Having trouble getting registered or subscribing? Email us at info@kysportsreport.com or Private Message CitizenBBN and we'll get you set up!

  • Kentucky basketball notebook - Bahamas and college basketball

    By: LARRY VAUGHT

    Kentucky coach John Calipari thinks it is "neat" that Massachusetts is going to retire a jersey in his honor next season. He led UMass to the 1996 Final Four where it lost to eventual national champion Kentucky.

    “What they’re doing is honoring that grouping of players in the 90's. I’ve gotten a bunch of calls from those guys and if you’ve ever started your first company, then it’s your baby," Calipari said Friday.

    "It was all of us coming together as a staff and more about that than me specifically, but I do appreciate it. I’m honored. My daughters went to school there. It’s where we raised our children. That’s our home and we still consider it that.

    "My son went to a prep school that was 10 minutes from there and he wasn’t even born up there, but he still wants to be near UMass and Derek Kellogg. It’s a neat thing.”

    Wisconsin matchup: ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi spoke with media about his latest bracket predictions Friday and had an interesting take on how Kentucky and Wisconsin could end up in the same region and potentially play in the Elite Eight in Cleveland.

    He said Wisconsin is his top number two (seed) while Kentucky is the No. 1 seed overall in the NCAA. Normally the top No. 1 seed and top No. 2 seed would not be placed in the same region.

    "Thankfully I can disagree with the (selection) committee on this because this is their preference of how to do it now. They’ll put the top four teams in, and then even if Wisconsin is the leader of the twos, they’re going to give Wisconsin geographic preference,” Lunardi explained. “That happens to be Cleveland. Their thinking, not mine, is we don’t project subsequent rounds of the tournament. Wisconsin deserves to be as close as possible for their fans, et cetera. And there’s no guarantee that if Wisconsin gets to an Elite Eight game, that its opponents will be the one seed because historically the one doesn’t play the two at a very high percentage.

    "So they’re going by kind of the logic and precedent and ignoring the 800-pound gorilla in the room, which this year is a really dominant number one overall seed. So while Wisconsin would probably rather play in China than Cleveland and avoid Kentucky, that’s just procedurally not how it works anymore.”

    Could that change?

    "The only way that would change if these two remain at the lead of their groups, Kentucky the one, Wisconsin the two, certainly Kentucky is, is they do add up the true seeds of the top four lines,” Lunardi said before explaining a complicated point total that can come into play when making regional assignments.

    "But more likely what I’ve been doing in the mocks that we run, I give that region weaker threes and fours (seeds), not because I think it’s the right thing to do, but because in recent years that’s how they’ve done it.”

    Bahamas platoons: Calipari said his team’s exhibition trip to the Bahamas in August was not about bonding but about seeing if the platoon system the Cats have used much of this season would work.

    “And not only if it would work but would they buy into it, would they allow it to work. And all answers were yes to that. And that’s where we knew we could do this,” Calipari said.

    Calipari wishes teams could take trips like that more than once every four years as now mandated by NCAA regulations.

    “I think that all of us should have two trips if you want in four years. And I think everybody should be able to practice 10 days in the summer for their kids. This was good for our kids, not program. It was good for these kids,” Calipari said. “If you don’t chose to take a trip, practice 10 days at home. If you don’t want to take a trip, maybe a foreign team will come and play you a couple games on your campus. And then college basketball owns August.

    “Our games out-rated USA Basketball. ‘What?’ Yeah. They were on ESPN and they out-rated USA basketball. That means that college basketball, if you want to get a jump start, you want to start changing, (you can). The 30-second (shot) clock is great, but just call fouls. We’ll score more because we will shoot more free throws. Just call fouls so there is more freedom of motion and less banging and bumping, take over August. There are all kinds of things. I like the fact that we are able to prepare young people for what lies ahead by spending some time with them and team building.”

    Calipari stressed that playing four games on campus in August would not hurt academics.

    “It’s like the selection committee puts this (NCAA) tournament together. Whether you play out west or east, you’re not missing class. ‘Well we want them close.’ No. You’re missing the same class whether you’re going to Pittsburgh, Cleveland or wherever you’re going,” Calipari said. “You’re missing the same class and it’s the same with that stuff. They always want to refer it back to class stuff. I just don’t think that’s true.”