Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Agreed. The only person who controls the ESPN split screen is elder statesman Joe Lunardi, and he won't bother announcing his brackets on TV in November.
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But what if Joe Lunardi decides to run for office? There are a number of midterm openings in Pennsylvania.
It's hard to figure out what Kentucky will look like from year to year, but next year's team will be particularly difficult to project. This seems like the year the shine wore off Calipari. His team is looking at being unranked after losing to South Carolina earlier this week. If they fail to get past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament again - it would be their 3rd straight early exit - do some in Lexington start to rumble and grumble about Calipari's job as head coach? I'm sure they expect their leading scorers, Kevin Knox and Hamidou Diallo, to leave for the NBA Draft. They will replace those two, more or less, with their incoming class of freshmen guards. But they don't have a Top 10 player in the Class of 2018 yet and don't appear to be in on any remaining recruit (although Zion Williamson could change that). The player that has played the best for them this year is relatively unheralded Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a 6'6" point guard. Gilgeous-Alexander has played well enough that some wonder if he'll go in the first round. His leaving won't drain Kentucky of talent as much as losing some of their frontcourt players. If UK loses Nick Richards, in particular, they will be dangerously thin in an area where they have really struggled in recent years - post play. Richards is having an ok season and has more or less been the raw defensive-minded center many thought he would be. If they do show up next year with Richards, the three new freshmen, their current sophomores (Wenyen Gabriel and Sacha Killeya-Jones), and at least one of Jarred Vanderbilt and P.J. Washington, then I do think they will be a tough team, especially on the defensive end. Losing more than one or more of their frontcourt freshmen, though, will really test their depth. It should be an interesting matchup. There will be plenty of Big Blue Nation in Indianapolis, a not-too-long drive of 4 hours from Lexington, Kentucky.
Does anyone know what tournament we will participate in around Thanksgiving next year? Maui? Atlantis?
Thanks
It's Maui, along with Arizona, Gonzaga, Xavier, etc
Maui
Arizona, Gonzaga and Xavier figure to be pretty good
Coach K on Kyle Singler - "What position does he play? ... He plays winner."
"Duke is never the underdog" - Quinn Cook
ESPN just published their revised draft board today and they highlighted the excellent play lately from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He is up to #18 in their latest draft projections. At that level, he is leaving for sure.
Know is #11 (he's 100% turning pro) and Diallo is #24 (he's also turning pro, he almost turned pro last year). Vanderbilt, Richards, and PJ Washington are #50, 51, and 52 on the ESPN big board. I could certainly see all three of them return to school.
-Jason "worth noting -- Bagley is #3, Carter #14, Duvall #23, and Grayson #35... Trent is not in ESPN's top 100, which seems really strange. I though the top 100 is supposed to include guys not expected to go in this year's draft, but I could be wrong" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
While on the subject of next year’s schedule - is this the year we return back to Maui?
Yes. UK and Maui will represent 4 of the 5 non-conference games outside of Cameron. If we keep the same 30/31 games, the only other one will be the ACC-B10 or a return of the December MSG game.
HOME: SJU (in theory), 4-5 TBD, 10 ACC TBD.
AWAY/NEUTRAL: UK (11/6), Maui (11/19-21), 1 TBD, 10 ACC TBD.
I know I'm going out on a limb with the either/or.