Kentucky Sports Radio

We will try and get as many questions answered in an hour as possible.

If you enjoy reading articles about the UK men’s basketball team, please visit my webpage at http://kybasketball.blogspot.com.  You can also now follow my webpage on Twitter- the race to 3,000 followers continues. My webpage has been around for several years and I update it several times per day so UK basketball fans have access to the best and most recent articles about the team.

Now, The Article Links-

Darnell Dodson isn’t on Campus- Calipari hopes he will be in Lexington for the final 4-week summer school Session

Pat Forde says UK-Louisville is biggest college basketball rivalry of 2009-10

Darius Miller is having a great time representing the United States in New Zealand

Tax documents seem to indicate that Gillispie was an employee of the UK Athletics Association

2012 recruit Perry Ellis will visit UK on Saturday

UK recruit Harrison Barnes will probably start to cut his list down a little bit after the summer AAU season is Over

Many believe that just a few days prior to John Wall committing to Kentucky, he was headed to Miami

Bill Self doesn’t hink we’ll be talking about the Henry family saga Again

SEC basketball is — in theory, at least — on the Rise

I didn’t get a chance to post this earlier when a buddy of mine emailed it to me, but former Tennessee quarterback Jim Bob Cooter was arrested and charged with aggravated burglary after allegedly breaking into a house and crawling in bed with a woman.

That’s it. Aaron will be by shortly with his links.

UK bid farewell to one of its visitors from last week as California forward DeAndre Daniels, committed to Texas.  If you can’t remember who he is, check out Dustin’s profile of him from last week.  But, fret not, as your regularly scheduled “we lost a recruit?!?!” freakout should be tempered by the guarantee that Calipari will get who he needs.

Also, it should be noted that Dustin cannot be here to post this because he is at Home Goods shopping with his fiancee and dog.  In case you were wondering.

I talked to Evan recently and he is very excited about tonight.  To gear you up for the live blog (7:30PM), take a look at Evan’s article on foxsports.com today.  He talks about the 2009 recruiting class and the neverending saga of its stars.  Obviously, Kentucky has been a big benefactor of this, so this article very much relates to UK.

Evan is the most knowledgable person I know when it comes to recruiting, and he is rarely wrong.  And I know he has alot to talk about when it comes to Xavier Henry, and the Henry’s and family put alot of egg on alot of peoples faces, including this fanbase. 

So, at least for tonight, Evan will shed his Hilltopper fandom, and become part of the Wildcat Nation.  Bring him some good questions.  And some peach cobbler.

So we now have this “Americas Top Talent” show, which apparently has been on for four years. It has a British guy that isnt Simon Cowell, one of the Osbornes and David Hassellhoff. With that crew, unless something awful happens, it wont make the blog. But then something like this happens…a Kentuckian named Kevin Skinner comes on stage, puts forth a great performance and makes the blog. Check it out…and try not to want to punch people for snickering at him before he sang…

Chris Littmann at The Sporting Blog reported yesterday that the NCAA will no longer consider the last 12 games a basketball team more favorably than the overall schedule. The Sporting News’ Michael DeCourcy explains, “It’s neither fair nor logical to suppose a particular portion of the regular season should be of greater importance. Baseball games in the September pennant drive might seem more important, but ultimately a team makes the playoffs based on how it performs from April to October.”

Remember this: If our previous coach was still here our early/non-conference schedule would be weaker. With this NCAA Tournament selection criteria change, our lack of toughness in November & December 2009 would weigh more heavily than it did in Nov. & Dec. of 2008.

Update by Fake Gimel: Hurr, I was Aztec Crazy instead of Torero Terrorized. My bad.

I woke up this morning to quite a few recruiting updates and I would hate for you guys to go into the Evan Daniels Live Blog without a full bag of questions to toss at him, so here’s a little list of some of the “hot topics” you can discuss:

(1): As Matt posted earlier, Perry Ellis will be making a visit to Memphis and Kentucky this weekend before heading up to the Lebron James Skills Academy on Sunday. Ellis (pictured above) is a 2012 power forward that measured in last at 6′8″ 210 lbs. He was Kansas’ Gatorade Player of the Year, AS A FRESHMAN. Calipari and crew recruited and offered Ellis while they were at Memphis and have now officially extended a big blue offer as well. I’ll be sure to get an update on how the visit went when I see Ellis in Akron but, until then, feel free to lay all the questions you have about Ellis on Evan.

(2): Yesterday, Jeff Goodman released an interview with Doron Lamb in which Lamb states that UK “is at the top.” While I think it might be a bit premature to say that UK is #1, I do think that it is great news to hear Doron say that UK still remains in his top group of schools even after the visit. With Doron’s silence and lack of all out praise for Kentucky after the visit, I was beginning to get a little scared that his visit didn’t go as well as UK had hoped. This statement, while not necessarily making me believe that UK is #1, does make me feel a lot better about how his visit went.

(3): More love coming from John Wall’s former teammate CJ Leslie lately. In an interview at the NBA Camp, Leslie said that UK would definitely be getting a visit from him this summer and also that John Wall has been in his ear about how great UK is. Now, in an interview with Kentucky Sports Report, Leslie adds that the visit to UK is pretty much set in stone except for an exact date. The holdup is trying to cram the date into his busy summer schedule. I say, “What better time than this weekend young man?” You’ll be heading up to Akron for Lebron’s Camp, you can hit up Lexington on your way in or out. CJ will be the focus of tomorrow’s UK Recruiting Notebook profile, where I’ll include a little more information on his game and recruitment.

(4): If you remember back to Monday, I did a post on tidying up the office after a coaching change. In that post I mentioned that Stacey Poole was a former UK target of Gillispie’s, he had a great NBA camp and he said that UK wasn’t currently recruiting him. I also added that his NBA camp performance was so good that, once Calipari’s staff caught wind of it, they’d probably start recruiting Stacey again. Fast forward to today and Insidetheville.com does an interview with Stacey where he lets it be known that UK is back in the picture and, not only that, they are in his TOP 5! Now, don’t take this as a post where I’m patting myself on the back because I’m not. A gorilla with a press pass could have watched Stacey’s play and noticed his NBA physique and told you, in sign language of course, that UK would be on that soon. This is a testament to two things: (1) How good Stacey played in Charlottesville and (2) How much the kids are loving UK right now. Stacey has long been a target of UL and Indiana, along with Clemson and South Carolina. Those four schools make up the rest of Stacey’s top 5. UK has yet to offer but one may be coming after the coaches get a personal look during the July evaluation period.

(5): Lastly, Mychal Parker has been pretty quiet about his visit to UK. I’ve not seen any media outlet talk to him about his visit there and he won’t be in Akron. Either he is still at Tolly Ho, downing cheese tots, or he is just being secretive about his recruitment.

So there you go. Now you are fully armed and ready to go with some topics for the Evan Daniels Live Blog. As BTI said earlier, Evan truly is one of the best in the business and its great to have him stop by for a visit. I’ll be back tomorrow with a CJ Leslie profile to get your Fourth of July holiday weekend started off right.

Last night I was on the radio with Larry Glover on WVLK and we talked about all things UK, ranging from the Zahveeay saga to the predictions of who will be key for UK success next year. Below is the audio link if you missed it. Click on for some afternoon listening….

Matt with Larry Glover

The #1 ranked player in the Class of 2012, Perry Ellis will be visiting UK this Saturday. Ellis is a 6′8″ forward who has all the skills necessary to be an NBA lottery pick and perfect fit for the Calipari offense. He had been offered by Calipari while at Memphis and the young man is likely to remain in the Top 5 of his class throughout his high school career. He is from Kansas, and while he has often been considered a Kansas lean for that reason, Ellis is a big fan of Calipari and has been in contact with him for a long time. Ellis will play in the Lebron James Camp in Akron beginning on Sunday and his last stop before the camp is in Lexington. Ellis is an absolute stud and if UK gets him….well, watch out.

Demarcus Cousins likes many things, and one of them has to be tonight’s BTI live blog with EVAN DANIELS of Scout.com. Evan will discuss the 2010 recruiting scene at 7:30 pm on here and take your questions on who is going where and why. Eric Bledsoe and John Wall are excited about the event (as seen by their smiles) and Cousins aint having nothing to do with Evan Daniles, and definitely not BTI. So check it out…it should be the most information you can get and for half the money.

Evan with Josh Harrelson, A Broadcasting Legend, and Mike Tyson.

EVAN DANIELS OF SCOUT.COM WILL BE HOSTING A LIVE BLOG ON THIS WEBSITE ON TONIGHT AT 7:30PM TO ANSWER ALL OF YOUR RECRUITING QUESTIONS.  YOU WILL GET ONE HOUR WITH EVAN (and me and beisner) SO THE QUESTIONS BETTER BE TOP NOTCH TO BE ANSWERED.  EVAN IS THE BEST IN THE BUISNESS, ALONG WITH RUMBAUGH, AND IT SHOULD BE A TON OF GREAT INFO.

1. If you didn’t catch them yesterday, Evan Daniels and the scout.com team has updated their 2011 rankings, with a TON of the top guys considering UK.  Teams who already have commitments from Top 75 guys include Florida, Texas (2), Louisville (2), Arkansas, Texas A&M, Arizona St. (2), Illinois, Indiana.

2. Also released recently was Andy Katz and his Top 20 or so guys who will be the biggest NBA prospects in college basketball this season.  Kentucky has 3 guys included in this list.  And Xavier Henry graces his wonderful presence as well.   

3. CNNSI has released their Fortunate 50 list again this year, and no suprise, Tiger and Phil rank at the top of the list.

4. THE WORST REPORTER PACKAGE EVER!!!!!