Wednesday!!!

CatsIllustrated.com



In two days' time, Kentucky fans will know whether the Wildcats have reeled in the nation's two biggest recruiting catches.

Las Vegas wing player Shabazz Muhammad, the nation's No. 1 player in the 2012 class; and New Hampshire center Nerlens Noel, a recently reclassified senior who will challenge Muhammad for No. 1 upon receiving a 2012 ranking; will announce their college decisions at 7:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday on ESPNU.

Their announcements will be part of a 90-minute "Signing Day Special" by the network to mark the beginning of the five-week basketball spring signing period.

Muhammad is considering UK, Duke and UCLA. Noel is down to UK, Syracuse and Georgetown.

The players will announce their picks from the ESPNU studios in Charlotte, N.C., where on Saturday they'll in the Jordan Brand Classic.

UK's John Calipari is among coaches scheduled to appear for interviews during the show, according to a news release on the ESPNMediaZone.com website.

The signing day show will be simulcast on ESPN3.com.

I hope we get both Shabazz and Noels, They be crazy to go somewhere else.

So what's the deal? I figured these two were waiting to see who declared for the NBA bu all is quiet in Lexington. What's up?

Too quiet . I would have thought there might be a leak by now for declaring and signing.

Maybe we get Noel?

Where did this Noels kid come from? He went from not even being listed in Rivals Top 150 all the way to #2? WTF?

jagator wrote:Where did this Noels kid come from? He went from not even being listed in Rivals Top 150 all the way to #2? WTF?

He was the #1 recruit for 2013 then reclassified for 2012. Sort of like Stokes did at UT.

Ah. Looks like you guys hauled in another monster class. Pretty soon the rest of the SEC is just gonna say screw this and go back to football.

jagator wrote:Ah. Looks like you guys hauled in another monster class. Pretty soon the rest of the SEC is just gonna say screw this and go back to football.

dang straight. Basketball, and now baseball, belongs to the Cats! Ha!

Yeah your baseball team is looking strong. That will be a good series in a few weeks when we visit.

jagator wrote:Ah. Looks like you guys hauled in another monster class. Pretty soon the rest of the SEC is just gonna say screw this and go back to football.

Only fair.....It's what UK did when they made Joker coach.

Yes but when UK gives up on football, football is still exciting. When the entire conference gives up on basketball you have what we had this year. zzzzzzz

jagator wrote:Yes but when UK gives up on football, football is still exciting. When the entire conference gives up on basketball you have what we had this year. zzzzzzz

I think basketball will be just fine, CATS are back were they should be. I use to go to the football games a lot, and I think Joker is a good man, But its up to UK to make changes to get football were it should be, just like other SEC schools its up to them to get their basketball teams to be competitive.

And how are they supposed to do that exactly? Buy a Delorean and a flux capasiter and go back to 1940? Or hire a hit man to take out Cal and World Wide Wes?

jagator wrote:And how are they supposed to do that exactly? Buy a Delorean and a flux capasiter and go back to 1940? Or hire a hit man to take out Cal and World Wide Wes?

How did you guys win back to back championships in basketball and kick in ass in football? It can be done, Whats Kentucky suppose to do fire Cal so it will make it easier on other SEC teams in basketball? We know we suck at football, all we want is to at least put put up a fight in the SEC instead of winning 4 games vs non conference teams. Its up to the school to bring in someone who actually knows how to compete. I'm not going to sit here and say please Florida, football is no fun anymore because you kick our ass every year. I will still watch em, But its UK's own fault for keeping a coach who has no clue how to get the ball pass ten yards.

We did it when you guys had Tubby Smith. So yes. If you want SEC basketball to be more than a big snooze fest, then Cal needs to go. Otherwise it will go back to what it was for 50 years. Something the rest of the conference sleeps through waiting for spring football. Since that isn't going to happen anytime soon, it will be about another year or two when you guys will be the only ones who give a dang again. Hell it's already happened. Look at this board. When you guys were sucking there were UT fans, Bama fans, Gator fans, even a UL fan or two. Now look at it. It's all UK fans and me. Everyone else has lost interest.

The tennersee fans down here think the Vols will be a factor next year. Well, I guess they could be but I'm not buying it. Stokes does not make a team and he is more of a role player in my opinion.

Cunzo seems like a decent coach but he is not a Bruce Pearl. The recruiting looks very slim in my opinion.

I'm sorry. You can coach a 2 star player all you want but he can not compete with 4 and 5 star athletes. Yes, there are a few exceptions but not as a rule.

They might be pretty good. But they won't show their faces around here until they beat you. Football is a different animal. Bama is the lead dog, but everyone else is pretty close. Florida, Tennessee, LSU, Auburn, Georgia, even South Carolina and Arkansas all have massive stadiums and state of the art facilities. They all have rabid fans that have been football crazed for generations. All Bama has over everyone right now is Saban. So the others just need the right coach and voila, they're right there. LSU is already there. SC, and UGA aren't far behind.

But basketball is not that easy. You can go out and hire a Billy Donovan but you still won't have a basketball crazy fan base that's been that way for 70 years. You still won't have a 25,000 seat gym that gets packed even when you play Podunk State. You won't have another 20,000 that are so dying for tickets that they travel to the road games because they can't get tickets to the home games. You still don't have all the championships. So how do the rest compete? They have to have a better coach.

You can compete with Bama in football if your coach is just as good. In basketball, to compete with UK, yours has to be better by a wide margin.

jagator wrote:We did it when you guys had Tubby Smith. So yes. If you want SEC basketball to be more than a big snooze fest, then Cal needs to go. Otherwise it will go back to what it was for 50 years. Something the rest of the conference sleeps through waiting for spring football. Since that isn't going to happen anytime soon, it will be about another year or two when you guys will be the only ones who give a dang again. Hell it's already happened. Look at this board. When you guys were sucking there were UT fans, Bama fans, Gator fans, even a UL fan or two. Now look at it. It's all UK fans and me. Everyone else has lost interest.

Hell When we had Tubby he still won a championship, my thing about Tubby is he got to lazy and was just happy making to the dance, Us fans didn't want that, Basketball rules here in KY always has and always will, yes we want our football team to do something, And they was improving and coming competitive when Brooks was here, and then they sign Joker which was a badddddd mistake. When you improve you don't go for a lower coach you go a step higher which UK should have done. Maybe I am reading what your trying to say wrong, it sounds like your saying UK should just settle for a decent coach so they won't dominate every year in basketball so the SEC would be more interesting? Of course there was more SEC fans here at the time because you guys had a better shot of beating UK at that time. CATS havn't won a basketball championship since 98, to me thats a long ass time, SEC schools had their chance to improve, Remember on facebook when I told ya that that Florida will be ok? they was one game away from making the final 4 this year, A game they should have won, and they will be good next year also, Vanderbilt was good this year also, Hell I hope the CATS dominate and win the NCAA Championship every year, do I think it will happen, probably not, its hard to do. As long as one SEC team is winning it I will enjoy it.

I'm not saying UK should settle for anything. I'm saying it's better for the SEC as a whole if UK slips a notch. It's more competitive. And yes UK has continuously dropped the ball in football. All the way back to letting Bear Bryant get away. But that's partially if not all the fault of you, the fans. You've made it known that you care about basketball only so the ADs have acted accordingly. If the blue hairs with the fat wallets threatened to with hold funds unless the football team started winning, then maybe they would get serious. But as long as everyone is happy as long as the hoops team is on top, then you get Joker Philips.

And yes, we should have been in the Final Four not only this year but last year too. But other than us and Vandy, does any other SEC schools even care now? We will probably care from now on because we've been on top. But the other schools? They'll be more than willing to find something else to do in March.

The only thing that might help you in football is if you find a good young coach accidentally like we did with Donovan. We hired hired him because he was not going to cost us much money. And we just happened to hit paydirt. That's probably what has to happen for UK football.

jagator wrote:I'm not saying UK should settle for anything. I'm saying it's better for the SEC as a whole if UK slips a notch. It's more competitive. And yes UK has continuously dropped the ball in football. All the way back to letting Bear Bryant get away. But that's partially if not all the fault of you, the fans. You've made it known that you care about basketball only so the ADs have acted accordingly. If the blue hairs with the fat wallets threatened to with hold funds unless the football team started winning, then maybe they would get serious. But as long as everyone is happy as long as the hoops team is on top, then you get Joker Philips.

And yes, we should have been in the Final Four not only this year but last year too. But other than us and Vandy, does any other SEC schools even care now? We will probably care from now on because we've been on top. But the other schools? They'll be more than willing to find something else to do in March.

The only thing that might help you in football is if you find a good young coach accidentally like we did with Donovan. We hired hired him because he was not going to cost us much money. And we just happened to hit paydirt. That's probably what has to happen for UK football.

I agree with ya in football, I been telling my brother I will not be one of the fans that are happy with beating non conference teams and getting a bowl game its a joke, I want us to be competitive in the SEC .
I want football to be fun to watch, Hell they can't even move it 10 yards, and its the same dang plays over and over, I use to go to the spring practice, it is nice and they have a fireworks show afterwords and I mean a great one. But I get tired of UK getting their ass handed to them all the time, Now I will say I do think you can have 3 star players and compete if you have the right coach. I really believe more fans are starting to wake up now and are noticing , at least I hope. Now on some of the other teams in the SEC, I really believe the SEC will improve in basketball . Now Ole Miss just sucks in both. If Joker doesn't pull out a miracle he will be gone. You know its bad when your a UK fan and fall asleep during the UK VS UL football game. lol Last years game still ones of the ugliest games I have ever seen. UK will always be a basketball school always will be, We can hire the best coach in the nation in football, but the fans will tell ya basketball comes first. Everyone who grew up in KY was raised on UK basketball not UK football. But I will say even in football, the fans will travel and spend that money.

There's no reason you can't be good in both. We proved it can be done. Now Gator basketball is to the point where people get pissed off when we lose. That's not a bad thing. UK fans need to get pissed off when the football team loses. They need to flood the call in shows and hit the message boards. Comment on the articles in the local papers. But what really starts all that is they have to get a taste of winning. They need to go to a New Year's Bowl. Watch South Carolina next time they start sucking. Or Arkansas. It's not going to be like it was when the fans just shrugged their shoulders and said "oh well". They expect to win there now. That's where UK needs to get to.