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, though.

The inherent problem with ESPN promising so much coverage is it can’t all go on the flagship station or even ESPN2. If an ESPN crew is going to cover an SEC early-season baseball game in the middle of basketball season, how deep into your cable company’s sports package will you have to dig to watch?

By the time you get down to watching games live on ESPN Classic, something doesn’t feel right. Even during football and basketball season, the deal didn’t perform. Games were aired on networks Insight employees weren’t sure how to access.

The SEC Network didn’t offer a marked improvement in production quality and the on-air talent was, to say the least, a major step down from all-world hoops tandem Tom Hammond and Larry Conley.

But in the other areas, what has the deal done? What about the Olympic sports?

According to the joint news release the league and ESPN sent last August, ESPN and ESPN2 would televise: at least three regular-season baseball or softball matches, three regular-season gymnastics matches and the conference championships in those three sports.

During the gymnastics conference championships, ESPN went with an MLS game. and ESPN2 had Sweet 16-round NCAA women’s basketball tournament games.

The heart of the deal is in football and basketball. But by the time ESPN gets past its priority programming — Alabama and Florida football, and UK basketball — you may be stuck watching your favorite team play on ESPNU, with second-rate production quality and commercials for muffin pans.

And we’re in for 14 more years of this. By the end of this thing, we may be spurning college baseball programming just so we can watch third-round coverage of all 16 SEC teams playing in the 180-team NCAA Tournament, broadcast in 3D.

Whatever it is we’re watching at that point, it still won’t be gymnastics.

James Pennington is a journalism senior. E-mail jpennington@kykernel.com.

The differences between the two Blue/White scrimmages were so many, it’s unreasonable to even compare the two.

UK’s version of the spring game finished with a score of 60-25, a blowout win for the offense utilizing a convoluted scoring system “designed” to help give both sides an even chance of winning.

UK head coach Joker Phillips said he initially planned on splitting the two sides into full squads — offense, defense and special teams — but because of injuries, enough players weren’t playing. So the teams split: one was offense, the other defense. Off they went with a scoring system unfit for any sort of school-sanctioned, open-and-advertised-to-the-public event.

The offense was awarded every time it recorded a first down, whereas the defense was only rewarded if it forced a punt or a turnover. No points for sacks or tackles for losses.

After the game, Phillips defended the system. He said it was fair, and the defense needed to see the score and take responsibility in getting off the field.

Those on the field didn’t agree.

Said defensive tackle Ricky Lumpkin: “A point every first down? What do you expect? That’s skewed. That made it look like we did nothing. We did something.”

But the scoring system was just one issue Saturday.

Overall interest in the Blue/White Game was low this year. It doesn’t look like it will get higher anytime soon, either.

Reasons to be excited for football season were there Saturday. The backup tailbacks, Donald Russell and Jonathan George, were superb. Each of the three quarterbacks contending for the starting job looked strong enough to at least keep his name in contention.

Assuming you weren’t one of the few who attended the game Saturday — the official attendance said 9,000 but it looked closer to 900 — this year’s game didn’t give any incentive to make the effort next year.

UK’s game may never provide an atmosphere like Penn State’s, which had 55,000 in attendance at University Park this weekend. And nobody could’ve held off the severe weather that rolled in just minutes after the players left the field.

But Phillips could have set up the game to be more competitive.

Now he’s set up the season with much less anticipation than he could have.

After all these years, I guess Joe Paterno knows what he’s doing.

James Pennington is a journalism senior. E-mail jpennington@kykernel.com.

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 what many thought was a paper-thin temper — may have controlled the lane more so than anyone in college basketball for 38 games, but that’s all for now.

Eventually, he’ll move up to the two-lane roads and larger highways.

So maybe when John Calipari called Cousins a “big 12-year-old” on several occasions throughout the big man’s only collegiate season, there was a little something more to that than just sitting down and playing video games with Calipari’s son.

Regardless of his status with UK, the NBA or the DMV, they don’t make ‘em like DeMarcus very often. And soon, big men around The League will find out.

Right now, he’s not really working on much in terms of basketball. He said right now he’s focusing on finishing up the semester in good academic standing and getting his body ready for the NBA. He’s losing weight and putting on muscle.

Once the semester’s out, he’ll start working on his basketball skills, fine-tuning and getting them ready for the NBA scouts and general managers who will have to decide whether he’s worthy of a top-three, top-five or top-10 pick.

And more so than judging his skills, those same scouts and GMs will have to decide if his attitude is worthy of such a considerable investment. Cousins had a reputation follow him around while at UK that he lost his cool with the snap of a finger.

Anyone that digs into game film would be wrong to assume an issue with Cousins’ flares (which were few and fairly tame, especially compared to the perception surrounding him).

At UK. he was a kid being bullied around — by bullies, no less, who had to flout the rules just to keep him from breaking records at their expense.

Now it’s time for kids his own size to pick on him.

“It just helped me grow up as a basketball player and a man, and I believe it’s time for me to go,” Cousins said.

Soon, he’ll be going up against men like Dwight Howard, who can actually hang with a body and a talent like Cousins without not-so-subtly resorting to dirty tricks. It’ll be a new challenge for Cousins because even after a year of Division I hoops, he’s still never played regularly against men who can reasonably match up with him.

Those asking if Cousins can mentally handle the challenge could even compare him directly to Howard. Howard jumped straight from high school to the NBA (before the league established a rule in 2005 banning such transitions) and some thought his goofy attitude and constant grin would cost him.

Even as recently as 2009, a Sports Illustrated cover story questioned Howard’s “smile,” questions which Cousins has faced, if in a bit of a different light. (Big Cuz can get angry in a game, but not too much to don his geeky glasses and laugh it off immediately thereafter.)

In 2009-10, Howard led the NBA in rebounds per game, blocks per game and field goal percentage. Whether Cousins will equally produce doesn’t matter; but just because he’s a big kid, that won’t count against him. Even if he’s a “big kid,” he’s still big.

And for the sake of the NBA, which employs too many players that seem to find more headlines in court than on the court: Hopefully Cousins, like Howard, never grows up too much.

When asked on what he’d spend that first NBA paycheck, he answered without too much pause, like any kid who knows what’s best.

“Whatever my mom wants,” he said.

A few big paychecks down the road, he’ll get that driver’s license, too.

James Pennington is a journalism senior. E-mail jpennington@kykernel.com.

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 for his April 15 arraignment to decide on Strickland’s future. Be swift, be just. Set the proper example for the student-athletes, and don’t play politics like the powers that be in Indianapolis, messing with the basketball tournament.

Strickland should be thanked for his season of service to UK, and he should be let go.

When John Calipari brought Strickland to his staff from Memphis, the former NBA guard was seen as, among other things, a recruiting tool: He knows what it takes to play in the league, because he lasted there for 17 seasons. What high school player, especially a point guard, wouldn’t like that kind of tutelage?

Strickland’s hire could also have been seen as a calculated risk from Calipari. At Memphis, Strickland served as director of basketball operations — a suit on the bench that didn’t coach; rather, he assisted with off-court relations (which makes the title “director of basketball operations” seem like a misnomer).

His spot on the bench at UK was initially set to go to a man named Josh Pastner, until he accepted the head coaching spot Calipari left at Memphis that nobody expected to fall all the way to Pastner. So when it did, Calipari opted to give Strickland a chance to bump up from a non-coaching administrative job to assistant coach instead of finding somebody he hadn’t worked with.

Through just one season, it’s difficult to say if the risk paid off. Because of the timing of Strickland’s hire last May, it’s likely he didn’t impact any signings from Calipari’s first class.

But the administration shouldn’t wait any more to see if the risk will pay off eventually. Now, there’s no way it can.

Most times, assistant coaches work more personally with players than head coaches do. In turn, they have just as much or more influence over the athletes than Calipari does in a personal sense. If Cal decides to leave Strickland on staff, how can he explain to parents on the recruiting trail that a repeat DUI offender is on staff?

And how can Calipari justify to himself that it’s worth the trouble?

For all Strickland may or may not do behind the scenes and on the practice floor at UK, his job isn’t irreplaceable. If it was, he’d be a head coach somewhere by now.

And for Strickland personally, it may be best he is cut loose.

When Billy Gillispie was fired last year, he hit rock bottom. In August, he surfaced in nearby Lawrenceburg in the middle of the night, caught driving under the influence. Only then did he realize he had a problem with alcohol, and only then did he seek treatment.

Maybe for Strickland, he can realize alcohol is a problem in his life. Four times now he has been arrested for driving drunk. For the sake of himself and his family, he should seek treatment. Like Gillispie, maybe it would take something as dramatic as losing a job to find that help.

Calipari should stay by his side, and offer him assistance throughout the process. But it should be as a friend, not as a boss.

Maybe that’s not fair. But fair isn’t always right, and right isn’t always fair.

James Pennington is a journalism senior. E-mail jpennington@kykernel .com.

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 can trust this new source. Believe me.

What about the latest on John Wall? I heard he might stay. Well, actually, I know it’s true — my Easter brunch waiter said one of the kitchen workers read it on Facebook.

Book your seat at the Player of the Year banquet now!

He’s not worried about the millions upon millions of dollars thrown at his face and the promise to instantly become one of the NBA’s top point guards. He’s more concerned about being the best of the 96 starting point guards competing for next year’s NCAA championship.

Of course, the coach that’s telling him to stay won’t even be here. At least, that’s what I heard. That’s right: I have it on good authority that John Calipari is going to jump ship to the NBA.

Well, maybe I don’t have it on good authority. But a brother of a production assistant on Cal’s latest commercial shoot in Lexington said he’s gone, because Coach told him first-hand.

Maybe that’s not all true. But who could make this stuff up?

Surely no one could make up a story about Daniel Orton’s future at UK. That’s why over the weekend, according to all of the rumors that popped up: He dropped his classes at UK, re-enrolled, moved to California, came back to Lexington and then ended up back in California to finish his classes by correspondence so the Cats don’t lose a scholarship next year.

All of this surfaced amid the looming Final Four, and it seemed like everyone in Lexington who wasn’t busy rooting for Shelvin Mack and Butler instantly bought into it.

So maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you hear until Orton steps forward and makes an actual statement. Very little of what will be said about roster turnover in the aftermath of The Letdown in Syracuse will prove true.

But did you hear about Brandon Knight? What if he commits this week? Piece together everything we’ve all heard (it’s all true, by the way) and next year’s starting lineup might be Wall, Knight, Eric Bledsoe,

Darius Miller and one variable. And maybe Phil Jackson or Tom Izzo will coach the team.
Go ahead and start figuring out which couch to set on fire when the nets come down in Houston this time next year.

Then again, this all might change. Take it or leave it.

That’s just what I heard.

James Pennington is a journalism senior. E-mail jpennington@kykernel.com.

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 year. But before, there was always another chance down the road.

But Saturday — after a shocking series of events in which UK forgot how to make its three-point shots, and then forgot almost immediately how to say “no” to the trey — that chance for redemption tomorrow vanished.

Yes, UK was undoubtedly the tournament’s favorite once fellow basketball behemoths Kansas and Syracuse lost in earlier rounds. Yes, John Wall was expected to take over late against the Mountaineers like he had done so many times in likely his only season in a UK uniform.

But one year ago to the day Saturday, a man named Billy Gillispie was fired, and not because his team fell short of Final Four expectations. Remember him? He was fired because his team missed the tournament altogether, because he couldn’t grasp the public affairs aspect of his job.

Because Kentucky basketball didn’t look, sound or feel like Kentucky basketball.

Win or lose against a very game West Virginia team, a point had already been made: The legendary aura around UK has returned.

After the game, the players may not have had the perspective at hand to really reflect on what was, by all means, a remarkable season. Those new to the program for this season may not have realized it anyway, but this isn’t what the Cats have been like these last few years.

The outgoing four-year seniors, Perry Stevenson and Ramon Harris (Mark Krebs transferred to UK his junior year), had been through quite a bit while wearing the blue and white: three head coaches, a rare strikeout on Selection Sunday and more criticism than any upstanding member of society will ever deserve.

“I just wish we could have ended it on a good note for Ramon, Mark Krebs, Perry and Patrick,” Cousins said, throwing in Patrick Patterson, a de facto senior because of his pending three-year graduation and likely defection to the NBA. “Some of them have been through hell these past few seasons.”

Maybe not tomorrow and maybe not even next month, but at some point, Stevenson will be remembered for saying he’d rather be a reserve on a team like this than a starter on an NIT team. None of those three men will be remembered for the pitfalls of their first three seasons, because they were there when blue became Blue again.

The second Class of 2010 — those who may eventually declare for the NBA Draft — won’t fade into obscurity because of what didn’t happen. For six months, it seemed like every Kentuckian’s Facebook page featured a fresh video every day of somebody doing The John Wall Dance in an outlandish setting.

Cousins didn’t only dominate the lane twice a week, he made a fuzzy Russian hat — a ushanka, apparently — and Peter Parker-looking glasses a campus fad. And Eric Bledsoe … well, maybe he’ll stick around.

And each of those men was allowed his own stake in UK lore because of new coach John Calipari. Wall, Cousins and Bledsoe have all admitted UK wasn’t even an option before Cal signed last April Fool’s Day.

Calipari didn’t just sell those three on Kentucky. He sold Kentucky on Kentucky when it was ready to stop caring. His helicopter book tours, online pizza codes and almost-inescapable television ads made the citizens of the Commonwealth remember the reputation they helped create — that the UK basketball coach is far more than a coach — well before Calipari even coached his first game in Rupp Arena.

The musk that Gillispie left behind was quickly forgotten. The aura was back.

After the game Saturday, each player offered his own slightly different version of, “We’ll look back some day and it won’t sting as bad.” As they get older and mature (and play more basketball), the fall from the Final Four may feel more like a success rather than a failure.

But what they don’t yet realize, others around them already have. Greatness wasn’t at stake Saturday.

This team crossed that threshold some time ago.

James Pennington is a journalism senior. E-mail jpennington@kykernel.com.

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 missed the tournament. Instead, they’re one win away from the program’s first ever Final Four.

The dig on Tennessee these past few years is that it doesn’t play to its potential nearly often enough. A lot of letdowns and head-scratchers. So when Smith was kicked off the team, those left behind realized that couldn’t happen anymore.

I don’t know if I have the heart to pick Tennessee over Tom Izzo — why would anybody pick against Sparty in March at this point? — but the outcome of Sunday’s game isn’t as significant as the fact that Tennessee somehow made it there.

• Surprisingly, my bracket is still in fairly good shape. I only got five teams through to the Elite 8 but I still have three Final Four picks alive. My original Final Four was Kentucky, Ohio State, Baylor and Kansas State.

• Am I the only one who finds it hard to believe that Tennessee had never made an Elite 8 before Friday?

• I’m already hearing people call for Purdue as a national championship favorite next season. At the beginning of this season, I said Purdue would contend if Hummel stayed healthy. He didn’t. So I’m done making predictions on the Boilers based on Hummel’s health.

• The SEC has two teams in the Elite 8. The only other league with two is the Big 12 (Kansas State, Baylor). Wouldn’t have guessed that.

• Perhaps my favorite college basketball player had his career come to an end last night: Ohio State’s Mark Titus. Mark The Shark, a walk-on known for his blog (clubtrillion.blogspot.com), very well may be the best unguarded shooter I’ve ever seen. Check out his “training video” on YouTube. If you’ve seen HBO’s Eastbound and Down, you’ll catch the obvious influence of the training video Kenny Powers used to try to get back in the majors.

• Why does everyone think J.P. Prince’s block saved Tennessee last night? Was Evan Turner really going to make that one-handed shot? Turner wasted his chance by taking such a long time to take the first shot.

Heading down to the Carrier Dome about 4:30 or so. Looking forward to the game.

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, nothing but net and off the glass — and play the announcer all at once.

Lately, a lot of those one-time dreams have come true.

Butler has hit six game-winning shots this season, including two in the Big East Tournament. His first that week, against Cincinnati, made it feel like the family driveway ran through Madison Square Garden. As he set to shoot, he said to his defender: “Bank.”

Cincinnati’s Lance Stephenson confused for just a split-second, Butler rose up and banked in a game-winning bomb as the lamp went off, almost as if to call him inside for dinner.

A “H.O.R.S.E.” shot to advance in the league tournament? New York hadn’t seen a called shot with that kind of gusto since Babe Ruth called his in the 1932 World Series.

It took a lot of nerve, a lot of confidence and a lot of imagination.

“I still do it to this day, B.S.-ing around in the gym,” Butler said. “Pretending the clock’s running down and you’re just throwing up crap. That’s pretty much what’s been happening the past five-or-whatever buzzer beaters, just throwing up crap and it’s falling in.”

His basketball daydreams encompass the whole game, and not every scenario he plays through is as joyous as a buzzer beater.

Thursday against Washington, Butler took a hard spill in the first half. I was backstage at the time, so I didn’t see the fall as it happened. But I felt it. He fell hard on his hand and his posterior. And then his back, because he bounced a little bit after the initial smack. Big posterior, he blamed in different terms.

When he hit the ground, he didn’t know how bad his injuries would or wouldn’t be. But he knew how he would react, because he’s been there before — in some form or another.

“This kid’s walking and he’s limping,” Butler said, drifting between first- and third-person references to himself. “I come out of the backyard, I’m back and I’m playing, shooting shots and making them.

“I have every comeback story in my head.”

Butler has been in position to hit game-winning shots because his Mountaineers win games with their strength on the boards and a hard-to-decipher defense; all despite the West Virginia offense, which doesn’t offer much wiggle room. Beating Washington by 13 on Thursday felt more like 23.

If West Virginia has a chance to beat UK and move on to the Final Four, it likely will have to come in a tightly contested, low-scoring game. In such an event, either team could claim it has college basketball’s finest clutch performer. Almost as often as Butler, the Cats’ John Wall has had his share of game-winners on one end and game-savers on the other.

So what if you get the last shot Saturday, Da’Sean? Do you get nervous?

“No,” he said confidently, moving on to the next question. Then he paused. “Yeah, yes I do. No reason to lie about that.”

He said he’s nervous because he wants to be shown in One Shining Moment crying in celebration, not crying in defeat. And in his fantasy, 100 percent of the reel is dedicated to Da’Sean’s shining moments. And who needs Jennifer Hudson? He’s singing the song, too.

“I changed the song, though,” Butler said. “ ‘The World’s Greatest’ by R. Kelly is being played in the background while I’m doing all these things. It’s my voice singing R. Kelly’s song, and I’m making all the plays.”

So just because West Virginia hasn’t reached the Final Four since 1959, that doesn’t mean Butler hasn’t been there. In his own world, he has.

James Pennington is a journalism senior. E-mail jpennington@kykernel.com.

On Nov. 29, 2008, UK and West Virginia, two programs struggling for an identity, clashed in an anti-climactic, TV-unfriendly brawl in Las Vegas. Somebody had to win, even though the teams shot a combined 34.0 percent from the field and combined for 39 turnovers. Eventually, the Cats came out on top 54-43.

“It was like a soccer game score,” West Virginia’s Da’Sean Butler said.

A season immortalized in futility, the Cats went on to an NIT appearance and a vacated throne on the UK bench. The Mountaineers enjoyed a bit more success, earning a No. 6 seed in the 2009 NCAA Tournament — but they were upset in the first round by No. 11-seeded Dayton.

The ascent of the two programs leading up to Saturday’s face-off with a Final Four bid at stake, has been uniquely that of the two men spearheading the movements in Lexington and Morgantown, W.V.

John Calipari is nationally recognized for his groundbreaking, Andretti-speed dribble drive offense. Fitting that less than one calendar year since his taking-over of an NIT team, he’s on the cusp of the Final Four and nobody’s surprised.

“This is unusual,” Calipari said. “What’s happened in recruiting now, because kids are leaving early, there’s a lot of kids waiting, wouldn’t you say? They want to see who is leaving off another team — that’s how it is now. But when I went to Massachusetts, it took us three solid years to get it right.”

Three of those late signers that have helped turn UK around — DeMarcus Cousins, John Wall and Eric Bledsoe — have several things in common that have allowed them to bond to a point where they refer to themselves as “The Three Amigos.” One of those things in common: None of them had UK on the map 483 days ago.

“Nowhere. They had fallen off,” Wall said. “I came here and took two or three visits during football season but that was it. I wasn’t really paying too much attention to them. No, I had no idea. I didn’t have Kentucky on my list, I was going somewhere else until something dramatic happened.”

Added Cousins, plainly, when asked if UK was anywhere in his consideration: “They weren’t.”

More subtly, Bob Huggins has transformed his alma mater into an Elite 8 team with the same players that bowed out without a fight in last year’s first round. When Huggins was hired in 2007, he inherited some talented players, one of which was Da’Sean Butler. But he learned to play in a wildly different system (former coach John Beilein famously employs an offense reliant on 3-point shooting).

The problem in meshing together Beilein’s leftover players and Huggins’ new recruits carried well over into the 2008-09 season, Butler said. Huggins made it easier on the players by blending his own coaching ideals with those of Beilein, but the players had to buy into their roles. They didn’t figure out until this season that each player had a niche to fill and if that player didn’t fill that niche, the team wouldn’t be any good.

The core of this season’s Mountaineers is almost identical to that of last season’s. The players just found their niches.

“We narrowed out and stood on our own paths and didn’t try to jump out of that too much,” Butler said.

If West Virginia is to beat UK on Saturday, it will have to grind out a win — much like Huggins has grinded out the past three seasons, waiting for the culture of the program to change around him.

Whichever makeover you prefer — quick or, well, a little less quick — the results so far have been about the same. And 483 days since the programs last met, each at a crossroads, they’ll meet again.

But only one team will get through the intersection this time.

James Pennington is a journalism senior. E-mail jpennington@kykernel.com.

• 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 great at any stretch, but the Cats fell off the map for about 15 minutes, at which point the Big Red had to resort to fouling. All that said, I never thought the game was in doubt for UK from start to finish. But looking back, those dominant 20 minutes (and they were as dominating as any team has played this year anywhere in college basketball) saved the Cats from a Sweet 16 exit.

• West Virginia could have lost last night. Only thing is, Washington wasn’t playing any better. Neither team was hitting shots and neither team could hold on to the ball. Put together, the teams committed 44 turnovers, but neither team could find a way to score in transition until West Virginia broke free just enough in the second half.

• Either way, the team that wants to represent the East region in the Final Four needs to play a better game Saturday than it did Thursday to advance.

• Thursday, why did Salt Lake City get all the action? Butler won a close game against Syracuse, Kansas State topped Xavier in an epic two-overtime thriller, and Gus Johnson called both. Here in Syracuse, we got one boring game followed by another.

• Personal highlight in the Carrier Dome on Sweet 16 Night: Washington’s pep band. The Husky Band, as many T-shirts read, didn’t stick with the pep band classics I’ve grown so tired of hearing covering hoops the past two years. Cornell and UK even had several songs in common, even arranged in the same keys. The Husky Band played some Gnarls Barkley, some Nirvana (a nod back home to Seattle, I suppose) and several fairly recent pop songs. They did play one ’80s song (Take on Me), but at least it’s a good one not overplayed by the nation’s pep bands. And best of all: no Bon Jovi.

UK presser will start at 1:50. West Virginia’s is at 2:50 if everything goes according to schedule. Quotes to follow.