Kentucky Wildcats Basketball Notes plus morning headlines

You can tell that Damien Harris is a big thing in college football recruiting as even his t-shirts make national news. In case you missed it, Harris had the shirt pictured above to answer the two questions he gets 100 times a day. And it made national news and fueled more speculation.

"Evidently Harris has finally had enough, or at least he’s had enough to show off some of his good natured humor. Shortly after being cleared to return to game action (and just in time for the state playoffs), Harris wore the shirt you see in the tweet above. It makes clear both how he feels, and which question he really doesn’t want to hear anymore. However, the color of the letters on that shirt drove some significant recruiting internet chatter, which in and of itself might be a bit ridiculous. A 247 report noted that the shirt was printed in Kentucky blue (or at least near-Kentucky blue), which could be a sign that he was favoring the Wildcats. Or it could be a sign that the t-shirt printing shop where he had it made didn’t have a good navy blue to use to match Madison Southern’s navy blue on white uniform combo, and this was the closest thing. Heck, maybe the letters on the shirt mean less than the tweet that Harris sent to a fellow senior and Alabama recruit with the hashtag #RollTide. Or, better yet, maybe none of these things are really significant of Damien Harris’ future college decision. Even if they are, maybe it’s best if we give the kid a chance to come to his own conclusions without being subjected to constant tea leaf reading and psychobabble. What a concept."

Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Make no mistake. Saturday’s loss to Missouri was disappointing, but in the end, Kentucky can use it as a learning experience. Hopefully.

"The Air Raid opened with a ground-game focus to negate Mizzou’s pass rush and a secondary the UK staff considered superior to Mississippi State’s secondary. Once the home defenders started stopping UK’s run, the Cats didn’t have an effective Plan B. “We weren’t disciplined enough,” Brown said. Glaring examples were a pair of false-start penalties in the first half. The first turned a third-and-3 into a third-and-8. The second turned a third-and-5 into a third-and-10. Both times, UK failed to pick up the first down. In fact, Kentucky’s failure to get that coveted number “six” for bowl eligibility had much to do with the number “three” — on both sides of the ball. Missouri converted seven of 10 third downs on the Kentucky defense in the first half, 10 of 20 for the game. Kentucky’s offense failed to convert a third down on four first-half attempts, and converted just two of 16 for the long afternoon that stretched into evening. “You’re not going to win football games doing that,” Brown said. As for Stoops, he seemed more discouraged by his team’s energy and effort. Instead of a spring in their step, the Cats started flat-footed, as if playing so well last week against Mississippi State would automatically mean a win at Missouri. “Very disappointed in our effort. We really got beat from beginning to the end,” said the head coach, who added later, “I have to be careful because I’m very frustrated right now and I want to go off.” Last Saturday’s performance was surely the reason why Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart announced Stoops’ contract extension through the 2019 season, on Friday rather than Monday when you would run the risk of a Saturday stinker. Still, just as Barnhart judged Stoops on 20 games, it isn’t fair to put too much emphasis on one gutter ball. Saturday notwithstanding, there’s no doubt Stoops is making progress. Actually, Missouri may have done the Cats a favor. The Tigers showed Kentucky what it looks like to be a mature football program."