….in the Gator Bowl. Let’s go.

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Box score below.

First the bad:

This team is bipolar. We dominate and we doze off. We STILL cannot guard the high screen. The refs were ATROOOOOCIOUS in the first half. Spinoso was allowed to murder and molest Tre and Bradshaw with impunity, whereas he had a forcefield of ticky-tacks surrounding him.

We have trouble attacking the zone, as usual.

Now the good:

Reed Sheppard is without question THE heart and soul of this team. He produces on defense and he hits BIG shots. He moves the ball and understands when to slow it down.

Dillingham is coming into his own. He's taking his cues from Shep and Cal about situational awareness. He backed out several times today due to numbers or clock, very smart.

Bradshaw is THE TRUTH. This guy is DANGEROUS. Hitting threes? The man is a freaking red oak. We've missed having a big guy like this for sooooo long and he delivers. ZOMFG we could be deadly if we could somehow learn to guard the high screen.

Wagner played within himself today. Very impressive. Still missed a bunny at the rim. Needs to tighten that up.

This team sort of, at least SO FAR, reminds me of the 2020 team. Early inexplicable loss to a weak OOC team, has trouble putting people away, but can go on amazing runs. If you remember in 2020, we had at least a dozen games where we had double digit leads in the second half and had to hold on to win. But we did close out games. If we can hit our free throws this could be a sub-10-loss season.

Anyone else take this?

My two major gripes were (1) No WIFI, just terrible at CWS; and (2) concession lines, and ESPECIALLY the beer lines are ridiculous. You can easily spend 10 minutes in line to get a beer. As comparison, I went to three Reds games last year, and all three were at or near capacity crowds. Wait was nothing like at CWS for beer. There has to be a better way. At the UT game, I was next to one of their fans and he said FWIW, Neyland beer lines are every bit as long. Which I suppose doesn't say much for Land Grant Universities and their ability to manage concession sales.

Finally, minor peeve of mine is need more stats on the gazillion dollar video boards we have + more scores from other games, and not just the top 20 and SEC games.

All of these teams lost:

#9 UNC to UConn
#11 FAU to Illinois
#12 Texas was destroyed by Marquette
#13 Colorado State lost to St. Mary's
#14 BYU just lost to Utah

Will be interesting to see.

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Will try to get more on him tomorrow

Not much else needs to be said.

Keep the families in southern Todd County, Russellville , Auburn, and Bowling Green in your prayers. Those areas were hit by a long track tornado that was on the ground upwards of an hour, lots of damage.

I know there's a lot of Titans fans on here and I just saw where Frank Wycheck has died at 52. Article said he fell at home yesterday and hit his head. His family is going to work with Brain injury and concession study research. Really sad news as he always seemed like a regular guy who loved playing the game.

**EDIT** - https://www.tennesseetitans.com/news/former-titans-tight-end-frank-wycheck-dies-at-age-52

Absolutely love it, love seeing them get curb stomped

6-6 200 lb SF. He dropped 36 on Ashland Blazer last week.
Supposed to be a good shooter and rebounder.

Anyone heard of him?

I didn’t know we even had a rugby team but any chance to throw Ls down I’m for.

Apologies to those who are triggered and upset when non basketball/football programs have success.

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Just stop it. Don't get my hopes up. Don't put in Ugo next Saturday and make me think we'll have a real good team. And don't even THINK about getting Big Z eligible and putting him in for the SEC run either. If we get our seven three-footers in and keep everyone else healthy, is Cal going to get the last laugh? Or am I going to get my guts ripped out yet again by another magnificent flameout in March?

Without all these bigs in there I'm able to temper my expectations. If you get even two of the three playing in a regular rotation with contributing minutes, you will set me up. Again.

Don't do it, Cal.

I just can't take it anymore.

UK now up to 39 NET from 45. Only 6 more Penns and we crack the Top Ten at this rate!

jk, jk. But up is better than down.

The big receiver out of Indiana, big weekend for us,

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How we feeling about the game? Will it be a rock fight? Do you think we match up well with their guys? I haven’t watched any of their games so unsure of how they are offensively/defensively. @David Sisk would love to hear your thoughts on both teams since you cover both.

It is shaping up to be a huge weekend for UK football. It would be nice if we had a single thread where we could keep track of all the visitors and discuss them. So who is on campus this weekend?

Raymond Cottrell, 4 star WR, Texas A&M (committed)
Donaven McCulley, 4 star WR, Indiana
Chip Trayanum, 4 star RB, Ohio State

Who else do we have?

It is just as important to have the right people leave in the portal as it is to gain the right people from the portal. The culture of this years team seemed off. Seeing a lot of these guys leave is not exactly bothering me.

Hopefully this sets the stage to see a more mature/disciplined team on the field next year.

Who are some of the players you see as being addition by subtraction from the culture standpoint?

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I still watch this every few months. Jaw dropping play after jaw dropping play.

The highlights don’t show the bad ofcourse. Things before the injuries that maybe kept him from gathering more accolades like attitude, taking plays off on defense, and negative locker room and practice stories.

But i’m not sure there’s ever been a more talented big man in basketball. No one with his combination of finesse and power. He could be given the ball and facilitate from anywhere on the court from the 3 point line and in.