The Week That Is About To Be

The sports schedule is hectic. The NFL is starting the playoffs. High school, college, and pro basketball is running strong. Mondays are good days to plan out your week and make sure you don’t miss any of the UK-related action. Tuesday -Men's Basketball - Kentucky at Florida - ESPN - 9:00: Man, I hate Florida. Year in and year out, I want to beat the Gators more than any team on the schedule. I despise everything about their program. Probably the most galling aspect, outside of their coach, fans, and propensity to recruit hateable players, is their inclination to play UK strong and every other team weak. They always bite me in the butt in my NCAA bracket because they seem better than they are due to their games against UK and it just makes me want to give Donovan an atomic wedgie (which I'm pretty sure I could pull off with Hunter Campbell's help). I think there hasn't been a big enough deal made of the fact that they have a player named Nimrod Tishman on their roster. He changed his name to Rod. That is so weak. YOU AREN"T FOOLING ANYBODY, NIMROD. He should embrace and own his name rather than get all sensitive about it. He is perfect for this team. Thursday - Women's Basketball - Kentucky at South Carolina - BBSN - 7:00: This UK Hoops team is mighty impressive. The Wildcats went down to Georgia lookin' for a win to steal and they almost pulled it off. Were it not for a crazy three pointer in overtime, the Cats would have toppled the 8th ranked Bulldogs and won a fiddle made of gold. Or something. Our team didn't let that defeat douse their spirits, though. The Hoops squad came back to Lexington yesterday and took down the ranked (17 AP, 16 ESPN) Vanderbilt Commodores in their conference home opener. Hey voters, maybe NOW this team could get ranked? Enough with the cold shoulder already. Friday -Women's Gymnastics - Kentucky vs LSU and Arizona State - Lady Luck Invitational, Las Vegas - 10:00: Wow. A gymnastics competition in Vegas. That actually sounds like it would be a really fun road trip. I'm in favor or more away competitions in Sin City. During last weeks Excite Night victory over Texas Women's, clowns, jugglers, magicians and aerial acts performed as part of a circus-themed pre-meet event. That is a perfect way to prepare for any trip to the Entertainment Capital of the World. The only way they could have prepared better is to hire a hung-over, unshaven Drew Franklin and BTI tandem to crack jokes and complain about losing all their cash on the Wheel of Fortune slot machines and Keno. Savvy. -Track and Field - Kentucky Invitational - 6:00p: The UK Men's Track and Field team is ranked 17th nationally and joins a loaded SEC class that places 7 teams in the Top 20. UK has a strong team this year and you can see our man Derrick Locke compete without a helmet. Locke is the current Kentucky school record holder in the long jump and joins a loaded team that hopes to make a little noise in the SEC. UK's team is led by Rondel Sorrillo who is a native of Trinidad and Tobago and competed for that nation in the Olympics. As a native Kentuckian, I always think it is pretty cool when I stumble across someone that chose to come to the Commonwealth from a foreign land. Whenever I travel abroad and mention my state of origin, I usually get the double cowboy hand gesture and this: "Kentucky? KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN?" Never fails. Respect the power of the Colonel, people. Saturday -Men's Basketball - Kentucky at Auburn - SEC Network - 4:00: Auburn isn't all that great this year as demonstrated by an 18 point home loss to one of UK's early opponents, Sam Houston State. This should be a fairly pedestrian win for the Wildcats, so I'll use this space to question the ESPN deal with the SEC. I assume playing on The Leader is preferable to The SEC Network because of the national exposure, but on ESPN2 they are running Georgia at Mississippi State. I expected that more of the marquee Wildcat games would show up on ESPN, but I also thought a few more of the less glamorous games would be part of the package as well. You would think that more eyeballs would watch UK/Auburn on The Deuce over UGA/MSU, right? Nationally, UK is in such high demand that both the PotUS and the Sports Guy claim they watch UK whenever we are on TV and ESPN doesn't seek to take advantage of that? It just doesn't make sense to me. -UK Rifle Team - Kentucky at Army - TBA: Just on general principle, wouldn't you expect Army to be #1 in rifling every year? Just seems like they have a built-in advantage with the whole shooting aspect and their pool of potential recruits. Anyway, the UK Rifle team is good and seeks to put the smack down on Army at West Point. Sunday -Women's Basketball - Alabama at Kentucky - BBSN - 2:00: This game begins a stretch of 3 conference home games for the UK Hoops team. Come out and support the Cats.