"Know What I Mean" Verne Lundquist's Monday News and Notes

Admit it....this was a sweet weekend. I dont care where you are on the state of the program under Tubby or what your belief is on the excitement level of this team, beating Louisville is a whole lot of fun. What makes it even more fun is the fact that in so doing, we have now won three games in a row and produced a Courier Journal article (by Rick Bozich, who when not fixing his hair, does a pretty good job) where it was said that Tubby owns Rick. Kind of nice, dont you think.... And add to it that the game was called by the always wonderful Verne Lundquist. Now let me just say that I am predisposed to be a HUGE fan of Verne. Back when this blog and show were just in their infancy, I used to go to the SEC Tournament and two people without fail were nice to me......Barry Booker and Verne Lundquist. In fact Verne has been a treasure trove of knowledge and stories and is one of the highlights of trips to SEC land for me. So it is my view that a game called by Verne is a game to be happy about. Yes Verne makes mistakes.....he has not said Woo's name right for four years and has given almost 75 different incarnations of the letters.....he continues to make references to the Basketbowl as if it were the defining event for a civilation.....and he did say that Louisville was having a poor game sh*tting the ball. But he is Verne....and I love listening to him. You know it is December basketball when it is UK, some rival opponent and Verne is praising the "big Pole".....good times. But onto the news..... (1) Next to the game in Louisville, the most important event of the weekend was the visit of Marshall Moses to the bluegrass. Interestingly, I have still not had ANYONE confirm to me that he actually made the trip. I have to assume that he did as I think if he had not shown up, I would have found out. The original itenirary had him making the majority of the visit yesterday and today. Moses has said he will not decide until the NC State visit after Christmas, but it will be interesting to see if he holds to that. Remember that he said on our show that his coach was worried that "if he visited UK first, he would just commit then and there." We shall see....I hope to have a Moses interview tomorrow night, so stay tuned. And if you havent seen Moses play, or dont believe me when I rave, watch this video of him and tell me he isnt an athlete..... (2) I am surprised at how little talk we have heard about the visit next week of big man Phillip Jurick our of Tennessee. Folks this is a BIG recruit and one that is a huge part of the 2008 class. He is ranked #27 by Rivals.com and is one of the elite big men in the nation. He is being recruited by all the big teams, but most think that UK and UT are out front of this race. Will be very interesting to see how the visit goes as the 2008 recruiting season officially heats up. (3) If our recruits were watching the game on Saturday, it would be interesting to see what they think. If you were Jai Lucas, you might see a team that has not one, but two viable point guards in the Freshman class. You might look at that and wonder where exactly you would fit in with these young players. But if you are Patrick Patterson, you might see a young team that Morris or not, is ready to explode next year.....and a potential starting position (possibly with Perry S at the 5) is looking you in the eye.....not too shabby P-Pat. (4) Folks, isnt it amazing just how bad Louisville is. Many have talked about how they missed wide open shots, etc, but I prefer to look at it another way. Kentucky's three most consistent players (Morris, Crawford and Perry) combined for seven points.....SEVEN!!!! And yet the Cats won by 12. They lost to a team that was led by Meeks and Woo.....and they looked hideous doing it. Who would have thought that in Pitino's sixth year the team would be so bad? It really is amazing. In addition, I heard from a source last night that Earl Clark may end up transferring....even as early as this week. It would make sense....in my view, Earl Clark, while maybe not the most talented, was the player I was most excited about of the UL freshmen. He is wasting away on the bench, while watching his teammates underperform. Clark would be another in the long list of revolving door players at UL....but this is one that I think would really hurt to lose. (5) The decision is likely to be made this week on whether to redshirt Ramon Harris. This will be his first full week of practice and how well he adjusts to the system and to the new surroundings will make the decision. I tell you one thing, the kid is happy to be here. His family was out in full force on Saturday, dancing in the stands in their Kentucky gear. Ramon is happy to be a Cat, and that counts for a lot in my book. We are taping a special holiday version of the podcast on Tuesday, so the new episode will be out then. We hope to have some guests you want to hear (including one very special guest) so look forward to that. In the mean time, check this afternoon for the release of the Kentucky Sports Radio Bowl Pick Em game.....should be a lot of fun....