Kentucky Wildcats Morning Headlines: Basketball, Football Practice Underway

Perhaps nothing signals the end of summer like the return of the Kentucky Wildcats Morning Headlines.  With both basketball and football practice underway, it’s time to shake the summer doldrums and bring you some news.

Jun 12, 2014; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hurdle (left) greets University of Kentucky men

Preparations for the Bahamas Tour is well underway as Kentucky held an open media practice yesterday. While the media was instructed to not be too specific about what they saw, John Clay came away with five impressions of the two-hour practice.

"2. Institutional knowledge. Without getting into specifics, at one point Calipari told one of his freshman to watch what a non-freshman was doing in a drill. There couldn’t have been much of that last year, when Kentucky was composed almost entirely of freshmen. This year, Calipari can focus his instruction on the new players and have his points reinforced by what older players are doing. This is because he has older players. 3. Devin Booker can shoot. The recruiting services told this and at least in Monday’s practice it looked to be true. Booker appears capable of filling the James Young role, although his game may remind you more of Doron Lamb. His ball-handling could use a bit of polish, but nearly all freshmen can improve in that area when matched against college competition."

Both John Clay and Jerry Tipton also reported that John Calipari’s new hip seems 100% servicable and that the coach was showing no ill effects from his summer surgery.

Kentucky will be sporting new uniforms for the Bahamas Tour as the above tweet was sent out by the UK Equipment Staff Twitter account.  I actually like these although some on the internet were less entralled.  Keep in mind that this is for exhibition games and Kentucky will have it’s traditional look for the regular season. Also in news somewhat related to the Bahamas Tour, DirectTV has signed on with the SEC Network, meaning that pretty much everyone has access to the fledging Network when it debuts on August 14th.

Being a huge dog lover, it saddens me to report on the passing of Dash, John Calipari’s German Shepherd. I had to put a dog down last May, and even though I got a new one in August, my old dog still has a place in my heart. Coach Cal took to his website to provide a proper euloguy for Dash.

"Dash was such a great dog and companion. He was loving, loyal and protective — everything you could want in a dog. He was like a security blanket for Ellen and Brad. He was a German Shepherd so he had a look of meanness to him. I always had to put him up when the players came over because they were scared of him, and Rod Strickland would never leave his car unless he knew he was locked up. The thing is he would never hurt anyone if he knew you. We have two other small dogs, and even though they would eat Dash’s food and mess with him while he was sleeping, he would never get nasty with them. He didn’t even bother our cat."