2024-12-03- BBI

their second ACC opponent of the year. As you know, Kentucky beat Douke earlier in the year, so they tried to go too and zero against the ACC. And it was on this day back in twenty eleven that Kentucky scored a win over North Carolina, one of the most dramatic finishes in the history of that series if you're a Kentucky fan, and of course that's the team that went on to win the National Championship. And it came down to a great defensive play at the end, you know what I'm talking.

chance to win. But Anthony Davis comes through and always right with the world. So Wildcats get another shot at the ACC tonight. We will have it for you right here, and Clemson is good. Made the Elite eight last year, but a different look, I mean, not a bad team offensively nearly eighty points a game, but Kentucky scores nearly ninety seven points a game. Wildcats with forty five rebounds per contest nearly thirty eight for Clemson Kentucky twenty one assists.

Now again, these numbers are skewed because Kentucky scores more buckets, but twenty one assists for the Wildcats per game nearly fifteen for Clemson Kentucky six blocks per game to three for the Tigers. I won't go through everything, but UK was only ten turnovers per game and Clemson just eleven, so may well be a pretty clean ballgame. Clemson does hit nearly forty percent from three point land, Kentucky thirty eight percent, So I don't know. Seems like it's gonna

be two pretty good teams. We'll see which team can take the other out of what it needs to do. Clemson seven and one on the year, only lost on the road to Boise State. I mentioned the Tigers are an Elite eighteen from last year. You know there are four on the UK schedule. Cats have already played Duke, but Alabama and Tennessee also made the Elite eight. Guy named Chase Hunter leads Clemson sixteen and a half points per game. Ian Shefflin averages eleven and a half rebounds

per contest. He is third in the country. And get this, he leads the team and assists with twenty nine I mentioned three point shooting thirty nine point eight percent for Clemson, number one in the ACC, nineteenth in the country. So Kentucky's got to get out and challenge the three point shooters, just as Clemson will try to do the same to

the Wildcats. Tiger's picked to finish fourth in the ACC preseason poll Hunter and Sheffland preseason All League picks, and as you know by now, Kentucky, which was picked to finish in the middle of the pack and the SEC, is now depending on the pole you like, ranked as high as number four in the country, behind two other SEC teams, Tennessee and Auburn, and top ranked Kansas. That is according to the AP Top twenty five. So the Cats jump four spots from last week. Marcati's fifth jump

five spots. Kansas thirty five first place votes, twenty six for Auburn. I have not yet seen Auburn or Kansas play complete games, but we know they're good, and we know Tennessee's damn good. So the Wildcats have a chance to make a statement tonight. Speaking of statements, we had a chance to talk to a couple of the Wildcats yesterday before they left. And this is a tough schedule

for Kentucky. You've got the nine thirty hint wink, close to the ten o'clock start tonight, and then Kentucky at the end of the week gets on a plane and flies to Seattle and plays Gonzaga out there. And otago Oway was asked about the late games, said he kind of likes him.

Wildcats even tougher to guard. Marii Williams was asked about the way this team has come together, and he said that playing down in Atlanta and pulling through in a game like they had with Duke, that was a big step towards these guys really bonding.

they kind of sit back away from our microphones. We set them on the tables so we're not in the way of the camera operators, and we don't want to like jam them right in their faces. But when you're soft spoken like o Way and Amari Williams, we really have to crank things up so you all can hear. It's easier when it's television because you can see them speaking. I know it's tougher when it comes to hearing them speak on the radio. So we do the best we can.

One other note about the Wildcats and what to look for tonight. They need to get out on the break. You know that Kentucky had its best in transition to this point. Kentucky scores twenty three fast point breaks per game as of the end of November, that led the country. Don't know where it is now, but after November twenty ninth, Kentucky was tops in America average offensive possession fourteen point three seconds and according to Ken Palm, third fastest in

the country. That is what Mark Pope and his analytics folks, that's what they want. So the tempo rating possessions per forty minutes seventy six point nine, fourth in the country, tops in the SEC. And keep this in mind, they're just getting started. I can't imagine what this team's going to look like by February in March. It's health and keeps playing the way it is defensively and in terms of rebounding, because that's what it takes to get out

on the break. So we'll having for you tonight Kentucky and Clemson coming up at nine thirty closer to ten here on six thirty WLAP Welcome back to the Big Bluemsider. Coming up at the top of the hour. UK Clemson basketball coverage begins nine to thirty. Star time has listed, it'll start closer to ten o'clock. You've seen it before. It'll bother to complain because that kind of thing is not going to change. Coming up in a few minutes, we're going to look a little closer at the UK's

draw into the nca Volleyball Tournament. I don't know how much of a shot Kentucky has at a national championship. It's got a chance of at least getting to the final four in Louisville, even though they drew into the toughest regional I think, and the tournament simply because Pittsburgh, the top seed, is in can Kentucky's regional. But it has to win quite a bit before it gets to the Panthers, assuming they keep winning as well. So we'll

talk more about volleyball coming up. Also at the bottom of the hour, an NFL coach points to blame at a quarterback who took a vicious hit over the weekend, So we'll talk about that and a potentially stupid rule change. Another one to professional, specifically Big league baseball. I need to touch on a couple things that I didn't have a chance to get into yesterday. First of all congratulations to former Wildcat Sydney McLaughlin lavroon Female Track Athlete of

the Year. She was a wild at only one year. But she was not somebody who just used this place as a way station. And we know this because she still claims UK. You know, she wasn't one of these athletes who just stopped here for eight months and took off to a great pro career. She comes back to UK, so I give her credit for that. The other thing we need to talk about is the fact that when I was talking about Mark Stoops yesterday, I didn't realize because it popped out on social media a little bit

later after I recorded. I didn't realize that it was twelve years to the day since Mark Stoops signed on at the University of Kentucky. And I bring that up because I was talking about that during my chat with you guys about Kentucky football and the fact that Mark Stoops is trying to rebuild this program now, not the entire program. The subculture is there, the cultures there now. He just got to get it back in shape. But keep in mind what he said when he got here.

He said he talked about how he was going to lay things out and get things done. Essentially was recruiting, got to bring in better players. Rich Brooks said that when he got here. Do you remember that rich Brooks said when he got here, And he said this in hindsight, he didn't say this when he was introduced, but he said, UK at the time had one player, one that could run a sub four five forty. Now you think about that, that meant that Kentucky was maybe the slowest team in

the Southeastern Conference. And obviously the two things you have to have to win in this league size and speed. I don't remember what kind of size the Wildcats had. And you can have guys that are big who don't have a lot of athletic ability. We've seen that, haven't we. But minus speed, you got no shot. You don't have receivers who can get open. You don't have d backs who can cover that kind of receiver. So Stoops comes in,

looks at the talent level and goes to work. He and Vince Merrill and his staff members who have come and gone, they brought in better players, right, they developed them and they won more games. But one of the things that Stupe said was there will be no shortcuts. Well, guess what. That's exactly what the portal and the nil represent shortcuts for everybody, only they're gambles. You sure you got the right guy, You're sure you're paying the right

people the right amounts of money. It's tempting, isn't it. And it's not just tempting. It's a must if you are a college football coach, because it's so much of a numbers game. Basketball too, but football is such a numbers game, and anymore, especially coaches paid a ton of money like Stoops, It's not what have you done for me lately? It's what have you done for me today?

Coaches aren't getting four and five years anymore because the demand from fans, the demand from boosters, the demand from athletics directors who are paying top dollar demands success right now. So that's why the shortcuts are so vital anymore. And I firmly believe, and I've not talked to him about this, and even if I wanted to, I don't think Stoops will talk to me about it. I talked to Tom Leach about it, but I think this just gets it.

Stoops where he lives, how to build a football team the right way, and given the fact that everybody, and Stoops has had some success with the portal, but everybody's dealing with it now means he can't go back to do things the way he used to do them, at least not at the division IE level. At the SEC level, he's stuck with the current situation. So you've got to try to make the best of it. And as I said,

sometimes it works out. Sometimes it's great. Will Levis's first year in Kentucky, well, Leam Cohen and a great old line worked out great and there was at least one transfer on that old line. And then sometimes it doesn't work out. Speaking of times it works out, how about Syracuse.

Syracuse upsets Miami Kyle McCord is a big game. And remember this is the guy who started his career at Ohio State and I believe started for the Buckeyes for a couple of years before he left, and they couldn't be Michigan when he was there, and apparently people blamed him for it. Well, Fran Brown as the head coach of Syracuse and was catching some flak for a comment he made about sending Champagne to Ohio State or sending

him Kyle McCord, and on the Jim Rome Show. He said he owes Ryan Day, a head coach at Ohio State, a case of champagne, and he made note of the fact that Ohio State still lost to Michigan minus Kyle McCord, which kind of brought or took Kyle McCord if you look at it that way off the hook.

the break. Were you watching Sunday Night football? But Chris Collinsworth and Mike Turrico. I didn't see this part. I was in and out of the game, but evidently Chris Collinsworth's hands look really bad. And at Total pro Sports on Twitter tps but the the that's the avatar or the account name. But if you hit at Total pro sports, they posted a screen grab and Collinsworth's hands are all black and blue. No idea what's going on, but it touched off a flurry of tweets and social media posts.

Collinsworth has not yet said anything publicly. Some people think it's because it was so cold at the game and he wasn't wearing gloves. But yeah, it's odd looking. And you see in elderly people who bruise easily, and he's not elderly. That's my point. Sometimes their skin looks like that,

or their hands look like that. But a lot of people out there concerned about Chris Collinsworth, who of course married a former UK cheerleader and whose dad Collinsworth's dad played basketball at UK, and in fact he was up. Collinsworth was for SEC Athlete of the Year and I think it was nineteen eighty and Kyle Macy actually won the award, but the banquet was here in Lexington, and I remember Chris collins were saying it was such a thrill for him to be there because he got a

chance to meet his hero, Kyle Macy. Back in just a minute to talk about an odd situation in the NFL. Here on six thirty WLAP Welcome back to the Big Blues Cider coming up at the top of the hour. UK basketball coverage Kentucky Clubson tonight at It's not going to be nine thirty, it'll be closer to ten o'clock, but you'll hear it right here on six thirty WLAP and in a few minutes we're going to talk more

and hear more about UK volleyball. But I wanted to bring up a couple of things that back in the day I would have said were on the wires, meaning the associated press UPI anymore. It's on social media, but it still bears looking into because it's it's just silly. It's serious, but it's silly. Maybe you've seen the video of Trevor Lawrence injury. He was lighting in the Texans Jags game and a Texans player, Aziz al Shahar, hit him as he was sliding, hit him late. He suffered

a concussion. Al Shaher was thrown out of the game. They're thinking about suspending him as we speak, he has not yet been suspended. He issued a heartfelt apology. I do buy the apology. I read it, and it's unfortunate he's getting some racist and islamophobic comments in his way, but that's almost predictable anyhow. This is the thing that bugs me to Mikol Ryan's the head coach of the Texans. He's a good coach. Now, I believe he's a really good coach, but he tries to lay some of the

blame on Trevor Lawrence. He said, it's twofold, right, a quarterback in this day and age, he tried to take advantage of the rule. Whether they slide late, try to get an extra yard. Now you're a defender. A lot of onus is on the defender, whether it's on the sideline, whether it's on the quarterback. You don't know what a guy is thinking. You don't know if a guy is standing up and he's continuing to run, you don't know.

Then you get a late slide and you hit the guy. Look, this is dumb because it was clear that Lawrence was sliding. And to his credit and I agree with him, alsha Here said it was a split second kind of situation, and he's right. I mean, he was running as fast as he could, he had shifted his weight and was looking to tackle Lawrence, and all of a sudden, boom, Lawrence is down and now there's the unfortunate hit. But

then Demiko Ryans gets into the Jaguars sideline. He said, the guy's on the sideline overreacted, which they probably did. Pushed our guy, drag our guy to the sideline, but again a split second situation. So you can't absolve your player awake of a split second decision and yet blame the other team for a split second decision. Both Trevor Lawrence his split second decision to slide when he did, Ryan was saying he needs to get down earlier and

keep his head down. Again, split second decisions, and you know what happens all the time in football. So to lay some of that blame on Trevor Lawrence, I ain't buying it. Here's something else I'm not buying. And once again, like him or not, he's the man. Rob Manfred, major League Baseball Commissioner. Evidently there has been some discussion of what they call the Golden Bat rule, and this could

not be sillier. I don't know if you've read this or not, but there's a suggestion that this could jazz up baseball a little bit. The basic concept a team could choose one at bat one in every game to use its best regardless of where they are in the lineup. So let's say the Yankee said, bases loaded, two down, bottom of the ninth and the number eight or nine hitter is due up. What wait a minute, Golden had bad rule. Let's bring in Aaron Judge. Shall we one

time replacement, not a substitution like a pinch hitter. Jason Stark of the Athletics says restricting the rule only the team's trailing at the time could be an interesting constraint. I mean, why are they even talking about this. It's ridiculous. And I know I sound old school, but there comes a point you got the Manfred man in the extra innings where you've got a guy on second base to open up the extra innings. I do believe they should have made some changes to kind of speed the game up.

But if you have to pull something like this into your game to create more interest, you're done. You're circling the drain and you don't know it. This is what a guy needs to dig in and say, look, if we need to find better ways to improve our product, this ain't it. We got to go for something legit. We're going to see what he's made out of one way or the other, whether whether he does it or not.

But I think this is foolish. Up next, we'll talk to UK Volleyball six thirty WLAP Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider final segment of our show, We're gonna make way for pregame coverage of Kentucky and Clemson, part of the sec ACC Challenge. Mark Pope's team trying to stay perfect in this young season, but as promised, gonna

look ahead to volleyball coming up this week. A little bit later this week, it's Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament, hosting a subregional at historic Memorial Coliseum, and it has been the home for a lot of uk SEC championships NCAA Tournament wins. Little if he in the middle of the season whether or not Canentucky would get the host because the Wildcats had to finish in a rush to win the Southeastern Conference championship. It's eighth in a row.

Got a little help Texas losing. Texas looked unbeatable quite frankly about midway through the season, and then the Longhorns started losing, and even though they beat Kentucky, they ended up with three losses and the Wildcats ended up with only two. So it was Kentucky winning it outright and now hosts Cleveland State on Thursday afternoon early Thursday evening,

I should say in the afternoon. It's Minnesota and Western Kentucky, and of course the winners play the following night at Memorial Coliseum listed for seven point thirty, but they might juggle the time a little bit for television, so as we say, stay tuned, but it'll be on ESPN Plus, not necessarily SEC Plus, but ESPN Plus. If you have the ESPN app, you can watch it there as well. It's been a great year obviously already for the Wildcats

with the championship. You've got Brooklyn Delay winning Player of the Year last year. You might recall Freshman of the year, and she really came on because Reagan ruththerferdu since after the season ended transfer to Texas, Reagan Rutherford got hurt. She got hit in the face in practice with a kill and it hurt her eye, serious injury, so she was out for a while. So now the freshman Brooklyn Delay is pressed into service and just had a huge

year and was SEC Freshman of the Year. So she comes back this year as the biggest arm for this Kentucky team, jumps up and wins SEC Player of the Year again, and by that I mean another UK player six times in seven years wins SEC Player of the Year. So obviously first team off Conference four and three quarters kills per set. She's hitting two eighty two, which is

really good. Think of it as batting average or a slugger to eighty two forty six service ass She's a very aggressive behind, a very aggressive behind the serving line, has a lot of service errors, but those aggressive serves really set the tone for her team, and she is just a phenomenal player in Kentucky. Of course, when it needs a point, when it needs a kill, we'll go

to her. And so much of that falls on Emmogrom, the setter who led the SEC with eleven point one seven assists percent and about three weeks ago she was at about ten and a half assists percent. But during this streak she has been absolutely phenomenal and it's up to her average. She has a couple of digs percent. She actually has one and a half blocks per set litt alone Emmigrome and seven double doubles. So she has

been such a key again to the Kentucky's success. But one of the biggest keys I think has been the emergence of Molly Tuzzo, who made second team All SEC. Now keep in mind this is a UK team with Eleanor Bevin, who was sec Librea of the Year as a freshman back in twenty twenty one. That's how good she is. But if you've heard Craig Skinner talk, we've had him on the show many times. He and I have talked about the fact that if you practice well,

you will play. It doesn't matter what your resume says. You know what the recruiting services say, you earn your spot for tomorrow night's match or this week's matches. In practice, and little by little, Molly Tuzzo outplayed Eleanor Bevin as Lieboro. So she wears the alternate colored jersey. She is the free substitution. But Eleanor Bevin is still a key contributor to this Kentucky team. So it just made this team a lot better. And this is not a slight on

oun Or. She's a great player. But now you've got both Bevan and Molly Tuzzo in the lineup. In the in the went over Missouri that clinched the championship this past what Sunday, I'm sorry, Wednesday, Bevan had fifteen digs. So this is a team that can move people around. And Tuzzo now is second team All Conference and it's

going to be a key this week. Of course, I mentioned the one player Kentucky was six out of seven Player of the Year, the one player who was not from Kentucky to win it last year, Sophie Fisher of Georgia won it. She transferred from Kentucky to Georgia. Interestingly, Missouri, which had a good team, put three players on the All Conference team. Kentucky had two on the first team All Conference, and of course they had Molly Tuzzo and on second team. Asia thig Pen and Brooke Baltimoa were

named of the All Freshman Team. Thig Pen and outside hit or. She was a defensive player, but they needed her on the front line because of injury. She's five to ten, has one hundred and twelve total kills, averaging nearly two kills per set. And then Brooke baltima is on the All Freshman team. She was a highly tattered recruit injured last year, couldn't play it all, red shirted two kills per set, hits two ninety two and averages a block percent that leads all Kentucky players. So Kentucky

peaking at the right time. And we talked the other night to Brooklyn Delay about the fact that and she gave credit to her teammates, the fact that she's the player of the year.

we added to the court. I think just having that experience all year has been tough, and so I think just more being on the court more often, it has just really helped our team. And I think we're just jelling at the right time.

lose a beat. You know how big it can be playing at home in front of you VN so big. I mean, it's the best part, especially in the tournament. You know, it's not always the same feel. You can't have all of your same stuff that you would in a normal home game, but having the fans here it's so special and they really bring a lot of energy to us. They might not realize how much it helps, but it really does.