2025-01-30 - BBI

not buy a shot. Seemed like the Wildcats hit everything at least in the early going against Arkansas, and they're looking for more of the same tonight against Sabama in historic Memorial Coliseum. So we'll have it for you right here on six point thirty WLAP. It will be on the SEC network as well. But you got two ears, so you can listen to the radio with one and you can listen to the TV with the other.

the other with Arkansas coming to town. Was talking to Cameron Mills yesterday, Cameron, of course, the former Wildcat who hosts co hosts the pregame show, and he was talking about the fact that he said, I still don't know

how we won that game. He said, because Tennessee essentially beat Kentucky and virtually every statistical category except for a couple and when you go back and look at it, thirteen turnovers for Kentucky to just five for Tennessee, the ball's out rebound of the Wildcats forty one thirty eight with eighteen offensive rebounds, including sixteen rebounds but eighteen offensive rebounds.

They got off twenty two more shots than the Wildcats twenty five of seventy two, But the stat where it mattered the most was Kentucky at twenty five of fifty. And my Trinity High School math tells me that's fifty percent, and so is three point shooting. Twelve of twenty four for the Wildcats, including three of three for Kobe bray At four of seven for Asley Almano in his first start, he took. Every shot he took was a three pointer.

Tennessee foolishly falls behind and then kept trying to catch up from the arc and Milliseits goes four of eight. All right, we know he can hit Lanier three of ten. That's not bad for a guy who's rep is three point shooting. So what is that seven of eighteen? Ziggler one of eleven, just kept jacking Danny two of eight, Dubar one of seven for a team eleven of forty five. And I know Mark Polk doesn't want his guys to stop shooting. I guess that's the case with Rick Barnes.

I've never heard that about Tennessee. Ziggler is not known as a great three point shooter. But I wondered would they're not come a point where Barnes would say, guys, why don't we attack the rim a little bit more? Because Kentucky with minus Andrew Carr, is not the strongest defensive team around the rim. And now they just kept firing up, and yeah, a lot of times they got their own rebound, but far too often it was the Wildcats getting to In fact, it was Amari Williams grabbing

fifteen boards take away. One of the guards had six. When your guards are rebounding like a Jackson Robinson four, Kobe Bray I had three. So those guards had thirteen rebounds among them. That's huge. When your guards can board like that, that's huge. And Amari Williams, the guy everybody was trashing about six weeks ago, ten points fifteen. I wasn't happy with him, but now he's getting it done. Ten points, fifteen rebounds, four assists. He had three turnovers

in twenty four minutes. But remember he brought the ball up the floor on a night when Kentucky needed help at the point guard spot. Again, whenever he does that reminds me is when Sam Bowie used to bring the ball up the floor. And I've talked about Williams with regard to his passing in the same breath with Sam Bowie, who was taller, but Sam was a tremendous passer. People forget that about Sam passing into the high post and oftentimes he could float it down to Melvin Turpin on

the low block. But that wasn't all he did, and that's not all Amary Williams did. So that's why the Cats, I think, for the fifth time in six games, beat Tennessee, finding success once again in Knoxville. And I recall won't move on here, but yeah, Cali Perry went down there, beat him, Cali Perry. He had good success against Tennessee, but one of the games I remember the most was

actually a loss. But Billy Clyde Gillespie took his team down there first year, and Patrick Patterson had suffered a stretch fracture in his foot, he was done for the year. Perry Stevenson had one of the best games of his life, and Kentucky fought, I mean to the bitter end and almost pulled off the upset down there against a really good Tennessee team, And it was so impressive and Kentucky fans were just so knocked out by that game. Sixty

three to sixty was the final. Tennessee was ranked number one in the nation, and yet the Wildcats forced the Balls to play their game Remel Bradley at seventeen. Ramon Harris had twelve, Perry had thirteen points and fourteen rebounds. He was magnificent. So the Wildcats are no strangers to good performances down in Knoxville. All right, now, we need to talk about what everybody's been talking about, including Mark Pope, the return of John Caliperry. Pope talked about it last

night on his show. A caller wanted to know Pope's thoughts on I guess it's going to be the controversial return.

built up through the years. And I will still say that if North Carolina doesn't hit a last second shot in twenty seventeen, he may still be here. We may not be having this conversation if Auburn doesn't come back. Kentucky was twenty minutes from the final four, but let it get away against Auburn. And there are a lot of people who still think that if they finish up the undefeated season in twenty fifteen, that Caliperi could ride

that good will forever as a national champ. I don't believe that, because I do think if things go sour at some point people will go sour. But we may not be having a conversation right now. But that's just the way sports are. That's how things happen. Shots go in, shots don't go in, You win, you lose. That's how you're held accountable in that arena, literally and figuratively. But that's not the issue.

at madness. I was shocked by that. But Mark Pope has so much to do with that, because Patino had endorsed Mark Pope wholeheartedly, and by then everybody loved Pope, so Rick got swept up into all that. But it's not just cheer or rain down booze. There's more than one choice, because people don't rain down booze on every other opposing coach. People keep pointing out to me, well, he's coaching for the opposition. Now he's coaching on an

arch rival, which it's not. Arkansas was for a while there, but Arkansas had dropped from relevance, and I mean Nolan Richardson relevance when it was banging heads with Kentucky at the top of the league and surpassing Kentucky for a while at the top of the league. But yeah, it's a Southeastern Conference opponent. Yeah, I get that. But do they rain down booze on everyone? Do they rein down booze on Barnes when he's here with Tennessee, No, NATO's no.

So there's more than one opportunity. And we're going to talk about some of the reaction to my social media posts in the next segment. Now coming up at the bottom of the hour, my man Curtis Birch will join us. Curtis started with us here at the Big Blue Insider and is now the manager of the UK Sports Network. Has worked his way. I don't know if he's at the top, but he's in a really good spot right

now because he worked his butt off. That's not what we're going to talk to him about, but we will mention it coming up at the bottom of the hour. But next we'll talk about social media reaction to what I wrote and said about Caliperry. That's next on six thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider Dick Gabriel with you coming up in just a few minutes at the bottom of the hour. In fact, Curtis Birch will join us and we'll talk about the new project

that the UK Sports Network has happening. I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the responses that rolled in after my post on Twitter and Facebook. I wrote about John Caliperi coming back, and I said, if you want to boo John Caliperry, that you're right. Just remember where this program was when he took over. It had become irrelevant thanks to Billy Clyde. I said, now remember where cali Perry took it for the next six seasons, and if not for injuries to some of his later teams,

well there could have been a lot more success. It did go sour at the end, but it was fun while it lasted. Some of you agreed, many of you disagreed, and somebody wrote, do you mean from DUI meaning irrelevant to nit to Billy Gillespie story. Yeah, there were some hidden lessons in there somewher. That's true. Another guy back, Adam said, booene Caliperia would be what other programs would do. It's almost the equivalent of rushing the court, not our standard.

That's interesting. Tom Tom Jones, not the Tom Jones wrote, I would cheer for all the wonderful memories my father and I got to enjoy. He died two weeks after BAM and Fox lost to North Carolina. Those were some great years except twenty thirteen and then some others. But he said a National Championship final four runs exclamation point. Atthew Chandler said, you did Patino get booed in one when he returned? Yeah, he said, I leaned towards It's fair to boo and then move on. In a few years.

It's over and done with. He did a lot on and off the court, that's very true. But the off the court stuff, the charity work, that that doesn't really figure in. On game day, I will say, I will say that j Money said it sort of fell back to the same place before he came. Not really, I know what you're saying, and in the level of disappointment, but no, Kentucky was a highly ranked, highly seeded team. Of course, when it was beaten in the NCA Tournament prematurely.

That's what made it so painful. Billy Gillespie's deal was it was such a long grind of watching the program sink into irrelevance, and you were almost thankful by the end of the year, weren't you. You're upset, but it's like, how much more of this crap can I take? And they made a brief run in the NIT. They got to play in the coliseum in the NIT, which was cool, but that's not where you want to be and that's

not where Kentucky should be. The Caliperi man his last few years, he did have people thinking, yeah, this could be another great euro As I said seventeen the bam Ate bio, the Aaron Fox team was outstanding. The team that lost to Auburn in the Elite eight. What about the COVID team with Quickly and Tyrese Maxi and Nick Richards. I do believe that's a Final four team. Now, they could have screwed it up like some of his teams toward the end, but you know what, that team was

playing so well. Those teams that lost in the first round of Saint Peters in Oakland. They weren't really playing that well, but that twenty fifteen team or the twenty twenty team, the COVID team that was playing well. Larry said, we bowed Patino. He saved this program from probation. I think cal will survive. A one third of the crowd booing him, oddwill Nora said, maybe the ones that want a boot can just stay silent or turn around. Just the thought. Kyle Cooper said, don't boo him, thank him

for all the money he left on the table. Yell thank you. But that's a great point. BP Harper said the program was in better shape when he took over than when he left it, but he said we literally had zero players. That was always going to be the case no matter when he left. He didn't build for the future of the program. Well he never did that year to year. I mean, when you're building and relying too much on freshman, no, you're building for now. That's

the problem with investing time, money, effort. In one and done, Drew said, we had a lot of fun with him. He should have left earlier, but we shouldn't forget. Mark Berger tweeted it was almost irrelevant when he left two well after they lost, Yes, not going into the tournament. No, they was still highly ready to highly ranked, and the expectations were incredible, as they should be. Somebody else treated it. Also, remember when he left his was zero roster and took

his five recruits and left for an in conference travel. Yeah, but a lot of those kids left of their own volition. They could have stayed and did not, or at least they could have shown interest in to him. Maybe Mark Pope didn't want them. Big Tim said, you boo him on Saturday. He's the enemy cheering when he comes back after he retires. That's fine. And mind you, it's not going to bother me if they bow. I know people are going to boo him, but I just think it's interesting.

I expected them to boo Patino because he was at Louisville. Arkansas is not the same. Here's the worst take. Cal took it to New Heights and almost ruined it. Purposely. Come on, man, purposely. Why would anybody do that? Why would a haul of theme coach do that knowing that's his legacy. Please stop, whatever happens, we'll have it for

you right here. Late Saturday nine o'clock start, Thank you Television, but we'll have local coverage, we'll have network coverage and then the tip off probably a minute or two after nine right here with Tom and Jack coming up next, Curtis Birch, we will march down memory Lane and talk about a new project for the UK Sports Network on six point thirty WLAP Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider. As promised on our Celebrity hotline. He is indeed that our own Curtis Birch. I like to say our own

because well we're teammates on the UK Sports Network. But Curtis had talked earlier on the show about how you started with the Big Blue Insider basically as a full time, part time kind of guy, and worked your way into the radio station and the next thing you know, you were running UK projects and when they needed somebody at the network, they turned to you. And as such, welcome back, first of all, because you've here, Curtis, thank you arguing

with me on the show all the time. Digital technology being what it is and digital projects being what they are, you guys are taking a big step of the new project. Tell everybody about that.

the past year and they've been pumping out some fantastic content. Additionally, where you've probably got a chance to see either ussting someone around, we're in a new facility that's connected to the College of Comms new Downtown studio right next to Rapparna, So we've upgraded in personnel, upgraded in facilities, and we're able to provide much better content. And when we do that, we want to make sure that all the fans out

there are able to access it in one place. So we're launching UKs AND All Access and it's going to be your one stop shop for everything that we produce, all the coaches shows, the booth cams, the podcasts that we're doing, and then any of the features that we do you we produce one with Tim Couch when he made it to the College Football Hall of Fame.

for so long. So yeah, that's that's prominently featured on the new platform, but I should mention as well where to access it's we try to make it as simple for everyone as possible. If you have the UK Athletics app, it'll be a button there on the bottom the UKSN just click that, so also be a menu option on UK Athletics dot com or if you just type uk s N all access dot com on your web browser,

you'll be you'll be able to access it. It's going live on Friday morning, and we're speaking of the coverage that we do live Friday, and then I think there's some kind of game on Saturday, Contugy basketball, has it?

mental health. Twenty four to seven. You're probably going to miss some of the some of the stuff that we create, and we don't want that to happen, so you just go to this platform, which is completely free. All you have to do is sign up. Then you'll be able to see everything that we have, and there's some additional good stuff on there too. On the platform, we're going to be sharing some of UK sports videos content. You'll

be able to check that out there. And then of course our partners at b B and Tonight and bb and Game Day, you'll be able to watch bb and Game Day and then some of the BD and Tonight's features will live on the platform as well. So I mean, if you open it up, you could probably spend a lot of time and catch up on many stories that you missed.

They need to think about this and not as the Internet where people bicker back and forth on Twitter or whatever. Think of it as a separate channel, right for UK sports. I mean, have your phone or your computer handy while you're watching and listening to the games, and that's just one other way to enjoy the uh, the atmosphere and around UK sports.

for many sports. Just meet the Cats just when when an athlete gets to the campus. As best we can with the resources we have, We're going to be interviewing as many as we can and you'll be able to understand their personality a little bit better and form some kind of connection to them and to your point, instead of an arguing connection it sometimes happens, it'll be a good connection and a positive connection. You'll be able to understand the people that you're cheering for a little bit better.