wasn't meant to be as the Cats took at early double digit lead, but fell to the dancing leprechaun, Mateen Cleaves. I hate that man to this day.
  
  Well at this point, the slim recruiting by Mr. Pitino in the last 2 years of his tenure began to show, as the Junior and Senior class was lacking (sound familiar?). The Tubster lost in the second round of the NCAAs to Syracuse, preventing a rematch with Michigan State. This was Coach Smith's first 10 loss season, leading to the moniker "10 loss Tubby."
  
  Contrary to popular belief, Coach Smith landed several good recruiting classes in these early years, but was never able to deliver with a good run in the postseason. Disappointing losses to Southern Cal and Maryland ended the next 2 seasons before Cats' fans would like them to. Then came 2003.
  
  2003 is all the evidence that you need Tubby Smith is a great coach. In 2003 everything clicked. We had a Bona Fide Star (Keith Bogans), surrounded by a bunch of unselfish role players willing to do whatever it took to win. A perfect record in the SEC and a 26 game win streak, the Cats appeared to be the team to beat, after being discarded at the beginning of the season. Looking ahead, it appeared odd that 2 lower seeded teams were playing closer to home than the #1 overall seeded Cats, but that didn't matter.
  
  Then came the Wisconsin game. Wisconsin is perennially one of those Big Ten teams that wins games by just beating up the other team, or boring them to the point where they don't care and just let them score so they can have the ball back. Fortunately this type of game was right up the Tubster's alley, and the Badgers played the Cats close, but finally succumbed under to the much superior Cats. 'Quis played the best game of his career and finished with 28 of the teams 63 points. This was not the story of the game, though. The story of the game was Keith Bogans sustaining a sprained ankle early in the game and only playing 15 minutes. The injury was of the dreaded "high ankle sprain" variety which one time caused football-cat and SEC defensive player of the year Dennis Johnson to miss an entire season. It looked liked the Cats would have to challenge Marquette without their best player. Shouldn't be a problem, though, they only have 2 white kids who can shoot it, some fat guy that transferred from Miss State, and some kid named Wade who can't shoot it from the outside.
  
  Well, we all know what happened. However I feel like a couple of key details from this game are often overlooked. First of all, D Wade did murder us with a triple double totaling 29 11 and 11, but that was not the main factor that killed us. We got behind big in the first half due to some strong shooting from Novak, and Robert Jackson (the fat guy from Miss State) held us off late with some key low post scoring. On the UK side, 2 factors really affected this game other than Bogans' injury. First off, Chuck Hayes picked up 2 fouls about 2 minutes into the game, and Marquis Estill followed his career best game up with an absolute stinker. Jackson dominated him the whole game, and in a situation where the Cats needed Estill to step up he could not produce. Had Hayes been able to stay in the game, he might have been able to slow down Wade. Had Estill not had his head up his butt, he might have been able to be the go-to-guy the Cats were missing with Bogans out.
  
  


• That takes us through the "successful" part of the Tubby Smith era. He tried to get it together with a good run in 2004 (#1 overall seed) but suffered a shocking 2nd round loss to UAB. He also tried to get it going again in 2005 with an Elite 8 run, but could not get a rebound in overtime to make a trip to the Final Four
  
  It has been lamented enough that I need not discuss the next 2 seasons and the messy exit for Coach Smith (including the entire national media calling Kentucky a bunch of racist idiots). This brings us to The Billy Clyde Era which we will touch on in the next post.

GameDay Update

That's right folks, College GameDay is in Lexington. Let me say that again, COLLEGE GAMEDAY IS IN LEXINGTON. After 7 years of hard knocks, so far this year I have seen: the Cats break the losing streak to the Cards, the Cats given retribution to LSU for the Bluegrass Miracle, and now the boys of College GameDay and Mr. Corso of headgear fame have come to LexVegas. Don't adjust your TV sets, hell has not frozen over this is the alternative universe known to many as Kentucky Football 2007.

• Is it a sign that today's dictionary.com word of the day was jocund? Here is the excerpt: jocund \JOCK-uhnd; JOH-kuhnd\, adjective:
  Full of or expressing high-spirited merriment; light-hearted; mirthful.
  Is it possible that I willbe jocund after the game once again, or will it be the stupid gator fans that are?
• Today is another Saturday in a great string of Saturdays this year. One could argue that there have been 3 games termed "the biggest game in Commonwealth history," including this one. As a Cat fan, we have experienced too many hardships in the previous years to believe that this could possibly be real, but I just pinched myself and it is really happening. Could the Cats break the NCAA's 3rd longest current losing streak to an opponent and beat the Gators for the first time since '86?
• GameDay is without a doubt the greatest TV show in the history of time. Chris, Lee and Kirk really have it rough travelling to campuses all over the country every week and talking about college football. How does one end up in their position? Word on the street is that Jack Bauer envies the GameDay trio and was unable to even get a tryout for the show. Expect cameos from Billy Clyde himself on the set. From the looks of yesterday's update on the grass outside Willy T, it looks like Lee is going to be putting the Gator head on instead of the Wildcat head. That is not necessarily a bad thing as Lee's record with the mascot head pick is not very stellar.
• The one thing the Cats have going against them is the fact that ESPN simulation picked the gators by 14 over the cats. So far this season, the simulation is perfect in picking the winner, including the Cats over the Cards in week 3.
• I'm about to take off for the gameday run, but here at derekaburden.blogspot.com we have some breaking news. Steve Brown, DC for the Cats, has been spent every waking hour researching how to stop the Cyborg known as Tim Tebow. We have just learned that coach Brown discovered a substance deep inside Mammoth Cave that will render the Florida QB ineffective. Just remember you read it here first.
• Despite the fact that Florida has 2 losses and a ranking much lower than the Bayou Bengals last week, I feel a little less confident in the Cats this week. 2 of the things that kill the Cats are mobile QBs, and trick plays. With the combo of Urban Meyer and the Cyborg Tim Tebow the Cats will face both. We just need to roll the dice and hope for a few breaks. Thus far this season, the Cats have proved that their offense is only stopped when they make turnovers, so prevent those and hopefully we will have a chance in a shootout. I say Steve Brown unveils his secret weapon late in the 3 quarter and Tebow makes a couple of mistakes that give the Cats the chance to take the lead and hold on to it until the end. I say Cats 38 Gators 31.
• By the way, those wondering about Sam Bright's thoughts on the game: "Basically we completely outman this team. With Vegas setting the spread for this weeks game as the Cats a 45 point favorite, I plan on turning it off at half-time. They have no team speed and they have no history in football. It has been years since Florida competed for the SEC, much less the NCAA championship. They fold under the pressure of GameDay and the Cats win by 100."

Have fun folks and feel free to stop by the tailgate if you come out today.

Game Day Update

It's quarter til 6 and time to get hyped up for the #1 Tigers to come into commonwealth. UK hasn't beat a #1 team since the 70's when they were cheating so needless to say a victory today would be probably the biggest in the program's history. Hopefully the house will be rockin' and the Cats will be able to keep it close and have a shot at the end to avenge some of the terrible losses we have had to the Bayou Bengals in the past.

• Sam Bright on today's big matchup: "LSU is probably the most overrated #1 team in the history of time. I would say they have only 1 or 2 guys that will play on Sundays. The talent discrepancy between Kentucky and LSU is huge. They do not belong on the same field with us."
• Am I the only one that is bothered by the fact that there are 2 teams nicknamed "Tigers" in the SEC. Sure there are 2 "Bulldogs" in the SEC as well, but there are bulldogs living in the United States. The last time a tiger lived in the US area was of the saber tooth variety in the Pre-Cambrian era. Seriously, should Auburn and LSU have to fight it out to be the "real tigers" when the animal is not even indigenous to the area? It's not like there is a lack of mascots out there. Surely, one could change and become the "Weebles" or something
• Speaking of revenge, let's review the last 3 times the Tigers and Cats have hooked up on the gridiron. Last year, LSU housed us from beginning to end putting up 49 while shutting us out. I am not yet convinced that they could have scored 200 on us if they wanted to. In 2001, the Tigers went down the field on a long methodical drive throwing a touchdown to break our hearts 29-25. And everyone knows about the Bluegrass miracle in 2002. The Cats had the team beat that won the National Championship the following year as idiots hung from the goalpost when Devery Henderson crossed the goal line.
• As always, it sounds like Big Blue Madness was an over hyped practice that turned out to be a little cheesy. It's great to bring in Billy Clyde with a bang and let the fans meet the new recruits, but unless you are 1o years old it doesn't live up to the billing.
• Short post this week cuz I've got to get rolling for my pregame run. In order for the Cats to do what they need, I really feel like Raffie has to play. He brings an element to the game as a complete running back that none of our other backs give us. He doesn't have to be 100%, but we need to see some production out of him. Dre' and the rest of the team have to play mistake-free ball and we finally have to get some production out the kicking game. The Tigers have amazing athletes all over the field, and we have to contain any crazy trick plays they try to pull off. When under pressure, Dre' needs to get rid of the ball and get back in the Heisman race like he was before the USC game. He throws for 3 TD's and Dixon runs for 1 and the Cats pull it out 31-28. GEAUX BIG BLUE!

Game Day Update

Today is the big game versus the Cocks. Despite the fact he might be the greatest football mind of our era, you have to hate Steve Spurrier when he is the coach on the other sideline. In the clutch, you know he is going to pull out a stick and draw up a play in the sand to win the game. The difference is this year the Cocks have the D to back up Spurrier's O. This D has yet to come up big against the run, and with rain likely in Columbia they will face a big test with Little, Dixon, and trush frosh Derrick (what a terrible way to spell an amazing name) Locke. And let's be serious, their QB is a frosh named Smelley. That can't bode well for them.

• Sam Bright on today's game: "In my expert opinion, this should be a pretty, dull, predictable running game for USC. Their coach doesn't seem to have much experience playing in the SEC and i think they will choke when exposed to big, D1 football. Rich Brooks needs to reign in his defense because it's going to be a ho-hum evenin of rushing."

That's all the time we have for today. As for the game, I say the Cats take it 41-27 adding a TD late to make the game seem like a bigger blowout than it was. Dre' throws for 3 TDs and takes the lead in the Heisman race. Little punches 2 more in and Lones Seiber even makes a couple of field goals.

Update from the Dirty

I am here in Atlanta, getting ready to head out the door for the Clemson Georgia Tech game, to this is gonna be a short post.

• Sam Bright on today's game: "FAU has such a great track record in the NCAA as a long time power, I am not sure how UK can keep up. The only thing we have going for us is that their coach hasn't had very much success at his other stops in Florida"
• Bobby Dodd Stadium is a cool place to watch a football game. The sightlines of the buildings of downtown Atlanta while a college football game is pretty awesome.

On today's game, I say the boys don't overlook FAU and Dre' only has to play through 1 series in the 4th quarter. We put 'em away early and let the young guys get some playing time. Cats 56-14.

Bizzaro World

That's right folks, we are now entering an alternate dimension. In this alternate place, the University of Kentucky football team wins SEC games on the road (not including Vandy and Miss St), makes 4th quarter comebacks, and bounces back when adversity hits them. What causes this? Leadership of course. The national media all thought the Cats were ready for a fall after the big win over Louisville. What the national media forgot to factor in was that this Kentucky team is chock full of leaders that will refuse to allow a collapse to happen. Dre', Tamme, Little, Woodyard, Leger these guys will not allow our team to lose focus for one minute and take the eye off the prize. This weekend is the classic "trap game," coming off a big road win with a big road game on a short week to look forward to. Normally a game like this would make me very nervous for UK, despite the fact we are favored by over 3 touchdowns. Not with this group of leaders. We snag victory from the jaws of defeat instead of the reverse usually seen with past UK teams.

All this leadership lends to the question: what will happen to the program next year when all of our seniors are gone? That remains uncertain. UK would have to have a major collapse to not have a second consecutive bowl appearance this year, and a third consectuve post-season appearance would be great for recruiting. The main questions focus on 2 positions: QB and WR. At QB, there are several names in the possibility. Number one is Curtis Pulley (back-up QB/WR last year). Curtis will be a redshirt junior and gives the Cats athleticism and the possibility to run the spread-option made so famous by Mr Vince Young at Texas. Mike Hartline (RS-Soph) and Will Fidler(RS-Soph) are both on campus now and appear to be making strides but not to the point where they could start in the SEC next year. The x-factors remain Matt Lentz(RS-Fresh) and possible junior college transfer and former E-town QB Chris Todd. Who will win the job? My money is on Pulley or Lentz with Todd being a dark horse depending on his performance this year at JUCO. At WR, Dicky Lyons will be a legitimite threat in the slot. We just need two guys to step up on the edges. I see Kyrus Lanxter (Soph) and True freshman Aaron Boyd giving us some young threats on the edges and Senior Demereo Ford being a solid presence to keep the young guys straight.