Wildcats press on without Noel

Yesterday made for an interesting day in Big Blue Nation

as fans got to see what this Kentucky team looked like in the aftermath of losing Nerlens Noel for the season. After Tuesday night’s loss to Florida tied with the UConn game in November 2010 for the worst loss of the Calipari era at Kentucky, the Wildcats suffered their worst loss yesterday under Calipari.

The Sporting News recap of the game said it all right there

The Courier-Journal’s Kyle Tucker has excerpts from the postgame press conference. One of the questions questions asked to Coach John Calipari was whether it was frustrating to have players that were not coachable in mid-February. This is how Calipari responded to the question:

"“That’s why you say, ‘Well, were you being aggressive coaching?’ That’s part of it. We’re leaving every timeout, ‘This is what you must do, boom, boom, boom,’ and the guy comes out and does the opposite three things. We had a guy exhausted in practice yesterday 30 minutes in. It’s the middle of February. You cannot be tired. Well you’re tired when you’re a little bit shook. You’re scared. You’re anxious. It wears you out. We’ve got some growing up to do.“This is a great – I’m telling you, for all of us, for us as a staff, for these players, what a great experience we’re going to have to go through. Cause you’re going to really find out about yourself. Look, it’s been eight years since we’ve had stuff like this happen. So now good. Now me as a coach, how you going to deal with it? You going to quit on your guys or are you going to coach them? You going to try to make ‘em better? Is it about you or is it about them? If they’re struggling, how you going to get them right? Well, part of it was I started different players today. The other guys didn’t deserve to start. You didn’t bring it. I’m going to try whatever I can, and at the end of the day let’s see where this goes. Doesn’t look good right now, but I’ve had seasons when it’s looked awful and went off and I’ve had seasons where it looked real good and went the wrong way. It’s what it is.”"

It’s a premium article but Denzel Ware discussed his commitment to Kentucky and why he trusts Mark Stoops and D.J. Eliot

This isn’t something you see everyday. Yesterday’s baseball game between the Wildcats and USC Upstate was postponed to 1 PM on Monday due to heavy snow in Spartansburg, SC. Meanwhile, you can listen to Dick Gabriel call the action at noon today as the Wildcats take on Niagara. You can listen to WWTF 1580-AM and online at UKathletics.com.

Finally, this season’s baseball schedule is now finalized with regards to television. The UK IMG Network announced their 5 game slate on Friday and UK will have 13 games televised this season.