A Frustrated Set of Thursday Notes

by:Matt Jones02/03/10
cats Above is the picture of Hubby, circa 3 pm, here at the KSR Compound as we dealt with the second day in two weeks of absolute server meltdown. In the end, like sweat to Bruce Pearl's armpits, server crashes seem to be an inevitable part of the KSR experience. I could bore you with details of why they happen, but the bottom line is that we are still searching for a solution, and there isnt a readily available one. We currently have three servers that are part of the KSR experience, but when the site gets 7,000 hits in less than a minute (as it did at the Tim Patterson spike), it crashes and becomes very hard to restart. I appreciate many of your very generous offers to donate money, but that really isnt the problem. It is finding a setup that works and can handle our very unique problem. The offers for money are nice and believe me, if I thought they would help I would take them...but they arent really the problem. Today was an unbelievably frustrating day, as I was in Eastern Kentucky on Signing Day, sick, with two court appearances, site crashing, one of my writers having the night before gotten into a fight with a 65 year old man (not related to the court appearances), phone dead and near constant queries as to the status of the site. I reached a breaking point in which I pulled over on the side of the road in Barbourville, Kentucky and simply screamed and then did the John Wall dance. Bizarrely, I felt better and after a stop in Richmond at Hooters to see my friend DJ, all was much better in the world. I appreciate all the well-wishes and genuine offers of help. To those of you who tweeted, sent FB messages, emails or texts calling me "cheap" or "too lazy to fix the site", you people should be deported to Guantanamo Bay. And to those of you who use the comment section to complain about the free site and how "unprofessional" it is, while you are either (a) linking your own site, (b) a daily viewer who comes by to tell us you will never be coming back or (c) the owner of another blog no one reads, coming here daily to say how bad we are, well I sentence you to life on Jay Mariotti's lap with him in tighty whiteys. And to the employee of the Lexington television station who posts daily comments on here blasting the site....you are THIS close to having us expose you here in the very near future. Just remember that. And with that joy and happiness, some news..... FOOTBALL: --- In the end, Signing Day was a PLEASANT surprise for UK fans. It had looked like things were going to go very badly yesterday. Local sources had two in-state kids going to rival schools and two de-commitments made people wonder if all would fall apart. But then it didnt and the class ended up at #49 in the Rivals rankings...a similar haul as in the last few years. The highlights of the day to me: (1) BRANDON "GAINER, I HARDLY KNEW HER" The first time Gainer's name was ever mentioned in connection with UK was on this site by Rob Gidel in December. His RB coach at his high school was Mark Higgs, former Cat, and Rob noted that the staff wanted him to come for a visit. Today he surprised all and the #15 ranked RB in America chose UK. This is exactly the type of player that Joker will be targeting in the future, and his last-day selection will show an immediate impact next season. Here is a video of him doing work: (2) The PATTERSON Commitment: Lets be clear....there is a long way to go before we will ever see Louisville Central star Tim Patterson on the field for UK. But he is the best player in the state and is located in Louisville...at a time when the Cards have hired a great recruiter to run their program. To pull him out of the city and keep the Central pipeline going is an important step...whether or not he plays in the immediate future. (3) The Late PREISTER Commit There were a lot of worries when the Cats lost Ryan Smith to Auburn and some concerns if athleticism would be an issue in this class. Jerrel Preister is one of the best athletes UK recruited and to take him away from Vandy (where he may have been their best athlete recruit) was an important last minute move and took some sting away from a loss at the end to the Auburn Tigers. Overall fans should be happy. Not a home run, but a solid double that looked like it could have been a ground out 24 hours before. Nice finish by Joker and his staff. BASKETBALL: --- The big question today talked about on radio all over the land is how good are the Cats and how good will they be. I heard two national radio shows debating the point and all agree that the Cats have more talent than any team in the land. The question is whether all will be harnessed by the time the tournament comes around. The biggest key in that will be three point shooting and may be whether Darnell Dodson can step up his DEFENSIVE game. Calipari said Tuesday night that guys can only play if they play defense and Darnell's defense has been poor. Dodson acknowledged as much to me after the game and said, "my next few weeks are about playing defense so Coach can keep me in the game." Watch how that develops going forward. --- PTI also debated the fastest rising player in America, Boogie Cousins. The show asked whether Wall or Cousins would be a better pro, which isnt a question I care to answer. What I care to focus on is whether these guys can go 1-2 in the Draft. It really is now a possibility. Would you now take Derrick Favors over Demarcus Cousins? That is what scouts said about Boogie just a few weeks ago....I bet fewer would say it now. Wall is still the first pick....the four NBA scouts I talked to last night confirmed that to me again...but Boogie could be #2...a combo that is amazing to consider. --- Finally, if you havent yet heard, the South Carolina Student Council passed a resolution celebrating their supposed athletic superiority over UK. Two things about this...student council is generally unbelievably meaningless, as seen by the fact they pass these resolutions. At Transylvania, I was on Student Council one year and got resolutions passed honoring everything from Jamaal Magloire's "putting Wojo in the rack" to the Turkey Hunter's "love of fat girls." It means nothing. But second, they are kind of right and we need to put a stop to it. For some reason, their mediocre sports teams have owned our good football team and great basketball program. Lets make that stop very soon. It should be a much happier day today with Rob Gidel reviewing the Signing Day class, a look at how Cousins and Wall stack up against former UK greats and getting ready for winless in the SEC, LSU. Stay tuned......

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