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So Terrence Edwards Jr wants to play UK so badly

that he decided to play at UL just for that game. I hope he enjoys getting embarrassed on the biggest of stages.

How will future OOC football schedules look for P4 teams?

Seems like I have heard and/or read that many observers believe that due to the new playoff format, it will discourage teams from playing tough OOC games in the future. Maybe even Deboer of Bama said so?

Anyway, I took a look at the teams actually in the playoffs this year and can't see why that would be true. Clemson played Georgia and Oregon played Boise State, and all four are in the playoffs, and three have top four seeds! Texas played at Michigan, Penn State opened with a road game at West Virginia, Tennessee played a neutral site game vs. NC State, SMU played BYU, Notre Dame played at Texas A&M, and even Arizona State hosted Miss State, who was pitiful but ASU was supposed to be really bad as well, and it was the first SEC team to play in Tempe in 16 years. Only Ohio State and Indiana failed to play anyone outside their conference in a P4 league, but to be fair, OSU did play three of the other 11 playoff teams, two on the road.

Looking at the above, my take is that if you have a good team, it is not going to hurt you to play at least one tough OOC game a year, even a loss (Clemson, Boise State) is not going to prevent you from being in the CFP, based on this year.
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Sumrall

What is the love affair with this guy? While better than stoops, look at Tulanes last two games... they got stomped when playing decent competition and never really upset any of the big boys. Look at the mid major guys that went to nebraska and florida that crapped the bed and didn't do squat. Those coaches are very similar to sumrall if you ask me. Why would he be successful at UK?

Creighton 4* freshman transferring, Larry Johnson

Hasn't played a game yet for Creighton so not sure if he'd be eligible for THIS year (probably not).. but he'd still have 4 years left. Haven't seen much of him but he's a slasher and solid defender. We could sure use someone like him on this team.

Still interesting none the less. Barely a month in and you already have a mid season transfer from a p5-type school.

40 game regular season

Pope said in his presser today he's pushing for 40 games before postseason play starts (albeit some of those games could be additional preseason contests). His reasons:
  1. With all the player movement right now you'll put out a better product if you have more games to get better
  2. Players are better prepared for long professional seasons
  3. Helpful for NIL purposes
  4. Makes it easier to sign up for MTEs like Maui
  5. Other college sports do it so it shouldn't be overly demanding academically
Here's the link to the KSR post discussing it

I'm for it, anything that gives me more UK basketball is a step in the right direction in my opinion. I've often wondered why the NBA is so much longer than than CBB. It's probably a money thing, but now that CBB is basically semi-pro we may as well expand the season too.

I'm MUCH more in favor of adding regular season games than expanding the NCAA tournament.

Basketball ***** Postgame Press Conference Notes - UK vs. Colgate *****

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KENTUCKY HC MARK POPE Q&A:

* Colgate isn't having the season they had hoped, but they have championship pride and pedigree, and you saw it tonight. Played really hard.

* Liked how our guys finally answered the bell.

* Finally got back over 30 3s. We need to be a volume 3s team. We haven't been there lately.

* Work in progress with Travis Perry and Trent Noah. Made solid contributions tonight. Trent was out there when there was a little bit better vibe. One of the things I love about him is he's only been in the game 1 minute or so, and he's standing right in front of me as I'm saying punch it punch it into the post, and he pulls up and hits a 3. He's gonna be a player.

* We need to be masters of our own energy. It was not there tonight after the 17-0 start. Not sure why. Could be several reasons. But hopefully this will help us moving forward.

* Asked about Kerr's surgery, Pope says he's already had it done. They think somewhere around the 6-week period, I'm saying 10 days. (laughs). Thinks he'll continue to bring great energy to the team from the bench. He can be incredibly value to us right now.

* Kobe obviously shot the ball well tonight. Good to see that.

* Asked about being ranked 5th but eking out an 11-point win tonight... Glad that we're in the conversation of the best teams in the country. Right now, it's just a race to get better, and you want to win every game along the way. But those numbers matter. The metrics, the efficiencies need to be high.

* Lamont Butler update: On the court a little bit today. Every day is testing it a bit more to see how he's doing. We'll know more about how he's feeling in the morning. Would prefer to see him on the court sometime soon.

* On why the 30+ 3s is so important... It's a measure of how the whole system is working, how we're moving and screening. We don't just want to shoot casual 3s to get 30. We want to get them because we're doing things the right way on offense and have the right energy.

******

COLGATE HC MATT LANGEL & PARKER JONES Q&A:

* Langel opens saying this is excited because they've been to 5 straight NCAA tourney appearances and never had this much media attention. Liked how his guys competed and played really hard tonight. Kentucky's got a group of "winners," a bunch of guys who are here for the right reasons. We just ran out of gas tonight, and Kentucky stepped up and hit some big shots when we did.

* On how his team got back into after falling behind 17-0.... not sure how that happened, but a lot of inexperienced guys who have not been in the roles they are in now. You saw some hesitancy. The environment may have gotten to us a bit. And Kentucky has really good players. Once we saw a few balls go thru the hoop, we started playing like we are capable of playing.

* Planned to play zone tonight on makes and man on misses. You have to keep mixing it up against a team this talented. Tried to keep them thinking, keep them changing what they're doing. They got some good looks. I think they'll actually shoot better than that as the season moves along.

* Colgate's Parker Jones: "This is kinda sick. I've never been in a press conference until this. This is high-level." (Laughs)

******

UK PLAYERS Q&A:

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QB chatter…

it’s not often i hear stuff from reliable people involved with UK football, but yesterday i did hear from the same person that tipped me off last Spring/Summer that the staff had real questions/concerns about BVG.

Fast forward to today, QB is still the main issue at UK. While Hamdan likes Boley, he isn’t even close to being convinced that he’s ready to be QB1 by next Fall, thus UK is attempting to recruit a starting QB from the portal. They’re having to tread lightly and attempt to find a guy with only year 1 of eligibility left as to not spook Boley into portaling himself.

As for Boley, the general feeling is the Texas second half was an anomaly. Remember, just a few weeks prior UK was telling Jrow that the plan for 2025 was to go all-in on building around BVG. That was 100% true because they still viewed BVG as much more advanced and ready than Boley. Boley hadn’t shown signs of consistency in practice. However, UK needed a spark both on the field and off the field from a PR perspective. The second half of the Texas game with Boley gave them some cover.

Long story short - UK still lacks a QB1. Whoever they sign from the portal is being brought in to be QB1.
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