Notes and quotes, pre-Transylvania edition

Notes and quotes from John Calipari’s press conference before UK’s Wednesday exhibition against Transylvania.

• Calipari said he’d rather have a scrimmage than an exhibition because he can work on more specific situations. But, he understands why the exhibitions have to happen because of fan interest and revenue. Calipari said the game brings UK $700,000.
• Calipari said his team still faces the same issues it faced before last week’s Blue-White scrimmage. He specifically cited pick-and-roll defense, post defense and rebounding as areas he’s working to improve. “Against each other, rebound attempts were just awful,” Calipari said. “Guys didn’t even try to rebound defensively.”
• Freshman forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist has a reputation for defense, but Calipari said not to overlook his slashing abilities. “I’ve already made a policy, if he’s ahead of you on the break and you don’t pass the ball, just come out,” Calipari said. “Just walk over the bench. Even without the horn blowing.”
• Calipari said freshman guard Marquis Teague just needs game experience to improve. “You can talk them through it, you can drill them,” Calipari said. “But they have to get in there and feel it, when to push it, when to pull it back, when to throw the lob.”
• Calipari said his team had the “worst practice” of the year on Monday. “But they had practiced so good up to that point, it’s hard to get mad at them,” Calipari said. “I told them I would give them a pass.”
• Kidd-Gilchrist had “as good a practice from any player I’ve seen on any team I’ve coached two days ago,” Calipari said. “He was just vicious.” Calipari pointed out a play where Kidd-Gilchrist was blocked by F Anthony Davis and went straight back up with the ball.
• Calipari said of Anthony Davis: “I’m coming up with a new zone offense. It’s, stand him under the basket, the rest of you move around. And when you can throw a lob, throw it to him,” Calipari said. “You’re laughing. But — he had his teeth on the rim the other day.”
• Calipari on if he has settled on a starting five: “Don’t know yet. I think what will happen is we’ll play a couple exhibition games and everybody will know. … It will be obvious. Who should be in the game at the end will be more important than anything else.”

UK ranked No. 2 in coaches preseason poll

Polls are here, which means college basketball season is getting closer.

UK was ranked No. 2 in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll and received one first-place vote. North Carolina will start the season at the top of the rankings after receiving 30 first-place votes. (To find out how much preseason polls matter, go here.)

Rounding out the top 5 is Ohio State, Connecticut and Syracuse.

On UK’s schedule are teams currently ranked No. 1 (North Carolina), No. 7 (Vanderbilt), No. 8 (Louisville), No. 10 (Florida), No. 13 (Kansas) and No. 17 (Alabama).

UK has been ranked in the preseason top 10 in each of John Calipari’s three years. UK was ranked No. 5 in 2009-10 and No. 10 last season.

The last time UK was ranked this high was 1995-96, when UK was ranked No. 1 and ended up winning a championship.

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Wondering what coach gave UK its sole first-place vote? Me too. Unfortunately we don’t know, but here’s the list of selectors.

Mike Adras, Northern Arizona; Tommy Amaker, Harvard; Tevester Anderson, Jackson State; Ronnie Arrow, South Alabama; Randy Bennett, Saint Mary’s; Eddie Biedenbach, North Carolina-Asheville; Jim Boeheim, Syracuse; Rick Byrd, Belmont; Tim Cluess, Iona; Charlie Coles, Miami (Ohio); Steve Donahue, Boston College; Scott Drew, Baylor; Steve Fisher, San Diego State; Mark Fox, Georgia; Don Friday, St. Francis (Pa.); Bill Herrion, New Hampshire; Ben Jacobson, Northern Iowa; Rob Jeter, Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Mike McConathy, Northwestern State; Bob McKillop, Davidson; Phil Martelli, Saint Joseph’s; Ron “Fang” Mitchell, Coppin State; Matt Painter, Purdue; Dave Paulsen, Bucknell; Herb Sendek, Arizona State; Shaka Smart, Virginia Commonwealth; Scott Sutton, Oral Roberts; Donnie Tyndall, Morehead State; Don Verlin, Idaho; Bob Williams, UC-Santa Barbara; Doug Wojcik, Tulsa.

How much do preseason rankings matter?

UK was ranked, as expected, No. 2 in the coaches poll Thursday. (It’s the highest UK has been ranked since 1995-96, and UK plays six teams currently in the Top 25, and more nuggets of goodness here).

But how much do preseason rankings indicate when compared to where teams end up?

I went back 13 seasons and found where in the preseason polls the national champion originated. Some come from the top of the polls. Some come from out of the polls entirely.

In looking at this graph, the middle blue line is the eventual national champion, with the rest of the preseason Top 25 stacked around it. So, if there’s lots of black bars above the line, the champion came from the bottom of the polls. If there’s lots of black bars below the blue line, the champion came from high in the polls.

Red bars indicate the team was runner-up, and yellow bars indicate the team was in the Final Four.

If the No. 2 team made at least the Final Four, they are labeled with “2:”

As you can see, most teams that made at least the Final Four come from the top of the rankings. In the 13 seasons represented, the eventual national champion was ranked in the top 4 nine times. One instance of a slightly lesser ranking (No. 9 Duke two seasons ago) winning it all exists, and there’s three cases of a team that came from outside the Top 25 taking home a title.

Expanding the parameters a bit, the vast majority of Final Four teams came from the Top 10 (32 out of 52).

Eight times a Final Four team came from outside the Top 25. Eight times the team ranked No. 2 made the Final Four.

Sullinger has picture of Knight’s game-winner on mirror

Brandon Knight hit the game-winner against Jared Sullinger’s Ohio State team in last season’s NCAA Tournament to advance UK to the Elite Eight.

Knight’s gone to the NBA, and Sullinger came back. But Sullinger is keeping a picture of Knight’s shot for motivation. An excerpt from the Beacon Journal:

That prompted Sullinger to tape a picture of Knight’s shot on his bathroom mirror.

“I look at it every day and think, ‘Could this have been different?’ ” Sullinger said. “It’s a motivating thing for me.

“The sense of urgency is there. I know every day is not promised. The way we lost to Kentucky, it really set me back. I realized how many practices I could have been going a step further but I didn’t. It makes me want to make up for those lost days.”

Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist dunk on each other

Earlier today, UK head coach John Calipari tweeted that Anthony Davis had thrown down a dunk on Michael Kidd-Gilchrist in the first Sunday practice session.

Turns out, Kidd-Gilchrist returned the favor in the second practice of the day.

Now there’s video evidence.

Davis dunks on Kidd-Gilchrist:

Kidd-Gilchrist dunks on Davis:

The two players had some tweets about it afterwards.

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Video via Calipari’s website.

Wiltjer does the ‘Cat Daddy’

There’s always a lot of talk about who will dance at Big Blue Madness. Various names popped up from Media Day — Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist told KSTV they would (they didn’t), other players said Jarrod Polson would (he did). Sometimes it works out; sometimes it doesn’t. Just last year, Doron Lamb told me he would dance and said he wasn’t scared of the John Wall legacy, and I thought it was the coolest thing, and then he did nothing.

But I’m not sure anyone expected Kyle Wiltjer to dance last night. He entered to “Let Me Clear My Throat,” an old-school hip-hop song I remember from my middle school days.

Then again, Wiltjer loves him some old-school stuff. His hook shot is a blast from the past. We’ll have a story on that soon.

Anyway, Wiltjer’s dance is here, at the 40-second mark.

And what dance is that? The ‘Cat Daddy.’ It’s the weirdest dance ever, and I can only identify what the dance move was because my roommate busts it out whenever he beats me at foosball. Here’s a video teaching you how to Cat Daddy, from the makers of the dance themselves. (Skip to the 1:40 mark to see it in action. Video possibly NSFW.)

SI ranks UK’s frontcourt No. 2, backcourt No. 3

College basketball season is coming soon, and that means previews, projections and predictions. We’ll have our share, too. For now, it’s Sports Illustrated’s Luke Winn ranking the best frontcourts and backcourts in the nation.

Not surprisingly, UK ranks high in both.

Winn ranks UK’s frontcourt of Anthony Davis, Terrence Jones, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Kyle Wiltjer and Eloy Vargas the second-best in the nation.

“It wouldn’t be a stretch to see a more mature version of Jones contend for the Wooden/Naismith Awards — unless, that is, he’s outshined by Davis, a 6-10 freshman who could very well be the first pick in the 2012 NBA draft. The tenacious Kidd-Gilchirst is expected to be one of UK’s best wing defenders from Day 1.”

Winn tabs UK’s backcourt of Marquis Teague, Doron Lamb, Darius Miller and Twany Beckham as the third-best in the country.

“Teague is the latest in coach John Calipari’s parade of elite freshman point guards to hit Lexington, and will likely follow the John Wall-Brandon Knight route of one-and-done to the NBA. Lamb is one of the country’s most dangerous perimeter shooters, and Miller, a 6-7 senior, will be the only upperclassman in the starting lineup.”

Student basketball ticket lottery system now allows groups

Getting student basketball tickets will work similar to last season, with the addition of group registration.

Tickets will be distributed seven times this year: three distributions (first-come, first-serve) and four lotteries (which now include the new group registration).

The key components of the student lotteries, via UK (full instructions for how to set up and join a group are below, as is a full calendar with all the dates and deadlines for each lottery/distribution):

• An “Online Group Registration Window” will occur beginning a week before each lottery.
• You will have the ability to register online as a group.
• Students should log-in to their student ticket account and set up a group to enter the online lottery. Once the leader has created a group, they can share their group information with other students, who can then join that group. For basketball lotteries, groups are limited to four students. Individuals wishing to enter alone should create a one-person group.
• After the online group registration deadline, the UK Ticket Office will conduct a random draw to select the winning students. Each group entry will have an equal chance of being selected.
• The winning students will be notified via email from the UK Ticket Office.
• ONLY these winning students will be eligible to attend the Monday night lottery at Memorial Coliseum.
• The actual lotteries will remain on Monday evenings at 9 p.m. at Memorial Coliseum. Doors will open at 8 p.m. Note: The first lottery is on a Tuesday night.
• On lottery nights, winning students should enter the Coliseum via the front doors on Euclid Avenue to receive their lottery number.
• Lottery numbers will be distributed in groups of 100.
• When your lottery number is called, each group will be directed to the ticket office to purchase tickets. If you want to
  buy Erupption Zone tickets, you must choose them for each game you are buying. Students may not select Erupption Zone for some games and regular seats for others
• After each lottery, unclaimed tickets will be sold the following morning (based on availability) to students who were not selected to attend the lottery.

A lottery will be held for the St. John’s/North Carolina/Chattanooga group of games, and then three more times starting with the Louisville game on Dec. 31 and continuing throughout SEC play.

The three distributions are for three groups of non-conference games and are first-come, first-serve at the Joe Craft Center box office. Tickets will be $5.

A full schedule is below:

Full instructions for how to set up a group:

1. Each group of students should designate a leader who will create the group name and inform other students of the group name and group password.
2. Leader – Visit www.ukathletics.com/tickets and click “My UK Student Account.” Enter your Account ID and Password, as provided in the email you received from the UK Ticket Office.
3. Under STUDENT LOTTERY REGISTRATION in the lower left-hand corner of your account, click CREATE A GROUP.
4. Enter your Group Name (Group names are case-sensitive. If the leader types in “We Love Wildcats”, other students who wish to join the group must type in the exact same group name to be able to join.)
5. Enter a Group Password (Group passwords are also case-sensitive. The group password is DIFFERENT than your individual log-in password.)
6. Re-enter the group password.
7. Select the check box “All Students”.
8. Select your group size. For basketball lotteries, groups are limited to 4 students. If you wish to enter the lottery as an individual, select a group size of 1.
9. Select the check box “11/08/11 Group Signup Lottery #1”. Subsequent lotteries will have the appropriate date.
10. Make sure the check box is selected which indicates “This box MUST remain checked for the group leader to be placed into this group.”
11. Click CONTINUE at the bottom to verify the group set-up information and click CREATE GROUP.
12. The group has now been created and the group confirmation appears. The leader will receive an email with the group name and group password. The leader should share this information with other students that wish to join their group. The simplest way to share is to forward the email. Remember – groups are limited in size to 4 students. Be careful who you share your group information with.
13. If you wish to enter the online registration process as an individual, you must still follow the above steps and create a 1-person group; however, no one else needs to join your group.

To join a group:

1. Visit www.ukathletics.com/tickets and click “My UK Student Account.” Enter your Account ID and Password, as provided in the email you received from the UK Ticket Office.
2. Under STUDENT LOTTERY REGISTRATION in the lower left-hand corner of your account, click VIEW/JOIN A GROUP.
3. Check the box under the “Group Signup Lottery #1” heading, and click GROUP.
4. Enter the group name and group password, as provided to you by your group leader, and then click CONTINUE.
5. Verify that this is the correct group and click JOIN THIS GROUP. You will be able to see which students have already joined the group.
6. The JOIN THIS GROUP confirmation page will appear.
7. You will receive an email confirming your selection.

Rondo added to Big Blue All Stars exhibition tour

The Big Blue All Stars tour has added a new face for the middle three stops.

Rajon Rondo will be on the team for games in Knott County, Mason County and Pulaski County, according to a press release.

Additionally, Ravi Moss has been added to the rosters for all five games.

The full rosters are below.

Pike County — DeMarcus Cousins, Brandon Knight, Chuck Hayes, Josh Harrellson,
DeAndre Liggins, Ravi Moss, Kenneth Faried, Shelvin Mack

Knott County — DeMarcus Cousins, Brandon Knight, Chuck Hayes, Josh Harrellson,
DeAndre Liggins, Ravi Moss, Kenneth Faried, Shelvin Mack, Rajon Rondo

Mason County — DeMarcus Cousins, Brandon Knight, Jodie Meeks, Josh Harrellson,
DeAndre Liggins, Ravi Moss, Kenneth Faried, Shelvin Mack, Rajon Rondo

Pulaski County — DeMarcus Cousins, Brandon Knight, Jodie Meeks, Josh Harrellson,
DeAndre Liggins, Ravi Moss, Kenneth Faried, Shelvin Mack, Rajon Rondo

Graves County — DeMarcus Cousins, Brandon Knight, Jodie Meeks, Josh Harrellson,
DeAndre Liggins, Ravi Moss, Kenneth Faried, Shelvin Mack

Report: Calipari, Rose pay Memphis ticket holders $1,000

A Memphis Commercial Appeal report says John Calipari and Derrick Rose agreed to pay $100,000 combined to Memphis season ticket holders for devaluing their tickets after the vacated 2008 season.

Calipari also paid his bonus, valued at $232,000 after taxes, to the University of Memphis scholarship fund. The agreement laid out a four-year payment plan starting in 2010. According to the Commercial Appeal, “U of M attorney Sheri Lipman said Thursday that she believes Calipari made a donation of $58,000 last fall.” The settlement said Memphis was “not pursuing claims for reimbursement of bonuses,” but that Calipari agreed to pay it back.

The payments were agreed upon in an out-of-court settlement after a threatened lawsuit from three Memphis attorneys.

From the story:

Calipari and Rose, according to the settlement agreement obtained Thursday by The Commercial Appeal, agreed on May 28, 2010, to pay a total of $100,000 to the three attorneys — Martin Zummach, Frank L. Watson III and William Burns — who were representing, in the agreement’s words, “certain ticket holders.” The amount was to be dispersed “as they agree among themselves.”

Calipari, who left Memphis after the 2008-09 season for the University of Kentucky, also agreed to donate his bonus to the U of M scholarship fund. The agreement approximated the value of the bonus at $232,000.

The full story can be read here.

More suggested reading: Memphis columnist Geoff Calkins takes on the situation, saying that someone in Memphis “finally stood up to John Calipari.” Read that here.

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