John Calipari heads to Chicago to sway 2013's Jabari Parker
By Paul Jordan
In today’s edition of “Where the heck is Kentucky Wildcat basketball coach John Calipari?”, we find that if you guessed the Windy City, you are today’s winner. Calipari was in Chicago to visit 2013’s top SF and 3rd best player overall Jabari Parker. A lot of people compare Parker’s game to Paul Pierce, but Parker has higher goals for himself. He compares himself to Oscar Robertson, the only NBA player to average a triple double for a season. Parker is a fan of Robertson’s versatility, saying
“He played all positions. He was way before his time.”
Parker thinks he can bring similar versatility with his game, and as we all know, comments like that are music to the ears of the BBN.
Moving back to the 2012 class, Calipari also recently visited 2012’s big man DaJuan Coleman on the same night that Archie Goodwin committed, and from all appearances, the visit went pretty good:
“It was good. He was telling me about the past players he developed. And he said he liked the way I play and he can bring the best out of me because he knows I can do multiple things on the court.
It was a really good meeting.”
Most people consider the race for Coleman to be a three horse race between Kentucky, Ohio State, and Syracuse with the Orange having a slight lead at this point, but it is very close between all three schools. Hopefully the momentum will move more toward Kentucky when Coleman visits for Big Blue Madness on October 14.
And now let’s hop in the “way back machine” and travel back to 1986 which is the last time the Kentucky Wildcats beat Florida in football. Bill Ransdell was the UK quarterback then and he looks back on the streak and shares his thoughts. One of the points Ransdell makes is one of my rallying cries about the Florida/UK series, On that game in 1986, it was a cold, rainy, miserable game at Commonwealth. Why do we not play Florida at home in November anymore when we actually have a home field advantage with the weather? It’s a moot point and it will never change due to how the SEC schedules, but it would be nice to be able to get the Gators up here for a cold November day.
There is a bit of a mini-controversy brewing with the latest stadium improvements to Commonwealth Stadium. When the new ribbon boards were installed, they replaced the “ring of honor” that runs around Commonwealth. Those names now reside in flags that are flying at the top of the stadium and a lot of the former players call that a “slap in the face”. I tend to agree and think there has to be a easy resolution to this. UK says that the “ring of honor” names are now flashed on the ribbon boards twice a game. How about double or triple that effort and maybe find another place lower to put some kind of tribute that would be more permanent.
In a sign of things that have to change soon, our good friend John Clay offers up some stats on the UK/UF series since 1990 and the offensive disparity. (click on the chart to make it bigger — yea, that’s what she said)
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