Reece Davis Reflects on Gameday

To highlight the interview, Reece says that he admits that most of the fans did not show up to see their show, but to exhibit their passion to the rest of the country, "which quite frankly, is simply unmatched," he says. He also goes on to say that he usually doesn't like to rank Gameday appearances because he doesn't want it to get on the Internet and be a shot against other schools, but in this case, he has not experienced anything like he did in Lexington on Saturday. When he looks back on his entire career, Reece ranks Saturday's Gameday Show as possibly the most incredible thing he's ever been a part of. Reece is one of the few employees of the Worldwide Leader of Sports that truly understands and appreciates college basketball's greatest program and fan base.



Be sure to check back with us here at Wildcat Wrap as we "Wrap up" tomorrow night's battle with Mississippi State in Starkville. Just like the Wall/Downey matchup a few weeks ago, the Jarvis Vernardo matchup with Cousins and Patterson in the post will be another one to take a close look at. One of the few dark spots in the Tennessee win was a single digit performance by Cousins, ending his seven game streak of putting up a "Double-Double". It was Cousins' worst game of the season and he'll need to rebound from it against the nations best shot blocker on Tuesday. If it's another quiet game for Cousins, than Bledsoe and Wall might have to take over again.

Gameday a Success! Rupp puts on a show like no other.

When the University began to publicize their goal of getting 24,000 people to fill up Rupp for a TV show on a Saturday morning, many were a bit skeptic and thought it had the chance to be an embarrassing epic fail on national television. I too, had my doubts, but I tried to rally the troops as much as I could, buying 8 tickets myself and spreading the word to every Cat fan I knew. The entire Big Blue Nation rallied together and proved once again, that nobody does it quite like us. Some may call us cocky or obnoxious, but days like Saturday give us the right to be. We don't just have a really good basketball team, but we rally behind them and show unbelievable support, even in seasons like last year, that is unparallelled to anywhere else.

When you have that much pride, passion, and support that we all displayed on Saturday, with a total of probably about 40,000 different people (as Coach Cal pointed out...most of us there Saturday morning did not have tickets to the game that night) throughout the course of that day walking into Rupp and making noise, we have the right to be very proud! We have the right to pump our chests out because we're not like your stereotypical fair weather UNC or Duke fan that likes a team for no other reason than the fact that they're really good. At Kentucky, it's just so much more than the team itself. It's being a part of the Big Blue Nation and the passion that comes along with it that is simply absent at other schools. It's about feeling connected with our program, something that Coach Cal understands and has done a brilliant job of doing this season!

Whenever The Nation has an opportunity to show everyone else just how big we are, we come out in full force. Whether it be for Midnight Madness, Gameday, preseason tournaments in Mexico, or the SEC Tournament, the Nation is everywhere and it always steps up when called upon. Perhaps, the next Big Blue record setting attendance event could be in Commonwealth Stadium? Cal talked about having Madness there this year, and it could be a possibility again next year. Hopefully they'll also be having a pretty big event in early April when the team comes back from winning #8 in Indianapolis.

UK promoted the opportunity to sell Gameday out and actually distribute tickets (which hasn't even been done before for the show) and of course, the fans responded. The team responded as well, as they have all year long in hyped up crowds at Rupp, with a double digit win over the 12th ranked Volunteers. The Bob Knight-less Gameday crew did a great job interviewing Calipari and putting together a piece on the "John Wall Dance". The event also included a game of HORSE afterwords with Wildcat Legends Chuck Hayes, Jodie Meeks (in town for the Tennessee game- how fitting), Kyle Macy, Richie Farmer, Goose Givens, Wayne Turner, Tony Delk, Scott Padgett, Cameron Mills, and Kenny Sky Walker, among others. Capping off the night with a win, it was a great day in Lexington!

Below are a few pics I was able to take from my upper level seats. Enjoy.

College Gameday: Knight won't be there, but will the '96 Cats?

"The trip to Kentucky will be unlike anything GameDay has ever seen. Rupp will be rocking. I have a deep appreciation for the tradition of the great programs. There's something magical about that big blue jersey. When those fans fill Rupp Saturday morning, pulling off a GameDay first with a sold-out house, it will give an exclamation point to what's obvious. The Cats are back!" -ESPN's Reece Davis, he "gets it".

Reece Davis understands Kentucky basketball. Guys like Bob Knight and Digger Phelps don't because they simply can't get over all those losses to the Cats in their coaching days. If you haven't heard yet, Bob Knight will NOT be at College Gameday and ESPN cites "travel issues" as the reason. I seriously doubt the legitimacy of that excuse, and at first I was disappointed as I was looking forward to 24,000 fans booing him every time he opened his mouth. However, the more I have thought about it, I'm glad he will not be there and taking away attention from where it should be. The attention should be solely focused on Kentucky basketball, not some bitter old rival coach. This is what should be a celebration of our program, past and present, on the national stage.

With the entire 1996 team in town this weekend, shouldn't Gameday be focused on them, instead? If you didn't already know, Derek Anderson has filmed a documentary about the 1996 UK team, titled "Untouchables: the Greatest Team Ever". The film is premiering with it's official "Blue Carpet" screening at the Hyatt Regency Ballroom on Friday night and the entire '96 team minus their lousy head coach will be in attendance. All the proceeds of the film will benefit the Derek Anderson Foundation. Rumor has it that the team featuring an astounding total of 10 NBA players will also be on the court for the Gameday Show on Saturday morning. This year marks the first time the entire team has all been retired from the NBA and can make such an appearance like this. Could you imagine how much Rupp will be rocking if this indeed happens? Check out the film trailer below!



Either way, it will be another clear example, with a 24,000 capacity packed crowd for an 11am College Gameday show, that there simply is no other fan base in college sports that supports their team with the same intensity and passion as in Kentucky.

Here's an example below, of when the show was at UCLA...

(Photo courtesy of rushthecourt.net)

At UCLA, one of the greatest programs in college basketball, you can clearly see from the image that only a few thousand fans in the first few sections of Pauley Pavillion were even filled up, that is if you include the pep band. This shows just how incredible Saturday's Gameday appearance at Rupp will be, with an unparalleled 24,000 fans at a morning pre-game show, 10 hours before the Cats tip off with Tennessee that evening. There is just no fan base that comes even close to Kentucky basketball fans, and that's about to be displayed again on Saturday for the entire nation to see.

Cats vs. Tide

Even though the Alabama Crimson Tide have a 3-6 conference record, they have led at halftime in all 6 of those losses under first year Head Coach, Anthony Grant. The Tide could be dangerous, however, I don't see UK lossing at Rupp this year. Before you tune into ESPN U at 9 this evening, check out THIS, or just click on the Dick Vitale image below. It's a contest sponsored by Sunkist in which contestants make their best "Dickie V" impression.

Everbody please check out the above link and vote for MICHAEL, a fellow Kentuckian from Fort Mitchell, KY! If Michael wins, he will win $10,000 and a trip to the conference tournament of his choice. Mike is a good friend of mine and I'd appreciate the support of Big Blue Nation. By the way, the guy that is winning right now with 22% of the votes, is a Duke fan. Let's raid this poll.

Also, be sure to check back later tonight or tomorrow as we not only "wrap up" tonight's game but also look forward to the much anticipated and sold out ESPN College Gameday show for the Tennessee game on Saturday in which Bob Knight will not be in attendance due to "travel issues" according to ESPN- haha....right, I bet!

Downey vs. Wall

As we celebrate the Cats #1 ranking today, take a minute to watch this week's segment of "This is Kentucky Basketball" featuring the Hoops for Haiti telethon.



As awesome as being ranked #1 is, the effort that this team gave to raise all that money is even more awesome. The more I watch this video, the more I love this team.

I am also pleased to announce that I was able to get 8 tickets to the ESPN College Gameday show. I logged on and tried to get tickets right at 10am, and of course, the server was down. At 10:12, I was able to get my tickets and the lower arena was ALREADY sold out. Big Blue Nation never ceases to amaze me. I wasn't sure if Rupp would be able to completely fill up or not, and there ARE still tickets left, but the fact that the whole lower arena was gone in 12 minutes tells me that it should be a packed house by the 13th. One thing is definitely certain: whatever the previous attendance of the show was, it's probably going to be about tripled at Rupp. I hope ESPN is prepared for this!

Note to Bobby Knight: I recommend you don't even show up. Knight wasn't in Clemson this weekend. Maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist, or maybe if he didn't show up to a couple of Gameday shows it wouldn't make him look like a coward when the only one he missed was in Rupp...

News and Notes

• Another Cat won SEC Freshman of the Week (I know- shocker, right?). This week it was Demarcus Cousins. UK has already set an all-time season record for 10 SEC weekly awards this season- and there's still 12 conference games left.
• Calipari became the first coach in history to coach three different schools to a #1 ranking.
• The Downey vs. Wall/Bledsoe matchup tomorrow night is one that we have waited for since the start of the season. This game features, in my opinion, the three best point guards in the nation...all on the court at the same time. It should be a very entertaining game and very tough atmosphere for the Cats on the road.
• Downey is averaging 35 ppg in SEC play and the Gamecocks are coming off a heartbreaking loss at Florida, but big man Dominique Archie will be sidelined. The Cats will need to push it down low. Downey could be good enough to contain UK's guards, but Patterson, Cousins, and Orton will need to have big games if the Cats want to improve to 20-0.
• Seth Davis picked the Cats to lose this game a month ago to be our first loss. Hopefully the Cats prove him wrong, again.

Coach Cal shows more class, doesn't fire back at Knight.

Since when was recruiting the most talented players "doing it the wrong way"? Since when was it a bad thing to help kids reach their dreams of playing in the NBA and winning with the best of talent? John Calipari runs a players-first program where he truly believes that kids should have fun and enjoy playing basketball together as a family. His players love him and he loves his players and helps them achieve their dreams more effectively than any coach in the college game. A player or administrator for any school that he has been with has never said a bad word about the guy. You will only hear criticism of Calipari from outsiders, the media, or from rival fans that don't really know the guy and simply refuse to look at the facts regarding him and his personal clean record with the NCAA.

I'm not just talking about at Kentucky, but with every school he has been at, Calipari continues to maintain great relationships with everyone he has worked with in his career. Memphis knew about the allegations of Derrick Rose cheating on the SAT, but still offered Calipari more money than Kentucky did for him to stay at Memphis. They knew that the coach was not involved in the scandal and begged him to stay. Fourteen years after leaving UMass for the NBA, Calipari still has a tremendous relationship with the school and still comes back to Amhurst to speak and help his former school, as he did this off season at a UMass Alumni Event. His Alma Matter, Clarion University, to this day also has a great relationship with Calipari and traveled to Rupp to play an exhibition game this year where the school's current President and Calipari's former coach honored him before the game.

Bob Knight's relationship with Indiana is non-existent since his firing. Perhaps, Bob Knight would still be coaching if he had just a fraction of the kindness, compassion, and selflessness that Calipari has shown to the people of Massachusetts, Memphis, and now Kentucky while touring all corners of the state since last April, from Pikeville to Paducah. Perhaps, if Knight was a players-first, fan friendly, coach who was active in the community and emphasized the importance of players having fun instead of being bullied, he would still be at Indiana. Instead of throwing chairs, choking players, and chastising the media and even his own University's administration (at both Indiana and Texas Tech), he would still be coaching somewhere. Bob Knight isn't exactly the right person to be pointing fingers on the subject of Integrity.

In the grand scheme of things, what are the most important aspects of running a successful major D-1 college basketball program with integrity? The model coach would put his players interests and futures above his own by running a players-first program focused on hard work, fun, togetherness, winning, and getting players to the next level and achieving their dreams. A model coach would be active in the community, a family man, a man of faith, and he would graduate over 90% of his players. He would tell a player to leave after one year and go to the NBA, if that is truly in that players' best interests, and he would also encourage that star player to come back and take summer classes while playing in the NBA to work on eventually obtaining his degree. All of these things encompass the values of John Calipari's program at Kentucky.

Togetherness, community, family, and fun are not exactly words that come to mind when describing Bob Knight. When running a program of integrity, are these aspects that we would want from a coach? Or is it better for our young athletes to be exposed to physical and verbal abuse to "toughen them up" or the immature misconduct that Knight exhibited on the sidelines for forty years? Knight's supporters will bring up his graduation rates. My response to them is that Calipari and many other coaches also have career graduation rates of over 90%. The only difference is that when they leave, they look back on their time with Coach Calipari with fond memories. Memories of happiness, togetherness, community, family, fun, wins, and championships. If only there were more coaches out there like Calipari, more student athletes would look back on their playing days with fond memories instead of horror stories of choking, chastising, embarrassment, and emotional pain.

John Clay wrote the following in today's Lexington Herald Leader, "But imagine the tables are turned, and it is John Calipari who is out of coaching and says, 'We've gotten into this situation where self-control is really lacking, and that's why I'm glad I'm not coaching. You see, we've got a coach at (Indiana/Texas Tech) who throws chairs, puts his hands on his players, berates administrators, and he's still coaching. I really don't understand that." Or, what if Calipari was at any school other than Kentucky? Would Knight have made the comments to an Indiana crowd if he wasn't UK's coach just after they demolished the Hoosiers a week ago? Are you still jealous of that one team you could hardly ever beat, Bobby?

I don't think I could put it in any better words than Mr. Clay. What is the real problem in college sports today, coaches like Calipari? Or coaches like Knight? Just for the sake of argument, let's say that Calipari was indeed involved in a few petty NCAA violations (Camby, Rose's brother forgetting to pay for a trip). Calipari has been cleared of any involvement, but even if he was, are these petty violations worse than the abuse of players? The SAT deal was not petty, but that was not even under Calipari's watch as he was in high school and uncommited to anyone! The NCAA needs to set its priorities straight in what's really best for college basketball and best for it's student athletes: a coach that will inspire them to achieve their dreams or a coach that will physically, mentally, and emotionally abuse them? Calipari chose the high road today by not criticizing Knight and his comments. Instead, he gave respect to Coach Knight and showed that he has too much class to stoop down to that level.

On February 13th, ESPN's College Gameday crew, including Bob Knight, comes to Lexington for the UK-Tennessee game. Coach Knight, you have a very, very long and frustrating day ahead of you with that Rupp Crowd right behind you during the Gameday broadcast. You will be chastised worse than you ever chastised any player, administrator, or referee. You're going to be as miserable that day as any player that ever played for you. But one positive thing comes out of all of this: it will certainly be very entertaining television on the morning and afternoon of February 13th at Rupp Arena.