Another of Barnhart’s goals was to have the UK athletic department rank in the top 15 of the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup rankings by 2015. UK was ranked 13th in the most recent release of the standings after finishing 34th last year.

The athletic department has never finished higher than 26th in the Directors’ Cup rankings. The final standings for the year are released on July 1.

UK has won four championships in the last two years. The UK rifle team has won its conference championship in each of the last two seasons, and the men’s basketball team won both the regular season and conference championships this season in the first campaign under head coach John Calipari. Those championships put the athletic department ahead of schedule to win 15 championships by 2015.

“We had set our sights on being top 15 in all sports by the year 2015,” Barnhart said in a UK athletics news release. “This would obviously accelerate that pace, which pleases me greatly in that it means our teams, specifically our coaches and athletes, have really done some special things so far this year.”

The UK Athletics Association Board of Directors and the UK athletics Finance Committee will meet Monday afternoon. They are expected to discuss the Finance Committee’s report and the athletic director’s report.

He made good on that prediction, finishing as the all-time leading tackler in school history. So when he followed in their footsteps and signed with UK last year, he put them on notice again.

“When I broke all their records in high school, we got into it again up here,” Huzzie said. “I told them I’m going to break all their records here and that’s what I’m working on right now.”

Those plans were put on hold when he injured his shoulder last fall. At the time, coaches were counting on him to be a major contributor on special teams and he was competing to back up senior linebacker Micah Johnson despite being a true freshman. Instead, he took a redshirt and hit the film room to learn as much as he could.

Huzzie has had as much buzz surrounding him in spring practice as any player, but he’s still not guaranteed to slide into Johnson’s spot this fall. He’ll battle with junior-to-be Ronnie Sneed during the summer and into the fall. Sneed has been out for most of spring practice due to class conflicts, but will be right back in the mix when he returns to the field.
Even though Huzzie didn’t get to play in 2009, he still gained a lot from his first year on campus.

“To be honest, I’m pretty glad it worked out the way it did,” Huzzie said. “Now, I understand a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have understood last year and I think I’m going to make bigger plays than I would’ve made last year. And I’ve got all four years (of eligibility) left.”

If Huzzie does win the starting job as a redshirt freshman, the linebacking corps will be even more green than expected. Junior-to-be Danny Trevathan is the only returner from a group that lost Johnson as well as Sam Maxwell to graduation, and players like Sneed, senior-to-be Jacob Dufrene and sophomore-to-be Ridge Wilson played sparingly last year.

After being mentored by two seniors last year, Trevathan has a very different role to look forward to now.

“I think I did a good job of learning the ropes,” Trevathan said. “I think it’s more of me going out there and trying to be a leader, trying to be All-SEC.”

Huzzie said he’s just pleased to have a chance to run with the first team defense even though he missed last season. Senior-to-be Derrick Locke said when he went up against Huzzie in scrimmages, he was surprised how hard he could hit.

“This guy came in kind of banged up, but he gave me a nice little lick,” Locke said. “I’m not going to lie, I underestimated (Huzzie). Most people can’t have that mindset coming off an injury like ‘I’m going to play and I’m going to go hard.’ He’s coming in playing hard, showing that he’s going to play downhill and he’s going to bring it.”

His squatty 5-foot-7, 225-pound frame doesn’t lend itself to images of a playmaking tailback. But that’s where the senior-to-be has been cast mostly to this point in his career.

Now, with the departure of John Conner, Allen is moving within the backfield and will be lining up primarily at fullback after spending his first three years at UK as a contributor at tailback and on special teams.

Even though Conner, who worked his way from walk-on to NFL draft prospect, is now gone, the Cats aren’t expecting to miss a beat thanks to Allen’s transition.

“I don’t want anybody to get it twisted now, you can never replace John Conner,” senior-to-be tailback Derrick Locke said. “But Moncell is laying that hit. It’s not like we’re going to have a setback there.”

Conner established himself as one of the most feared hitters for UK in his career, and defensive players routinely cited him as the toughest offensive player to bring down in practices.

Allen has started to establish a similar reputation, lining up in short-yardage situations to gain first downs and touchdowns when the coaching staff doesn’t trust anyone else to pound the ball up the middle.

He’s also shown he can hit. His forced fumble on the opening kickoff of the second half during UK’s upset win at Georgia set up a touchdown that sparked the 34-27 comeback. Now that he’s shown the ability to make the change, he’ll just have to be comfortable with his new role.

“Right now I’m just trying to get used to it,” Allen said. “It’s pretty difficult because I used to be a running back, and running backs never get too much of a pounding from hitting and blocking.”

After the Music City Bowl, Allen began to hear rumblings among his fellow players that the coaches were considering moving him to fullback. He took it upon himself to talk to the coaching staff on the bus ride back to Lexington and tell them he’d be willing to make the move — with one caveat.

Allen didn’t just want to be a normal blocking fullback; he wanted to contribute to the offense in several different ways. In that way, Allen will be able to do some things even Conner could never do.

His background as a tailback in high school and for most of his college career gives Allen a level of versatility not found in most fullbacks. He wants to do it all; run, catch and block “even more than John Conner did.”

“That’s heaven for an offensive coordinator,” Allen said. “When they think of a guy at fullback, they think of a guy that just pounds and pounds all the time. But that’s not right because I can run, catch it out of the backfield and do a lot of different things that fullbacks can’t do. And I also can block. … They can always keep me in the game.”

For Allen to make the transition complete, Locke said he’ll still have to develop his blocking skills. The speedy Locke, who is expected to be the featured back behind Allen this fall, described his backfield mate as “a running back who can hit” at this point in his career.
In the end, though, Locke is sure Allen will make the move a smooth one.

“We know Moncell can do it,” Locke said. “He just has to get used to doing it. Having him, I’m not going to be timid in there. He’s going to bust some heads. Moncell’s going to shock the world and we’re going to do it. That’s not anything I’m worried about, to be honest.”

According to reports, UK head coach John Calipari told freshman center DeMarcus Cousins that only four players from this year’s team will be returning next year. Cousins is expected to enter the NBA Draft along with fellow freshman phenom John Wall, and junior forward Patrick Patterson is widely expected to do the same. Seniors Mark Krebs, Perry Stevenson and Ramon Harris will graduate. Reports from Columbus indicated that sophomore guard Darnell Dodson will also declare for the NBA Draft.

Conflicting reports surrouded freshman big man Daniel Orton. Orton’s father, Larry, told reporters earlier in the day that his son would test the NBA Draft waters without hiring an agent, but a UK Athletics statement released late Wednesday indicated Orton had not made a decision yet.

“I have not declared for the NBA Draft,” Orton said in the statement. “I’m currently weighing my options and will make a decision prior to the deadline.”

If all those players leave, the Cats would return only Darius Miller, DeAndre Liggins, Jon Hood and Josh Harrellson for next season.

Phone calls to Larry Orton and Tywanna Patterson on Wednesday night were not immediately returned. UK Athletics spokesman DeWayne Peevey declined to comment on the situations of any of the other players in a text message to the Kernel.

Q. Now that you’ve had a couple months to settle in, what has been the biggest change for you since taking over as head coach?
A. All the non-football stuff has probably been the biggest change. The speaking requests, fundraiser requests, autograph requests, all those things have probably been the biggest things. It takes you away from the football stuff that I’m used to doing.

Q. What kind of changes do you think the players will see from previous seasons?
A. One thing that we’ve tried to stress in this off-season is that we’re trying to take it to the next level. Our goal is to take the next step. It’s being able to consistently beat the Floridas and the South Carolinas and the Tennessees. So we’ve upped the intensity, there’s no doubt about that. The intensity level is up, the accountability is up. We’re holding them accountable to get to where they’re supposed to be, meaning class on time, meaning workouts on time. We’re definitely holding them accountable and we’re also making it a more intense atmosphere and a more competitive atmosphere.

Q. Were you surprised at all when Rich Brooks retired?
A. I was. I thought he’d go at least one more year. But you also have to be expecting it to (happen) when you’re the head-coach-in-waiting. You don’t want to get caught not ready. There was a little surprise that it happened then, I thought it would happen the following year. But we were ready.

Q. How do you feel about your staff? Have the new assistants had smooth transitions?
A. They’ve been great. They really have. The thing about it is two of the guys, I had followed a long time — (defensive line coach) David Turner and (offensive line coach) Mike Summers — so I knew what they were about. And watching (wide receivers coach) Tee Martin handle himself in public and in recruiting, he’s exactly what I thought he was. He’s a stand-up guy. When he walks in the room, you feel his presence. He’s exactly what we were looking for.

Q. Have you decided who’s going to call the plays on offense this year?
A. The offensive coordinator, Randy Sanders, will call the plays. The head coach always can veto, and I’ll definitely try to stay out of the way but there are some things I see too. There are some things I’ll see that I want called on both sides of the ball. As head coach I want to make sure our schemes are sound, make sure fundamentally we’re sound, and make sure we’re playing with effort in all three phases.

Q. Another addition to the staff most people might not know about is strength coach Rock Oliver. What does he bring to the staff?
A. He’s the intensity. He brings the intensity to our program. He’s holding our kids accountable. The strength coaches are the guys who spend more time with them, especially this time of year, than the assistant coaches or the head coach. So it’s so important that he holds them and gets them mentally tough, and that’s what Rock’s doing to our football program.

Q. He’s quite the character. How would you describe him to people who have never met him?
A. He’s a ball of fire, he is. He’s really passionate about what he does, passionate about where he is. This place means a lot to him. He really cut his teeth here too back in the day with (former UK head basketball coach Rick) Pitino, so this place means a lot to him and we feel his passion about this place.

Q. Here’s a question all the fans want to know: Who’s your quarterback next year?
A. That’s a fair question. I don’t know at this point. I think we’ve got three really good options. We’ve got two guys who have won games in this league, in Morgan Newton and Mike Hartline, and a third young guy (Ryan Mossakowski) is as talented as any we’ve been around, so we’re really looking forward to a great competition — and it will be an open competition in the spring. The thing we have to do is try to find out who the top two are early and work those two. It becomes tough to work three quarterbacks, so one thing we have to do is try to find out who those top two are early.

Q. Speaking of the passing game, a lot of fans had hoped for a more aggressive offense last year. Is that something you’re hoping for this year?
A. Yeah, but we have to know who we are, too. We weren’t an offense that we could feel comfortable with throwing the ball all over the yard. We threw the ball a little bit more with Mike (Hartline) in there. … We were throwing the football, and we’re trying to be aggressive in the throwing game, but what happened is we inserted a freshman quarterback. And he is a talented guy, there’s no question about that, but he was definitely limited in what he could convey on the field. It became tough, trying to create a throw game last year with a freshman quarterback. You look across the country at places where freshmen quarterbacks played, like (Southern California). USC won seven games, maybe eight. They hadn’t won seven or eight in a long time, they’d always been at 10 or 11. The reason why? Freshman quarterback. … We had to protect Morgan Newton, I won’t make any bones about that. Morgan might not think that we should have done that and the fans might not think that also, but I would hate to be sitting here with a Morgan Newton who threw 12 or 15 interceptions and seeing his confidence level in the dirt. Now, Morgan Newton’s confidence level is sky-high because he went to Georgia, he went to Auburn, he went to Vanderbilt and came out a winner. If we had tried to throw the ball all over the yard with Morgan Newton in those games, I don’t think the outcome would have come out the way it was.

Q. You talk about ‘Operation Win’ a lot. How would you define ‘Operation Win?’
A. Well, ‘Operation Win’ for our players is winning in the classroom, and that’s getting the best possible grades you can get. We want to win in the community by doing community service. We want to get this community to embrace this football team and let this community know this is their program. The third thing is winning on the field. Winning on the field, doing everything in your power in the classroom, the weight room, and on the practice field to win.

Q. And for the coaches, part of that has to be recruiting, right?
A. No question about that. Winning is recruiting, for fans it’s pumping positive energy into the program. Everybody has a part in what we’re calling ‘Operation Win.’ The first phase of ‘Operation Win’ is recruiting, we finished up recruiting on a positive note. The second phase of ‘Operation Win’ is the off-season, and Rock has done an unbelievable job of getting our team mentally tough and stronger also and well-conditioned. And the third phase will start on Wednesday with our spring practice.

Q. Is there going to be any change in recruiting philosophy from years past?
A. We’ll be more aggressive in the areas I’m more familiar with. The reason why? Those are the areas where my contacts are, so we have to be more aggressive in those areas, the Georgias, the South Carolinas, in Kentucky, one of my stronger areas has been Miami. We’ll be more aggressive in those areas while still working in the areas that we’ve been doing. We’ll be more aggressive in Cincinnati, an area that I’ve coached in and recruited there a few years. It’s only an hour away from here, so we feel like we have to treat Cincinnati like it’s in-state.

Q. When talking about taking the program to the next level, you’ve often said “Why not Kentucky?” What do you mean?
A. When I say “Why not Kentucky?” every year you see a program rise to the top and come out of nowhere and surprise people. And we’ve been close. We’ve been in the SEC race, we just haven’t been in it for a long period of time. Last year, if we win our last game, we’re second in the East. So we want to stay in that race longer, for as long as we can. The way we get there is continue to get better players and continue to develop the players we already have mentally and physically.

Basketball is alive again in the bluegrass.

While the UK men’s and women’s basketball teams have both made runs in the NCAA tournament, one UK basketball team has already brought a title back to campus.

Earlier this month, the UK women’s club basketball team won the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association regional basketball tournament held in Atlanta. UK head coach Wayne Chiles created the club team at UK in 2001 and has worked hard to help it blossom into a successful program ever since.

“(The team) provides a positive environment for those who love to compete in basketball,” Chiles said. “It is very competitive and we travel a lot, but it has a strong tradition here at UK.”

Since Chiles created the team in 2001 they have not failed to earn their keep at UK. The team won an NIRSA national title in 2004, was runner-up in the same event in both 2005 and 2006, and won the ACIS regional champions in 2008.

The club has also defeated some National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics schools, like Midway College and St. Catherine’s College.
Chiles said having a strong core of players has led to the team’s success.

“The players like each other a lot,” Chiles said. “We have great leadership and great captains. With only two practices a week, we need great leadership to make this team work. All of my great teams in the past had great leadership on the floor.”

One of those leaders is team captain Chelsea Chowning, a fourth-year pharmacy student at UK and the regional tournament’s MVP.

“I love the chance to play competitively and the camaraderie that the team has built through traveling and playing together,” Chowning said.

Chowning isn’t short on big-time basketball experience. She played two years on Xavier’s varsity team and played one season for UK’s varsity team in 2007-08. As one of the oldest and most experienced players on the team, she takes it upon herself to be a good leader.

“I try to serve as a mediator between the coach and the team,” Chowning said. “My goal is to be a cerebral player and a team player. I take pride in knowing what everyone else on the floor is doing.”

Most players on the team came to UK with experience from playing basketball in high school, including Chowning’s fellow all-tournament team member, Elizabeth Campbell.

All that remains this season is a trip to the NIRSA National Championships in Nashville and the lady Cats intend on bringing home another title.

“We surprised people in Atlanta,” Chowning said. “But if we play with that same intensity when we go to Nashville, we expect to be able to win it.”

It doesn’t take a lot of walking through the French Quarter to find a store stocked with voodoo dolls or a palm reader set up on the street, so I decided to see if one of the psychics could give me any insight into UK’s game against Wake Forest today or what might happen down the stretch in the tournament.

Jade the Psychic is a New Orleans native and has been performing her services in the French Quarter across from the world-famous Café du Monde since 1995. She correctly predicted this year’s Super Bowl three days before the Saints beat the Colts, and she was wearing star earrings and didn’t have any teeth, so you know she’s legit.

After examining her first three tarot cards, Jade called UK head coach John Calipari a very intuitive coach.

“He makes decisions based on his gut and what he feels as much as anything,” she said. “His decisions are based on his instincts as much as logic.”

Very quickly, she was able to see that the Cats will handle the Demon Deacons today with relative ease and move on to the Sweet 16. But there was one prediction for tonight she had that might trouble some UK fans.

“Somebody’s going to get hurt in this game,” she said. “It won’t be anything major, they won’t be in a wheelchair or die or anything, but it is going to be serious enough to take somebody out of the game.”

She had a lot of faith in Calipari and said the team’s greatest strength was how talented the players were (bold prediction there) and that there are a few supporting personnel and assistants who were very passionate about the game.

One of the few issues facing the team, she said, was that they’re trying to reorganize everything too much and fix things that aren’t broken. But she also saw another figure looming over the team that she called “its greatest weakness.”

“There’s someone pulling the strings behind the scenes, some corporate bigwig who is being unusually dictatorial and controlling,” Jade said. “It’s not the coach, it’s someone higher up. And he doesn’t have the best interests of the players at heart; he’s just concerned about the bottom line. It’s not someone on the team, it’s someone in an office who is making decisions he doesn’t need to be making. He can bring this team down.”

For those hoping for visions of an eighth championship banner, Jade said it wasn’t in the cards.

“Overall, it is not going to be their very best season,” she said. “They’ll do well, but they won’t go all the way. When they do lose, it will be on a technicality, something little thing in the rules.”

Of course, if you don’t want to believe Jade, my grandfather always told me that it’s bad luck to be superstitious.

NEW ORLEANS – For those of you fortunate enough to make it down here to New Orleans, be sure to live it up. Now that you have a day without a UK game, you should enjoy the city. The Big Easy is definitely the most attractive venue UK will be visiting this tournament (Syracuse and potentially Indianapolis await in the later rounds), and it’s really a fantastic city for visitors. Here’s a list of some of the top things to make sure you do while you’re in town.

10. Stop by the Superdome – Home of the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints and a symbol of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, it’s also the world’s largest domed stadium. It won’t be hard for you to take a look at it if you’re here for the games, because it’s right across the street from New Orleans Arena.

9. Mingle with the players around town – I’ve seen players and cheerleaders from almost every team playing in town, and if you wander around downtown you’re likely to run into them as well. Remember, these guys are here to play basketball, but they’re also college students who are here on spring break. It’s a great experience for them, and you might not get another chance to meet some of them.

8. Visit the New Orleans Aquarium – It’s right on the Mississippi River, beautifully located in a park that’s dotted with art and steamboats. It’s less than $20, and includes some of the largest collections of sharks and jellyfish in the country. Definitely worth a look if you get a few hours and you’re into animals.

7. Catch some beads – Come on, it’s New Orleans. Are you really going to visit this town and not walk away with more mardi gras beads than your neck can handle? Sure, you could just buy some, but it’s way more fun to head out on the town and try to catch them from someone driving by or throwing them from a hotel balcony.

6. Savor the weather – As mentioned above, UK’s future tournament locales include Syracuse and Indianapolis, so if you’re here, appreciate the balmy 70-degree weather and the breeze you get from being so close to the ocean. It’s a heckuva lot warmer here than Lexington, and if UK had landed in Milwaukee for the opening rounds as predicted, you might be dealing with snow this weekend.

5. Gamble at Harrah’s – You can’t miss the behemoth of a casino if you head downtown, and no trip to New Orleans would be complete without a couple dollars spent at the slots. Not to endorse gambling, but hey, if your bracket is busted already, maybe your luck will turn around.

4. Go shopping on Canal and Magazine Street – You’ll find everything here, from designer shops and jewelers to hole-in-the-wall tourist traps that sell t-shirts at four for $20. It’s one of the most famous streets in the world to shop on, and it’s right in the middle of downtown.

3. See the street performers in the French Quarter –From homeless men just picking at a guitar to full-on jazz bands set up in the street, you’ll find all kinds of entertainment around every corner here. There are impersonators, mimes, everything. There’s always something different to see, and you should really take advantage of it as much as possible.

2. Check out Bourbon Street – It’s world famous for a reason, and even when it isn’t Mardi Gras, it’s still a huge party every night. If you’re of age, any bar is a good bet. If you’re not, you can still wander around at night and just take the scene in. It’s like nothing else out there.

1. Sample the local cuisine – There aren’t many cities with as much unique fare as New Orleans, and you’d be a fool if you spent time here without eating as much Louisiana food as humanly possible. You have to try some beignets, jambalaya, po-boys, seafood, and whatever else you can find. It’s all incredible, and you won’t find it like this anywhere else.

UK was certainly well-represented in its opening round game and on the streets of the Crescent City, but there were still plenty of empty seats for UK’s win over East Tennessee State. According to a Wednesday article in USA Today, only about 65 percent of tickets for all the games at the site had been sold by Thursday. Sales across the country were mostly strong, with New Orleans being a notable exception. Announced attendance for UK’s game was just over 10,000, filling a little more than half of the 19,000 seat arena.

There was no outrageous scalping in New Orleans or price-gouging on tickets. In fact, the scene outside the arena was incredibly tame compared to what we see in Lexington on gamedays. No street vendors, no massive crowds of people waiting to get in, and no long lines. If not for a parking lot full of satellite trucks and a couple police officers directing traffic, you might think there wasn’t even a game today – let alone a full slate of opening round games lined up one after another.

Upper level tickets for UK’s first round matchup with East Tennessee State were still available just a couple hours before the game for $66. There were also still tickets for UK’s second round game against the winner of tonight’s Texas/Wake Forest game. Earlier in the day, you still could have purchased a package to watch all three games at the arena that day for $198 – not a bad deal if you’re a big-time college basketball fan.

I spoke with a police officer right outside New Orleans Arena a couple hours before the game, and he told me that scalping is illegal in Louisiana. There wasn’t a whole bunch of activity outside the arena, though (not surprising considering there were still tickets available at the box office). Also, it’s illegal to sell tickets within a couple blocks of the arena at all, the police officer said.

If you do find yourself some tickets from someone on the street, beware. A security guard working at the arena told me that he also works at Saints games (the Superdome is just across the street), and that tickets bought on the street here often turn out to be counterfeits. Again, not a lot of activity outside the arena earlier this afternoon, but if you’re in town and you decide to get some tickets, why risk buying a fake ticket? You probably won’t have any trouble just buying a ticket at the arena or on Ticketmaster.

NEW ORLEANS – Only a handful of people can count legendary UK basketball coaches Adolph Rupp, Joe B. Hall and Tubby Smith as friends. Almost all of them will be cheering for the Cats when UK takes on East Tennessee State on Thursday night.

But Gene Bartow won’t be.

Bartow knew all of those coaches and has been close friends with UK head coach John Calipari since meeting him in the mid-1980’s, but he’ll be pulling for East Tennessee State. Bartow’s son, Murry Bartow, is the men’s basketball coach for the Buccaneers.

“I talked to John yesterday and I said ‘Well, you know who I’ll be for Thursday night,’ ” Gene Bartow said. “I’ve been for Calipari every game this year though, up to Thursday. John’s been a very good friend going back to his days at UMass and he’s a very good coach and a very good person.”

Bartow has been impressed with what Calipari has done at UK so far, and said he’ll likely have the chance to win at least one national championship in the next five years at UK – that is, if he doesn’t win it this year.

He should know something about coaching, too. Bartow coached college basketball for 36 years, the last 18 years of which were at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He led Memphis to the 1973 NCAA Championship game and succeeded coaching legend John Wooden at UCLA. In fact, his .852 wining percentage in his two years at UCLA was higher than Wooden’s. He was inducted into the college basketball Hall of Fame in 2009 in the same class as Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Now, he’s president of Hoops LP with the Memphis Grizzlies.

After knowing Calipari for so long, he said he thinks he’s the perfect choice for a high-profile job like coaching UK basketball.

“I think he’s a great fit at Kentucky,” Bartow said. “I think he’s handled all aspects of that job extremely well.”

But for anyone thinking he might be in New Orleans to check out UK’s lottery talent (freshmen John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins, and junior Patrick Patterson), think again. He’s just here to watch his son coach in the NCAA Tournament.

He also knows something about big upsets over UK. In 1981, he led the Blazers to a win over UK in the NCAA Tournament, what he called at the time the biggest win in UAB history Still, he acknowledged that opening round games for No. 16 seeds like East Tennessee State can get ugly at times.

“You never know in college basketball, but East Tennessee would have to be playing their perfect game and Kentucky would have to be having kind of an off night for it to be a close game,” Bartow said. “But you never know.”

Bartow said he has been especially impressed with Kansas State this season, and said they could win the national championship. But if the Bucanneers fall to the Cats on Thursday, he knows he’ll be able to cheer for another one of the favorites in the tournament.

“If (UK) wins tomorrow night, I’m hoping they’ll win the national championship and I think they could,” Bartow said. “But there’s 10 or 12 other teams that have got very, very good players too so you never know.”