Kentucky Wildcats Basketball not a majority pick to win title among experts

Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

In addition to being Senior Day on Saturday, the Georgia game will be a one last push recruiting event for the Kentucky Wildcats football team. As of now, it is unknown whether Damien Harris will make an appearance, but several of UK’s other top targets will be there. So a good showing is necessary.

"Class of 2015 commitments Mason Wolfe, Larry Wells and Logan Stenberg are all expected to attend the UK-Georgia game. Fellow UK commitment Jordan Jones (Youngstown, Ohio) might make the trip. Several UK commitments said that their high school teams’ playoff games would prevent them from making it to Lexington. Class of 2016 commitments Quinton Baker, Zy’Aire Hughes, Davonte Robinson, Roland Walder and Landon Young are likely to be in attendance. That would leave cornerback Jordan Griffin as the only UK commitment for 2016 who won’t be in town. Griffin — a Georgia native — was one of the players who had planned to make the trip but won’t be able to because of high school playoffs. Woodford County offensive lineman Drake Jackson — UK’s top in-state target for 2016 — is planning to attend Saturday’s game. Ohio junior quarterback Messiah deWeaver is also a possible guest. DeWeaver is committed to Michigan but considering a flip to UK. UK commitment Marcus Walker and top UK target Anthony McKee are expected to take official visits to Michigan State for the Spartans’ game against Ohio State on Saturday. Walker is one of the Cats’ top-rated commitments for the class of 2015 and has said that he’s “100 percent” committed to UK despite news of the possible visit."

After this weekend, there is one more big recruiting event.  Most of the current commits (and Damien Harris) will take in the UK/UNC basketball game.  It does appear that Harris has pushed his announcement back to January from the original December 13th date he had set, but I don’t see that as a negative.

Mandatory Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

Earlier this season, the was aq great piece on former Kentucky Wildcat Jared Lorenzen and his battles with controlling his weight. Current Kentucky Wildcats freshman Matt Elam weighed 390 when he arrived at Kentucky but has shed 30 pounds or so. He still needs to lose more, but the Kentucky staff seems to have turned him around on his eating habits.

"Whether you’re a Matt Elam, who needs to lose 50-plus pounds, or a rail thin wide receiver, who needs to add bulk to play in the Southeastern Conference, Kentucky’s staff has a plan for you. You have regular meetings with the strength and conditioning staff and with team dietitian Monica Fowler. You aren’t thrown right into the weight room, you’re eased in slowly. “He’s a project, but most of these kids are,” UK’s high-performance coach, Erik Korem, said of Elam. “When we see players, we see the end result, at least I do. I have in my mind: ‘Here’s where they are. What can we build?'” The staff told Elam he needed to eat more to increase his metabolism. Eat more? That made him smile. Until they told him what he’d need to eat. “I didn’t like the food, all the vegetables and stuff,” Elam said, scrunching his nose like a toddler at the dinner table with carrots and peas left on his plate. He’s still not a big fan of vegetables — Korem says it can take up to six months to develop a taste for something different — but Fowler started small by getting him to eat fruit. Apples, bananas, grapes. He’d tell her that he was going to grab an apple juice instead and she’d shake her head, explaining that it’s loaded with sugar. Elam said goodbye to Sprite and Big Red, his two favorite sodas. He admits it took him awhile to do it."