UK basketball photo day outtakes

Check out our slideshow of the 2011-2012 UK men’s basketball team. At photo day, the players had some fun posing for photos, doing group shots and joking with each other.

Kanter added to Big Blue All Stars

Enes Kanter will finally play in Rupp Arena.

With the creation of the Big Blue All Stars vs. Villains exhibition game on Oct. 24, former UK players, including Kanter, and former “Villains” will take the court again.

The biggest name is Kanter, who was a late addition to the Big Blue All Stars rosters, according to event organizer Jeff Sheppard.

“(That’s) as good as we could do,” Sheppard said. “We’re super excited to have him on our team.”

Other names tentatively included on the Big Blue All Stars are DeMarcus Cousins, Tayshaun Prince, Rajon Rondo, John Wall, Chuck Hayes, Jodie Meeks, Nazr Mohammed and others. Rosters have not been finalized, according to Sheppard.

Former Duke player Christian Laettner will coach the Villains team. Sheppard said he called Duke’s athletics office to try and contact Laettner. They said the message would be passed along. Two hours later, Laettner called Sheppard and said he would love to be the “main” villain.

“Laettner has been a great sport,” Sheppard said. “I still don’t like him.”

Laettner, who hit the game-winning shot in the 1992 NCAA Tournament, said he understands why UK fans regard him with “utter resentment and disdain,” but says he “never has and never will” hold any animosity toward UK fans.

“I was a huge UK fan when Rex Chapman played for them,” Laettner said. “And then I ended up hitting that shot and everything changed.”

The Villains roster tentatively includes Tyler Hansbrough (North Carolina), Rudy Gay (Connecticut), Terrence Williams (Louisville), Eric Gordon (Indiana), Nolan Smith (Duke), Kenneth Faried (Morehead State), Shelvin Mack (Butler) and Zach Randolph (Michigan State).

Sheppard said Joakim Noah (Florida) is a target.

“I’m still working on him,” Sheppard said. “We’d love to have him be a part of the game. He’s obviously a recent villain that’s given us fits.”

The game will be four quarters, each 12 minutes in length.

Should the NBA lockout end before Oct. 24, Sheppard said the game wouldn’t happen. He has brought that up to players and coaches, but doesn’t anticipate any league action preventing the game.

Tickets for the game will go on presale tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 7, at 10 a.m. at Ticketmaster.

VIDEO: Sheppard announces the tentative rosters and discusses the game

VIDEO: More of Sheppard discussing the team.

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VIDEO: Russell Westbrook beats Burden, Kevin Durant overthrows

Players on the Oklahoma City Thunder have been hanging around UK’s campus all week.

They moved on to UK’s practice football field Thursday, and at one point, Kevin Durant stepped in at quarterback with Russell Westbrook at wide receiver. UK cornerback Randall Burden was defending Westbrook, who beat him on a go route but couldn’t quite flag down Durant’s deep throw.

The C-J’s Kyle Tucker has excellent video of the play:

UK commit Archie Goodwin wants to hear the bad with the good

CBS’ Jeff Borzello has an interesting piece on the mentality of top basketball recruits.

Nearly all are coddled.

Borzello, using Memphis’ Will Barton’s maturation during high school under a coach who didn’t cater to him as a prism, says more recruits need “reality checks.”

In the article, Borzello quotes UK commit Archie Goodwin, who said he doesn’t like it when feedback is 100 percent positive. From the article:

“I can’t trust a person when they tell me all the good things,” said Archie Goodwin, who is committed to Kentucky. “I need to hear the bad as well.”

The full article can be read here.

Big Blue All Stars vs. Villains set for Oct. 24

A team of former UK players, named the Big Blue All Stars, will play a team of UK “Villains” in Rupp Arena on Oct. 24, the Lexington Center announced Wednesday.

Christian Laettner, former Duke player, will coach the Villains. Rex Chapman, former UK player, will coach the Big Blue All Stars.

According to Kyle Tucker of the Louisville Courier-Journal, potential players on the rosters, which are currently not finalized, are: Tyler Hansbrough (North Carolina), Nolan Smith (Duke), Rudy Gay (Connecticut), Eric Gordon (Indiana), Zach Randolph (Michigan State) and Terrence Williams (Louisville).

The Big Blue All Stars are also playing a five-game exhibition tour, with rosters consisting of a rotating cast of: Brandon Knight, Josh Harrellson, DeAndre Liggins, Eric Bledsoe, Jodie Meeks, DeMarcus Cousins and Chuck Hayes.

More details about the game, which is being put on by former UK player Jeff Sheppard, will be announced at a press conference at 2 p.m. Thursday.

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Kidd-Gilchrist visits Madness campers, revisits middle school days

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was handing out McDonald’s breakfast to Big Blue Madness campers. Three hours later, he was sitting in the UK Athletics office with those same 500 campers in tents ringing the building.

Kidd-Gilchrist is content with being in here instead of out there.

“It’s so cold outside right now,” Kidd-Gilchrist said of the 55-degree weather. “I swear, I wouldn’t be camping out.”

He did enjoy meeting those fans, though. They asked for his autograph. They talked about how much they were looking forward to this year, to UK’s eighth national championship. But man, they’re crazier than he expected. The same way John Calipari’s practices are harder than he expected. The same way living at college is harder than he expected.

“I’m homesick a little bit,” Kidd-Gilchrist said. “Just a little.”

He likes to call his mom back in New Jersey, to feel that connection to his family — the same connection that led him to add Kidd to his last name to honor a close uncle who died last year.

“Every day I do,” Kidd-Gilchrist said of how often he calls home. “They tell me, this is your dream.”

It has been his whole life, really. That much was clear to Lisa Padua, who taught Kidd-Gilchrist in middle school. He always knew he wanted to play basketball, Padua said. Even back in high school, he was fast and talented — and tall.

“Because he was growing so quickly, he would have to sit in class with ice on his knees because he was in so much pain,” Padua said. “We would keep ice bags in the fridge in the classroom for him.”

Padua, who taught math and English, had Kidd-Gilchrist in class all three years of his middle school career at Somerdale Park. Kidd-Gilchrist recently named her as one of his favorite teachers in a USA Today article, and he thinks of her as a “god-mom” now after all they’ve been through.

“I failed my first test in middle school,” Kidd-Gilchrist said. “I was just so down on myself, and she was there for me the whole time.”

That includes any struggles he had, including one meeting with his mother and faculty about academic problems. Kidd-Gilchrist overcame the setback with the same commitment that made Calipari say, “I’ve never seen him go anything but absolutely all out.” Padua said Kidd-Gilchrist didn’t change much over those three years, except for his academic growth.

“I think he stayed almost every single day after school with me to get done whatever he had to do,” Padua said. “That’s very unusual, for any middle schooler.”
His first name change was in an eighth-grade class; but that change was much more unofficial than the recent addition of Kidd to his surname.

“At one point, we were reading about Winston Churchill, and he said, ‘I like that name. I think I want to change my name to that,’” Padua said. “So that whole year in the classroom, he went by Winston instead of Michael. He was very receptive to it.”

And she was there through Kidd-Gilchrist’s last months in eighth grade, when he knew he would be moving away from the school system he’d been in since preschool to basketball high school powerhouse St. Patrick’s, about 70 miles away. It would be an adjustment, but one he made, rising to the top of the recruiting board in his early years.

Now he’s at college, where 500 tents, sitting in the 55-degree weather, circled the building to get tickets to watch him and the other UK players practice. Kidd-Gilchrist is inside. SportsCenter is on the widescreen TV in front of him. He will probably end up on the program himself plenty of times this year.

“I mean, I knew people would be camping, but,” Kidd-Gilchrist said, letting the sentence linger. “It’s even crazier than what I thought. But they’re here for us. I just want to get started.”

Follow Aaron on Twitter @KernelASmith.

Full Joker Phillips transcript, Oct. 3

Joker Phillips discussed the quarterback situation, his job security and more in his weekly Monday press conference. Below is a full transcript, as provided by UK:

COACH PHILLIPS:  First our injury situation.  Collins Ukwu will still be out.  Raymond Sanders had a chance to run yesterday, did not swell.  We’ll take a look at him tomorrow and see.  If he still hasn’t swollen, he could possibly practice tomorrow and could possibly play if the swelling is still down.  Sam Simpson is out with back (injury).  Mark Crawford could possibly miss practice on Tuesday with an AC sprain in his shoulder, but we think he’ll have an opportunity to play on Saturday.  Gene McCaskill, who did not travel to LSU, is questionable also whether or not he’ll play.

Another huge challenge for us, we’re getting ready to play our third straight top‑20 team.  We played the No. 15, the No. 1, the No. 18.  18 just went from 10 to 18, so another huge challenge for us.

Offensively they are balanced, but one of the top teams in the league in rushing, has a guy who is probably a Heisman candidate.  You guys would have to determine that.  I think he definitely is, but that’s for you guys to determine.

Defensively they’re number one in the league in pass defense.  If freshmen could come out (for the NFL Draft), he’d be the number one pick in (Jadeveon) Clowney, second in the league in sacks, behind his counterpart (Melvin) Ingram, who is first in the league in sacks, one of the bigger athletes in the league.  (South Carolina is) Number one in sacks with 13 on defense.

Again, a big challenge for us, but another opportunity for us to see how much we’ve improved, if we’ve improved.  I think we did improve last week defensively.  We did not play especially well on offense, which is an area we have to get better at.

Questions.

Q.  Coach Spurrier talked about shaking things up this week.  What do you think of what they’re doing so far?  What needs shaking up?

COACH PHILLIPS:  I hope they shake it up and don’t turn it over to 21 (Lattimore).  That’s the shaking up I’d like to see done.

You could go in there and hand it off to 21 and still have success.  (The team is) Rushing for 197 yards (per game).  I don’t know what shaking up needs to be done when you’re putting up the numbers that they’re putting up offensively, averaging 31 points a game.

Q.  How different is this challenge than what you faced with LSU and Florida?

COACH PHILLIPS:  All three of them are difficult.  They’re big challenges.  Again, you’ve got to play clean.  I thought for the most part last week defensively we played good enough to win.  You can’t allow your defense to play as many snaps as quick as they had to go in the game.

We had eight three‑and‑outs out of 14 possessions.  That’s not very good.  It’s really tough on your defense.  You give these guys the amounts of possessions that we had last week with the short amount of time for your defense to play. I think these guys (South Carolina) are a little bit faster than the group we just saw, and just as physical, especially the running back position.  I think he’s (Lattimore) probably a little faster than the backs we saw last week and just as physical.

Last week they (LSU) didn’t try to get the perimeter as much in the run game as this group will try to get him on the perimeter.  They’ll also try to run downhill on you.  Offense has to keep them off the field as long as we can.

Q.  Re: Bookie Cobbins

COACH PHILLIPS:  We have to find out if we can find another play‑maker.  We’ll practice him this week at some other positions also, just try to see if he can provide some play‑making abilities.

We’ll look at him at some other positions and just try to figure out whether or not he can go in the game and help us.

Also, if you’re going to play a guy after going into your sixth game of the season, he’s got to play enough to warrant taking a redshirt off of him.  We got to figure that out also.

Q.  He was also recruited by LSU, Florida State.

COACH PHILLIPS:  I don’t know who all recruited him, who all offered him.  A lot of people looked at him.  I’m not sure exactly what people recruited him as.  I know we recruited him as a quarterback, got a chance to get him.  Definitely an athlete, no question about that.  We got to figure out if he’s good enough to help us, and help us out this year. We’ll try him out at receiver, some at the quarterback position, too.

Q.  What are some of the things you saw out of Morgan in fall camp that really impressed you that you’re not seeing on Saturday?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Not getting rid of the ball.  Got to get the ball out of your hands.  We’ve given up 21 sacks.  You try to dissect those plays, try to find out how we’re getting sacked so much.  A lot of those sacks have been his holding the ball too long.  A lot of it gets put on the offensive line.  It’s not always the line.  Sometimes it’s the back.  Sometimes it’s just the line.  Sometimes it’s just the wide receivers.  Sometimes it’s the quarterback.

Q.  You talked about not getting as many play‑makers as you hoped for.  Is that a recruiting issue?

COACH PHILLIPS:  We lost a pretty good one (Randall Cobb) that we expected to be here also.  Do you expect three years ago that a guy would leave here as a junior?  No.  So we’ve lost some guys.  Graduation got us.  We feel like there’s some young ones here, but they haven’t done it yet.

Q.  Re: receivers getting open

COACH PHILLIPS:  At times.  The separation is very small at this level.  It’s not as big as it is at the next level.  Some people say separation is not enough to throw it in there.  Sometimes it is.  We’ve got to recognize it at that position.  Open is not from me to him.  That’s not open.  That’s open, that’s wide open, okay?  Open is this far (coach holds hands apart).  Next level, it’s that far (coach holds hands closer).

Q.  Talk about the decision to stick with Matt Roark.

COACH PHILLIPS:  Well, E.J. Fields didn’t practice on Wednesday or Thursday.  Matt plays that position that E.J. played.  Matt made a couple plays for us.  Really good blocker for us.  He’s probably the best blocker for us on the perimeter.  You also see his attitude, the way he plays on the special teams.  It’s a guy that doesn’t get his head down when he hasn’t made plays because he bounces back and plays special teams.  Let’s give him another opportunity.  He took advantage of it this past week.

Q.  How much do you think drops have hurt Morgan?

COACH PHILLIPS:  It definitely hurt.  I played quarterback before, too.  That definitely hurts a quarterback’s psyche.  If we’re not making plays for him, it hurts the whole offense.

You take the first game, you have as many drops as we had, it starts to affect the whole offense.  You come back the next week, you have probably more, then the next week about the same.  This past week we didn’t have as many, but we didn’t attempt as many passes.  We didn’t get as many off also.

But we talk about the sacks, only dropping back 25 times (vs. LSU).  Actually we dropped back a little bit more than that.  We ran a few of them.  It looks like we only caught 25.  A couple had to throw away.

Q.  Do you have anybody who is as demonstrative on the sideline that gets fired up?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Offensively?

Q.  Yes.

COACH PHILLIPS:  No.  Everybody talks about Randall.  We’ve been studying this thing.  The guy who made the huge difference, Mike Hartline.  People won’t like to hear that.  He made a great difference in getting our protection set, getting the ball out of his hands, getting the ball to those guys who made plays for us.  Hartline is a huge, huge loss.  We had three really good players in Randall, (Derrick) Locke and Mike.  Locke ran around the edge when we didn’t have the edge.  We don’t have that ability right now.  But Mike Hartline was the guy I think that was probably the biggest loss that we have.

Q.  When you look at Morgan, do you scratch your head or do you go, close?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Close.  A couple runs we were close on.  A couple passes we were close on.  He’s close to being the type of leader that you want.

We’re in a world where you want to be close now, you know.  Coaches, we’re competitive.  We want to be close now.  He’s competitive.  He wants to be better now.  He’s working at it, working really hard at it.

Q.  (more on Hartline)

COACH PHILLIPS:  It’s hard to see 3,000 yards walk out the door.  The guy made some huge plays, 25, 26 touchdowns.  The backup quarterback is always going to be the more popular guy in any organization.  Morgan was popular.  Mike Hartline was popular at one time.

But, you know, we’re making decisions.  Made the decision last year who we thought gave us the best chance to win.  We thought he did a good job at that and we made the decision this year also.

Q.  When you talk about Clowney, Ingram, their ability to sack, what is it about them physically that makes them so good?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Just watching a couple clips of Clowney, athletic.  The running back tries to go cut him, he hurdles him.  Gets his feet down on the ground faster than anybody I’ve ever seen.  Goes and causes a fumble.  He’s just so long.  He’s athletic.  He’s a powerful guy.

You see Ingram all over the place.  He’s (running fake) punts.  I think he has two or three touchdowns, I know he has two for sure watching the film, the punt team.  I think he might have had one last week.  Just a guy that’s athletic.

There’s been even mention of them putting him at tailback.  That tells you what type of athlete he is.  He has played inside which tells you how powerful he is.  Now he’s playing on the outside which tells you how athletic he is.

Q.  Re: playing freshman wide receiver Demarco Robinson more

COACH PHILLIPS:  Last week with all the press coverage, how long and physical those DBs were that we played against, guy (Robinson) is 155 pounds.  Maybe like child abuse putting him in the game last week (laughter from media).  We decided we’ll get him in the game, if we knew for sure it was going to be a little bit more ‘off’ coverage.  Then having to block, we did not feel that this was a game that he could hold up in the block game also.  So we played those other guys.

Q.  re: E.J. Fields

COACH PHILLIPS:  Fields was injured last week.  He got injured, didn’t practice Wednesday or Thursday.  There’s one day of preparation for him.

In the past, we might have played him.  But we’ve seen how some of our guys this year at that position have performed after only practicing one day.  We just didn’t want to go through that ’cause we just didn’t think they had been prepared enough to play, so we decided to play the other guys that had been at practice.

Q.  Is there a quarterback competition right now?

COACH PHILLIPS:  There’s always a competition at every position.  Morgan still gives us our best chance to win, though.

Q.  How hard is it to coach getting rid of the ball for a quarterback and how much of it is instinct?

COACH PHILLIPS:  How much is it the coach?  One of the things, he got to trust that this guy is going to make a play for them and he’s open.  Go through your reads.  Is that one open?  You don’t think so, no.  Is the next one open?  You don’t think so, go with it.  Get it out of your hand or pull it down and run for a quarterback like him.

But I think we’ve done a really good job of coaching quarterbacks around here.  We’ll get Morgan right also.

Q.  re: if he expects South Carolina to change systems if the quarterback changes.

COACH PHILLIPS:  They’re going to do what they do.  It’s different than going from the two quarterbacks we saw last week, going back to the athletic guy.  I think these two guys (South Carolina QBs) are similar.  He (Spurrier) always goes from a drop‑back passer to a drop‑back passer.  His system or play calling doesn’t change.

Last week found out on Thursday morning (that LSU QB Jefferson might play), late Wednesday night, that was difficult.

Q.  (re: going into next week’s bye week on a win or loss) Would winning this week help things in terms of morale?

COACH PHILLIPS:  Definitely.  Winning helps everything.  It helps everything.  But we’ve been in a bye week with some of the biggest negative things we’ve ever been around and came out of it by winning a lot of games.

Like I say, winning helps everything.  I’m not sure it helps going into a bye if we don’t win.  We’ll use this bye to get ourselves better, get ourselves even more prepared for the second half of the season.

Q.  re: CoShik Williams not playing vs. LSU

COACH PHILLIPS:  Again, he didn’t practice on Wednesday or Thursday.  He did make it to the game.  But it was just a matter of we have seen this year guys not practice on Wednesday, offensively, then get a couple reps on Thursday.  We just felt like it was right.

Jonathan (George) had been sharp.  Had Jonathan not been that sharp, we probably would have played CoShik.  Jonathan was sharp enough so we gave him the reps.  It was nothing that CoShik did wrong.  He had a toe did didn’t allow him to practice on Wednesday, but was able to make the game.  We decided to go with the other guy.

Thunder, Celtics working out at UK

The NBA lockout is still in effect.

So NBA players keep coming to UK.

Sunday night, Kevin Durant tweeted that he was on his way to Lexington. Today, UK football graduate assistant coach Andre Woodson tweeted that not only were the Thunder at UK, but also Rajon Rondo and the Boston Celtics:

Calls to UK for verification have not been returned.

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Knight, Hayes, Meeks part of Big Blue All Stars rosters

The finalized rosters for the upcoming Big Blue All Stars exhibition tour featuring former Kentucky players were announced today in a release. Multiple former UK players, as well as two others with local ties, will be playing in the games. Additionally, DeMarcus Cousins and Rajon Rondo are still deciding, but Jeff Sheppard says Cousins will decide by noon Tuesday and Rondo is “very interested in playing in at least two games” for the tour. Here are the rosters for each game:

Big Blue All Stars vs. University of Pikeville -Oct. 8
• Brandon Knight
• Chuck Hayes
• Josh Harrellson
• DeAndre Liggins
• Kenneth Faried (former Morehead State player)
• Shelvin Mack (former Butler player)

Big Blue All Stars vs. Alice Lloyd College – Oct. 9
• Brandon Knight
• Chuck Hayes
• Josh Harrellson
• DeAndre Liggins
• Eric Bledsoe
• Kenneth Faried
• Shelvin Mack

Big Blue All Stars vs. Georgetown College – Oct 10
• Brandon Knight
• Jodie Meeks
• Josh Harrellson
• DeAndre Liggins
• Eric Bledsoe
• Kenneth Faried
• Shelvin Mack

Big Blue All Stars vs. Union College – Oct 11
• Brandon Knight
• Jodie Meeks
• Josh Harrellson
• DeAndre Liggins
• Eric Bledsoe
• Kenneth Faried
• Shelvin Mack

Big Blue All Stars vs. Mid Continent University – Oct 13
• Brandon Knight
• Jodie Meeks
• Josh Harrellson
• DeAndre Liggins
• Eric Bledsoe
• Kenneth Faried
• Shelvin Mack

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John Wall behind-the-back dunk

John Wall has been one of the most active NBA players over the summer, from countless pick-up and league games to calling out NBA leaders to help end the lockout.

Most fun of all, though, are his highlight reels. He’s got another one out featuring all his dunks in the recent CP3 All-Star Game, including a behind-the-back slam. Granted, most came against zero defense, but they’re still pretty sick. (Video shot and edited by Ball Is Life.)