Hall of Fame coach and John Calipari critic Bob Knight won't be at Kentucky's game against Tennessee next Saturday. But many other ESPN staffers will be there as the GameDay crew comes to Lexington for a third time.
Earlier this year, Knight questioned how Kentucky could hire Calipari after two of the coach's former teams had been ordered to vacate Final Four appearances. Knight also questioned players who spend only one year in college, a staple of Calipari's success at Memphis (Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans) and presumably at UK (John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins).
Knight will be working games two days before (Michigan at Minnesota) and two days after (Kansas at Texas A&M) Kentucky plays Tennessee on Saturday night. So the logistics would be difficult, not to mention the potential awkwardness between Knight and Calipari.
No fewer than seven other on-camera personalities will be in Lexington. Dan Shulman, Dick Vitale and Erin Andrews will call the UK-Tennessee game.
The GameDay crew will include Rece Davis, Jay Bilas, Hubert Davis and Digger Phelps.
UK distributed more than 23,000 tickets for the 11 a.m. GameDay telecast, prompting talk of a so-called record crowd.
ESPN doesn't keep crowd-size statistics but acknowledges that 23,000-plus would be the most to watch a GameDay telecast. That number could be topped two weeks later when GameDay originates from the Carrier Dome in conjunction with the Villanova-Syracuse game.
After being at UK, ESPN has plans for GameDay telecasts at Washington (against UCLA), Syracuse and Duke (against North Carolina).
So far this season, GameDay has been at Clemson, Kansas State and Illinois, plus at Connecticut for the women's game.
Next Saturday's game marks the third time GameDay has originated from Lexington. The earlier two were games against Florida in 2005 and 2007. Kentucky was also part of a GameDay telecast for games at Florida in 2006 and 2008.
No official word yet, but it's expected that Kentucky will unveil new uniforms for the Tennessee game. Rumor has it that black trim distinguishes the new uniforms.
Lost weekend
Many sportswriters were noticeably absent from Southeastern Conference games last weekend. Even with ESPN's coverage meaning literally billions of dollars and national exposure to SEC basketball, the league can't welcome lapses in newspaper stories.
Here's a rundown on the print coverage for visiting teams in Saturday games:
Vanderbilt at Kentucky — An ice and snow storm hit Nashville the day before the game, which caused Vandy beat writers to stay home.
Georgia at South Carolina — For a second straight season, no media corps travels with Georgia. This surprising development includes the Atlanta Journal Constitution not assigning a regular writer to cover home games. A patchwork of random staffers and freelancers handles that duty.
Columbia is less than a three-hour drive from Athens, yet no writers that cover Georgia made the trip. Meanwhile, writers were assigned to travel a similar distance to cover a high school football prospect's announcement of his college choice.
LSU at Mississippi State — Free lancers covered LSU's game in Starkville.
Alabama at Auburn — Sanity (or is that nostaglia?) prevailed in this game. Writers from the Montgomery Advertiser, Tuscaloosa News, Mobile Press-Register, Birmingham News and Crimson White covered the action. The Birmingham News sent four staffers.
One man, one vote
Although Kentucky lost at South Carolina the previous week, UK received one first-place vote in The Associated Press poll last week. It came from sportswriter Craig Stouffer of The Washington Examiner. That's Washington, D.C.
Stouffer covers Georgetown. He's also covered college basketball in the Washington, D.C., area for the last four years, the Washington Wizards and soccer.
When asked why he made Kentucky No. 1, Stouffer explained via e-mail.
"I had dropped Kansas and Texas each from No. 1 when they suffered their first losses, which I think was justified given remaining undefeated teams, like Kentucky, at that point," he wrote. "But after this week, I didn't feel that Kentucky losing a tough conference road game against a good team that was buoyed by a singular performance from Devan Downey merited a drop. They also rebounded with a solid victory over Vanderbilt. All things being equal right now, Kentucky is my title favorite.
"Other factors I considered: Syracuse won by just two at DePaul, and Villanova has been steady but hasn't yet gotten to the real meat of its conference slate.
"Kansas also won in Manhattan. But were they dominant enough to jump to the top past 'Nova, Syracuse and Kentucky? I didn't think so."
USC fires manager
In case you missed it, Southern California Coach Kevin O'Neill (the former Tennessee coach) fired a student manager after the manager got hit with a technical foul for complaining about the officiating.
The technical late in the second half began a 10-0 Oregon run that led to a 67-57 victory over O'Neill's Southern California team.
"Nobody should be yelling off the bench at the officials other than me," O'Neill said on a Pac 10 coaches' teleconference.
The manager, Stan Holt, is a 30-year-old graduate student who received a salary for performing managing duties.
O'Neill expressed regret in firing Holt. He also expressed surprise at how Holt received a technical foul.
"There was no warning whatsoever from the official that there was any problem," O'Neill said. "It just sort of happened out of the blue. So I was as shocked as anyone else was."
Auburn downsizing
Until a naming rights donor steps forward, it will be known as Auburn Arena. That's the new arena being constructed at Auburn.
Scheduled to be opened in May, the arena marks a downsizing from Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum (official capacity 10,500, but originally constructed to seat 14,000). The new arena will seat 9,600.
More importantly, those seats will be right on the court, a design one media outlet referred to as a "basketball bandbox."
Auburn will not be able to hang banners of retired player jerseys nor to recognize NCAA and NIT appearances. The ceiling isn't high enough.
Auburn expects to memorialize those historical references with engravings in reflective lettering around the arena. Those engravings are supposed to glow when the lights come on.
Good question
Columnist Bob Ryan of The Boston Globe recently asked a good question about the NCAA ordering Memphis to vacate its 38 victories and Final Four appearance in the 2007-08 season.
"I'll always wonder whether the NCAA would have had the guts to take away an NCAA championship from Memphis if the young man from Kansas had never hit the shot they refer to out there in Lawrence as 'Mario's Miracle,'" Ryan wrote. "Stripping a runner-up status doesn't impress me."
Memphis formally appealed the ruling that it must vacate those victories and Final Four appearance plus return the money gotten from NCAA Tournament play that year.
'Calipari Cats'
There's a team named "Calipari Cats" that plays in a Laurel London Instructional League.
There's no win-loss record to note. The league for 6- and 7-year-olds emphasizes instruction.
Respect
When Georgia shot free throws late in a tight game against South Carolina, Georgia Coach Mark Fox chose not to put any rebounders along the lane. For one thing, Fox had faith in Dustin Ware, an 82.8-percent free thrower, to make the shots.
But Fox had one other concern: Devan Downey.
Sure enough, Ware missed and South Carolina's Ramon Galloway grabbed the rebound after the ball hit the floor.
"We were out of timeouts, and Devan is so good we were concerned he would go coast-to-coast," Fox said after the game. "I had great confidence in Dustin, he's an 80 percent shooter, and I thought they would go down. That's why we had the one guy there."
CLASS acts
Last week saw 10 players named as finalists for the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award. To be eligible for the award, a player must be a senior and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence — classroom, character, community and competition.
Organizers of the award (an acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School) hope to encourage players to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.
The winner will be announced during the Final Four.
The finalists this season are Matt Bouldin, Gonzaga; Da'Sean Butler, West Virginia; Marquis Hall, Lehigh; Luke Harangody, Notre Dame; Damion James, Texas; Adam Koch, Northern Iowa; Chris Kramer, Purdue; Raymar Morgan, Michigan State; Jon Scheyer, Duke; and Josh Young, Drake.
Previous winners of the men's award include Juan Dixon of Maryland (2002), David West of Xavier (2003), Jameer Nelson of St. Joseph's (2004), Wayne Simien of Kansas (2005), J.J. Redick of Duke (2006), Alando Tucker of Wisconsin (2007), Shan Foster of Vanderbilt (2008) and Tyler Hansbrough of North Carolina (2009).
One-bid league?
Few would be surprised if only one Pacific 10 Conference team receives a bid to the NCAA Tournament this year.
The prospect of the Pac-10 being a one-bid league brought back memories for Arizona Coach Sean Miller, who formerly coached Xavier in the Atlantic 10.
"I thought those days were really over for me," he said. "But here we are. We're going through a transition period that will help the conference a year from now or two years from now."
Arizona has been to 25 straight NCAA Tournaments. The record is 27 by North Carolina.
When asked whether the streak factored large in Arizona basketball, Miller said, "Not at all. We'd be very foolish to come to Arizona just to keep the streak alive. That'd be very short-sighted."
Writers honor Downey
The U.S. Basketball Writers Association selected South Carolina guard Devan Downey as its Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week for games ending the week of Jan. 31.
Downey scored 63 points in two games that week. Of course, that included the 30 points in South Carolina's 68-62 upset victory over previously unbeaten No. 1 Kentucky. South Carolina had never before beaten a team ranked No. 1 by The Associated Press.
Literary corner
Freedom Hall, UK's home away from home, is the subject of a new book titled Celebrating 54 Years at Freedom Hall. The book, which will retail for $29.95, will be available at local bookstores.
The author, former Herald-Leader and Courier-Journal sports columnist Billy Reed, writes about the Freedom Hall history that includes U of L and UK basketball, the Sweet Sixteen, six Final Fours, the Kentucky Colonels, horse shows, tractor pulls, concerts, Muhammad Ali's first fights and the Mason-Dixon games.
Happy birthday
To UK Coach John Calipari. He turns 51 on Wednesday.
