Is There A Curse?

Now that we are officially #1 we can turn our attention to other unimportant things till Wednesday.

We haven’t heard the name of former coach Tubby Smith here in a while. His best player Trevor Mbakwe is now out for the season or with luck might be back by the end of the year. It seems to be a annual thing up in gopher land since Tubby has been there. Every year the little gopher fans stick their heads up

and expect it to be the year Tubby takes them to the promised land. Every year something happens to them. A player is injured, kick off the team or thrown under the bus. Its a little early this year but the fans are checking their holes for a long winter.

Has Tubby been cursed to forever have problems? And better yet did the BBN do it? Naw Tubby did it himself.

BBN- Top-25 Nov 27, 2011

A lot of teams have finished the season as of this week, some play next week, also some Conference Championships to be played this coming week.
1 LSU
2 Alabama
3 Virginia Tech
4 Oklahoma St
5 Stanford
6 Houston
7 Oregon
8 Boise State
9 Georgia
10 Arkansas
11 Oklahoma
12 Wisconsin
13 South Carolina
14 Michigan St
15 Kansas State
16 Michigan
17 TCU
18 Baylor
19 Nebraska
20 West Virginia
21 Clemson
22 Penn State
23 Southern Miss
24 Florida State
25 Cincinnati

It is looking more like the National Champion will again come from the SEC West.

Cat’s beat determined Portland

UK beat a very determined Portland team that refused to just wilt, but in the end they had no choice in the matter.  UK had superior talent and superior quickness for the 3 point barrage from Portland to equal a win for the visitors.

The season will become decidedly more difficult this week with two good teams coming to town.  UNC has been the #1 ranked team from the last of the previous campaign and rightly so in my opinion.  They lost last evening to a supposedly inferior team and if they played 10 times UNC would probably win 9 of them.

That loss by UNC can’t be good news for UK.  Roy and company will now have the proverbial monkey off of their backs and it is squarely on UK right now.  I would normally welcome the #1 ranking, but I would have preferred it to come after the UNC game if UK would be lucky or good enough to win.  I say lucky because I feel UNLV was more lucky than good, because UNC has everything a coach could want for a college team except 5 starting seniors with the same talent.  On the other hand, UK doesn’t have that.  Sure UK is extremely talented and extremely quick which saved them last night, but UNC has more depth and experience and now they also have a wounded ego to bring with them.

UK will have their work cut out for them and they had better not be overlooking Steve Lavin’s boys from the City.  Steve’s boys are young but very talented.  If UK brings their A game they should win that game, but it is a trap game.  I wish that game was on Wednesday instead of Thursday because of the youth on Cal’s team.

I like what I have been seeing in the growth of the team.  They are getting better and better each game.  They are becoming a team of extremely talented young men rather than just being extremely talented individuals.  The athleticism and length of the team disrupts every team they play and should (barring injuries) all year.

UK could lose 2 games this week split the games or win two.  I feel they can get two, but they need to grow even more this week before facing two good teams.   Don’t worry about Harrison Barnes not being in the lineup, because he will be there at full strength and I want it that way.  Even if he wasn’t there UNC has great talent to fill the spot.

One great sign from the Portland game was Darius Miller once again brought a great game with him.

We have been waiting for almost 8 months for this week.  I know I am excited so bring it on!

 

 

The Snowball And The Hot Place

I gave UK as much chance to win the football against UT yesterday as the proverbial snowball in the hot place, but somehow the snowball survived. It wasn’t pretty and as usual I was fuming angry all during the game at the horrific play calling by the coaches. I know, I know they sort of had their hands tied, but couldn’t they let a quarterback who has been playing football for many years throw a short pass up field a few times?

Don’t get me wrong about the win. I am ecstatic that UK won. The streak has been 25 years too long so this win is so satisfying on many fronts. First and foremost beating anything with the color orange as a school color is very satisfying. I kept seeing the face of Mr. Dooley on camera yesterday with that gray jacket on. It didn’t look so bad until the camera showed a full torso of him wearing those ugly orange pants and it was like, ugh why did you put such ugly things on for your pants. The person or persons that choose that color were insane at the best. The people that choose to keep it their school color are even worse because they see ugly splattered all over the place and do nothing about it.

Yeah the win is doubly satisfying because now we won’t have to listen to it a million times over and over like broken records reloading to punish you. This time it is their turn and it will be even worse for them because they are the team, coach and administration that let it happen. They have to live with that for the rest of their lives and I am so happy for them! I do feel bad for the coach, because he seems to be a decent sort of guy so I don’t hate him, because as coach he had to wear that color. I wish him well in his future assistant coach job(s) at another institution, because this will surely be his last year at UT. I bet he has had to hire extra security for their safety. I can only imagine the death threats he may have already received, because as the announcers said during the Bama and Auburn game there would be repercussions from that loss.

Now back to the game…what really happened to secure the win? I mean really!? UK is horrible and there is no way an offense so bad the coaches wouldn’t even attempt a forward pass could beat any division 1 team. The defense played their hearts out, but even that had many holes in it all game long, but UT couldn’t take advantage of it. Their quarterback is so slow he moves in slow motion. I kept wondering why our guys couldn’t splatter the guy all over the field.

The last 1:47 was terrifying to watch, because that is the point where the clock was stopped to attend to a downed referee. Isn’t that the place during the game when UK usually has something bad happen to them?  Certainly, the clock was their enemy at that point of the game! UK desperately needed the clock to run really fast, but there it was stopped giving UT time to settle down a bit and call a good play, but even more importantly to them gave them more time.

I just knew fate had just intervened once again to deny UK the win, but somehow it didn’t. Time stood still for an eternity and I was screaming at the referrer’s to start the clock, but they wouldn’t for the longest time.  Finally, play resumed with a pass to the sideline and we all know the usual ending to that story all to well don’t we, however;  from out of nowhere Danny Trevathan almost intercepted a pass to a receiver, but he didn’t.  I knew then fate was torturing us for the dramatic letdown and our 26 years of hope was going to crash to the ground by one fateful play.  There was no doubt we were going to lose, but I had to watch anyway.  I just knew the next pass was going for a touchdown or close enough for an easy field goal to tie the game. We surely didn’t want another extra period for another quirky meltdown.  Then the fateful play unfolds as I held my breath while the ball sailed right down the middle of the field.  Sure enough fate intervened and some how some way the pass was picked off allowing UK to run out the clock securing the win.

All I can say is the snowball must have had a special coat on it yesterday, because the fire was hot and orange in color.  Now the UT administrators need more than a snowball to put out that fire.

Yes indeed, that win is sweet for the color BLUE!  Can I breathe now?

The Streak Is Over

The streak is over. Did anyone besides me shedd a few tears? This has to be one of the better days in my life. Tennessee doesn’t go to a bowl, Dooley might get fired, Bray plays middle school football, Matt Roark becomes one of the most remembered Kentucky players ever, the defense plays the best game of the season and Tydlacka keeps Tenn pinned.

It was a total team effort from all the players, and they along with us will remember it all their lives.

The game revolved around Matt Roark and he played the game of his life. In the future when we talk about him he will be spoken about and remembered the same as Josh Harrellson.

It was a tough game to watch as the announcers seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time talking about how many of the Tenn players were going to be great down the line. As the game progressed you could see the Kentucky players start to sense they might win the game. The crowed was standing. Even the referees seemed to sense it.

It took the whole team to win the game but it took Matt Roark to dominate Tennessee. The team might have parted the sea but Matt led us across the sea bottom to victory.

Duke Finds Their ODU In Tennessee

Tennessee stayed right there with Puke till very near the end. Puke won by 10 I believe. The Blue Devils were susceptible to the dribble drive and Tennessee made it to the basket pretty much at will. Only thing is that Tennessee players, while very athletic, play like a bunch of street ballers. In other words, really sloppy stuff on their part. It was nip and tuck in the first half until two treys by Rivers and another by Curry put them up by 6 at the half. Tennessee came back a regained the lead briefly early in the second half and the score continued to flip flop by a point or two either direction till the last five minutes of the game or so. Duke went up by 8, then 10 pts. and it stayed that way the last couple of minutes as the game concluded.

No “real” Devils or Oranges were injured or put in any jeopardy during this contest.

In unrelated news, I fell asleep on the couch awaiting the next game from Maui and dreamed I came home and found a naked dwarf in my living room. I tried everything, including “caining” him with a pool cue to get him to leave but he wouldn’t go away. I finally had to call the police but woke up before they got there. It appears that watching two teams you hate play one another does strange thinks to the mind; especially having to root for Tennessee.

A better sports story than Tipton could write. The human interest factor was far more interesting too.

I’m sure if Freud were still alive he’d say, subconsciously, that naked dwarf was Coach K.

I borrowed and combined this from alpha and Boondog and jdog in the forums since I found it much more truthfull than what you could find on ESPN.

The LHL Goes Even Further (Revised)

After following up on some complaints I’m sure they received the LHL did the respectful thing about the post we talked about yesterday. They deleted the comments complaining about it and left the post up. I’d have to guess that it was a mistake but with all the negative and semi-negative things they have allowed Tipton to get away with who knows. Could it be possible as others have posted that it was really Jerry Tipton who posted it looking for nibbles to use in a story. Naw just kidding Jerry.

There must have been a glitch somewhere as the comments are back up. Sorry LHL. I was really beginning to enjoy myself at your expense.

The LHL Has Gone To Far

This was posted on the LHL board last Friday and is still up there over two days later. Allowing it to stay up shows that the LHL has crossed the line in their attempts to burn our program. Using the excuse that they didn’t post it is not an excuse for allowing people to attempt to harm a persons reputation.

Contact coach Cal at his website and ask him to take action. Also send it to anyone you can at the school and anything else you can think of to do.

This was posted by a user named catblackfever

Calipari touched a kid earlier this year by rubbing his hand, the NCAA had a problem with it… I wonder with all the child molesation stuff going on at Penn State and now at Syracuse I wonder if Calipari will be exposed… did Calipari rub anything else… wow… what a weird world this has turned out to be recently….

A Response To Tipton

Jerry Tipton here after known by the wordpress tag dickhead is at it again. In an article in todays LHL he tries to prove to the BBN, in their own seat of power no less that they aren’t the greatest empire ever. The world just wouldn’t feel right if he wasn’t trying to PO BBN fans.

Lets look objectively at basketball and world history to judge what makes an empire.

Duke is up there because of one emperor and one emperor only, old rat face himself. In real life history Alexander the Great won half the world but after his death Macedonia U faded into obscurity. Does Vegas think that after the emperor is gone the empire will survive. This empire subject doesn’t think there is a coach out there who could keep Duke at the level they are now.

UCLA under John Wooden plundered the basketball world and the dynasty faded only to burst briefly on the stage before again fading into history. Genghis Kahn did the same thing but you notice that Mongol U isn’t a player now and Kubla Kahns pleasure dome will never be as great as our pleasure dome.

NC is the one program besides Kentucky that could really be considered a viable empire. Since the empire was founded there have been three emperors and two of them have won a national championship. I forgot about Frank McGuire so add him to the emperor list. Again though is there a replacement emperor out there today besides coach Cal and maybe Bill Self who could well enough to keep the ACC barbarians from storming the gates.

Any of the above are welcome to the title as far as I’m concerned. After all if we want the title we own it. I consider us the Roman Republic of basketball not the Roman Empire of basketball. From leaders like Rupp, Hall, Pitino, Smith and Calipari who won national championships to orator’s like Cawood Ledford who wove spell binding words the whole state followed, rich citizens who control the senate, and citizens like Bill Kightly who supported the republic wholeheartedly we have everything the history of the Roman Republic had. Our castle is the greatest, our citizens the strongest, and our tradition spans 7 decades and is still going strong.

OK the history lesson is done now and we are the greatest empire in basketball history. Hows that sound dickhead.

Big Blue Rules Top-25

Well here is the BBR-Top-25 for this week, I am thinking the SEC-West is looking pretty good right now.
01 LSU
02 Alabama
03 Arkansas
04 Va. Tech
05 Houston
06 South Carolina
07 Georgia
08 Oklahoma St
09 Kansas St
10 Oregon
11 Oklahoma
12 Boise St
13 Southern California
14 Michigan St
15 TCU
16 Baylor
17 Michigan
18 Penn St
19 Clemson
20 Wisconsin
21 Notre Dame
22 Tulsa
23 Virginia
24 Southern Miss
25 West Virginia

This is a lot different than the experts had figured out for the BCS, but the SEC is proving they are head and shoulders above the other conferences.

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