Nine months ago, the Southeastern Conference and ESPN agreed on a $2.25 billion media deal promising coverage of anything donning the conference seal. Nine months in, the deal has underperformed. Across a number of media platforms, the Worldwide Leader has without a doubt raised the profile of football and basketball across the South. That’s it, [...]
In the press box at Commonwealth Stadium during Saturday’s Blue/White Game, Penn State’s spring game was on TV. Standing in the right spot, you could see the score of Penn State’s Blue/White Game and the scoreboard at Commonwealth. The differences between the two Blue/White scrimmages were so many, it’s unreasonable to even compare the two. [...]
DeMarcus Cousins has a lot of work to do before the NBA Draft. Perhaps most elementary, above anything basketball-related: He needs a driver’s license. Big Cuz — the same Big Cuz that drew almost as much love from NBA scouts as he did from end-of-the-bench hacks, sent in to try and hack their way through [...]
Life as a college basketball coach, especially in Lexington, isn’t always easy. It certainly isn’t always fair. So when Rod Strickland was pulled over early Sunday morning in his fourth drunk driving-related incident, the consequences shouldn’t be easy, and maybe they won’t be fair. But if UK wants to get it right, it shouldn’t wait [...]
Did you hear? A friend of a friend who works in admissions said he heard from a reliable guy that Darnell Dodson is transferring. And no, before you ask: It’s not the same guy who said Billy Donovan’s children were enrolled in Lexington’s Catholic schools hours after Billy Gillispie was let go last year. You [...]
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Standing on the precipice of greatness, perspective is easy to lose. So when the Cats stunningly fell just short of the Final Four, they fell hard. A team whose 13 players had combined to play in six NCAA Tournament games before this year’s go-around often struggled to find the right reaction this [...]
A few thoughts looking back on the round that was: I was so happy to see Bruce Pearl and Tennessee break through last night. Pearl gets a lot of flack, most of it undeserved. Considering what happened in December with Tyler Smith and the other three players, I wouldn’t have been surprised if this team [...]
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Growing up an only child, Da’Sean Butler had a wild imagination. To stay entertained, he had to. So he would go in the backyard at home in Newark, N.J., shoot some hoops and let his mind run free. He’d haul down big rebounds, shoot game-winning shots — layups and jumpers, twos and threes, [...]
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Four-hundred and eighty-three days doesn’t seem like a lot of time for a seismic shift in one program. So it seems even more improbable for two programs to do the same. On Nov. 29, 2008, UK and West Virginia, two programs struggling for an identity, clashed in an anti-climactic, TV-unfriendly brawl in [...]
Just a few minutes before Friday’s media briefings with UK and West Virginia, a few thoughts: UK could have lost last night. Up to this point in the tournament, UK looked bulletproof. Through 20 minutes against Cornell, that held true. But in a fashion becoming typical for the Cats, they let up. Cornell wasn’t playing [...]
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