Happy Saturday! I hope you are enjoying a beautiful fall day, even if the temperatures are a bit chilly. I actually got a few responses this week, along with a couple of nice article comments and Twitter replies that I decided to go ahead and roll out the first edition of the Big Blue Mailbag. I was going to call it the Big Blue Bag, but that caused some confusion with a bunch of folks thinking it was a sack. The cool part of that is, if anyone wants to make a UK "Big Blue Bag" and maybe give the proceeds to charity, you’d have a hot seller on your hands, I’m pretty sure. Hell, I’d buy one.
With that out of the way, let’s get to it.
[B]"I would like to have your thoughts and outcome of the Kentucky and Kansas basketball game? Hopefully we can get your mail bag moving!"[/B]
[B]-Brandon (Zanesville, OH)[/B]
Thanks, Brandon, I hope we can get the mailbag moving as well. As for the UK-KU game, I was a bit concerned until the news broke about two Kansas freshmen being ineligible. This is from a class that was ranked #22 by ESPN. The team lost several key guys from last year’s Elite Eight squad, and the biggest returning names are Tyshawn Taylor (6’3" Sr. G, 9.3ppg, 4.6apg) and Thomas Robinson (6’10" Jr. F, 7.6ppg, 6.4rpg). They bring in 3 eligible freshmen, and 2 transfers. Still, it’s hard to replace 4 starters, and 7 guys overall, unless you are John Calipari. This is a case where UK may be the experienced team, especially with Terrence Jones around to unleash hell. Also, UK has the depth advantage, which will be the case in nearly every game they play. I see the Wildcats taking it by 12.
[B]"Could you do an article on some past crowd favorites like a where are they now thing. Guys like Antwain Barbour, Carruth and others."[/B]
[B]-Forrest Bowman[/B]
That’s a good idea, Forrest. While I don’t have the information for Barbour and Carruth readily available, I can confidently tell you that past crowd favorites such as John Wall, Demarcus Cousins, Tayshaun Prince, Nazr Mohammed, and Chuck Hayes have been spending some time in Lexington lately. Perhaps you’ve been made of aware of this. In all seriousness, I will see what I can find out about some of those guys, but I can’t promise how soon it will be. Thanks for writing.
This next one comes from Twitter, where I apparently [URL=”http://twitter.com/#!/ATLCardsFan/status/130065877948317698″]pissed off a Louisville fan[/URL] last night with a [URL=”http://twitter.com/#!/chris_minton/status/130061421269622784″]comment I made[/URL] regarding the season-ending injury to Wayne Blackshear. While I intended that tweet to mean that Louisville as a team will underachieve this year, like usual, I see how it can be taken to mean that Blackshear himself will fail. I didn’t mean it that way, but I wouldn’t expect @ATLCardsFan to know that. It says right in his handle that he’s a Cards fan, how perceptive can he be? While my next tweet wished Blackshear well, I probably should have sent my condolences first, then made fun of him and the rest of the team. All kidding aside, I wish him a full recovery. I hate to see anyone get seriously injured, especially in the spirit of competition. Besides, Rick Pitino will drive Blackshear’s career in the ground; at least let him be healthy during the process. And if Wayne Blackshear is reading this, I hope there are no hard feelings. Let me make you some chili and we can call it even.
Finally, our last comment. This one is actually a recent reply to an [URL=”http://www.nationofblue.com/what-if-tubby-smith-white-9272/”]article I posted[/URL] about Tubby Smith a couple months ago, but it was so juicy I had to include it here.
[B]Of the 15 or so fist fights I got into during the "Scrub the Tub" crap, at least ten started when something like, "well he’s a N…" came out of the other persons mouth. I had to be pulled off of a guy in the middle of Riverbend before a show even started over this. There is no doubt in my mind that a good 50% of people who wanted Tubby gone didn’t want him there in the first place. I know most of my family didn’t want him to begin with. We want to act like race isn’t an issue, but it is. Just cause "you" feel bad now cause we had to go through two years of Billy G because of your ignorance, doesn’t mean you can write off your racism with that little bit of penance. That being said, I didn’t want Joker in the first place. That head coach in waiting crap was ridiculous. Go on, call me a racist.[/B]
[B]-"Rich city boy"[/B]
With a nod of the cap to Gregg Doyel, let me say that I’m not a racist, and my first comment following the post pretty much says as much, so I have no racism to write off. Also, I don’t recall making the decision to hire Billy Gillispie (I must’ve been at a Klan rally that day) so I’m not sure that "we" had to go through two years of him because of something "I" did. Having said that, I’m not going to call you a racist. As ignorant as racists are, they usually have a point of some kind, whereas you do not. But it’s good to see you are obviously short tempered and violent. And what does being all over a guy in Riverbend have to do with anything? It’s 2011, I’m not here to judge. Thanks for sharing, though.
WOW, that was fun! I thought it was decent little group of comments, too. Had a couple of legit questions thrown in there as well, just for good measure. So how about the game tonight? I honestly have no idea what to expect. MSU has won 2 in a row over the good guys, and the road team has won most of the recent games in this series. MSU won last year at home. If UK comes out fired up and plays like they did last week, they should take it by 6-10 points. If they come out flat like the rest of the SEC games they’ve played so far, Mississippi St. will win yet another one in Lexington. Regardless of the outcome, the long-clamored-for black uniforms will certainly be a nice treat on a cool Saturday night in the Commonwealth.
Keep the mailbag comments coming, guys. You can make your voice heard one of three ways:
[EMAIL=”[email protected]”][email protected][/EMAIL]
[EMAIL=”[email protected]”][email protected][/EMAIL]
[URL=”http://twitter.com/#!/chris_minton”]@chris_minton[/URL] on Twitter
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do laundry before I get yelled at anymore.
