The thing killing Kentucky in the power rankings just keeps getting worse
Fast-break points from Mark Pope’s giddy victory celebration:
21. Evansville 67, Kentucky 64. When the then-No. 1-ranked UK men’s basketball team suffered an unthinkable defeat to the unheralded Purple Aces in Rupp Arena in this season’s third game, it was the epitome of a bad loss. Yet no one could have known then it was a defeat that would just keep looking worse.
20. Walter McCarty. When the former UK forward coached Evansville to a 78-76 overtime victory over Murray State Dec. 21, the Purple Aces stood at 9-4. Yet no one could have known then it was the last game McCarty would win as Evansville’s head coach.
19. The fall of a coach. On Dec. 26, Evansville announced that it had placed McCarty on administrative leave while it investigated the coach for alleged violations of Title IX strictures. On Jan. 21, the school announced that it had fired McCarty.
18. A season goes south. Since McCarty was placed on leave, Evansville has not won one game.
17. Zero and six. Under interim head coach Bennie Seltzer, the Purple Aces were winless in six games.
16. Zero and 10. Since former Butler and Iowa coach Todd Lickliter was named permanent Evansville head man on Jan. 21, the Purple Aces are winless in 10 games. The team that was 9-4 is now 9-20.
15. Killing Kentucky. If you are frustrated that UK’s No. 8 ranking in the AP Top 25 is not reflected in the Wildcats’ computer metrics — the Cats were No. 21 in the NCAA’s NET Rankings and No. 26 in the Kenpom Ratings through Feb. 23 — a home-court loss to a mid-major team that has lost 16 games in a row is a ratings anvil.
14. UK women’s hoops fans, take a bow. The atmosphere created by the crowd of 7,174 at Kentucky’s 67-58 loss to No. 1 South Carolina on Sunday was the best for a women’s basketball game in Memorial Coliseum in years.
13. Huge moment for Campbellsville. Hat tip to Coach Brent Vernon and the Tigers’ men’s basketball team. It rode scalding three-point shooting (14-for-23) and massive games from Taiveyhon Mason (35 points) and Richie Mitchell (28) to a 94-92 road upset of NAIA No. 1 Georgetown College on Saturday.
12. Huge moment for Kentucky State. KSU executed “the Christian Laettner play” to perfection Saturday night. With 1.2 seconds left, Grant Goode threw a three-quarter-court pass to Jordan Little, who turned and sank a 15-foot jumper to give the Thorobreds a 77-75 win over archrival Central State on Senior Night.
11. Mark Pope. After he coached BYU to a 91-78 spanking of No. 2 Gonzaga on Saturday night, the ex-Kentucky big man turned up at the Provo, Utah, eatery Cubby’s and bought food for every BYU student in the place.
10. Parting the waters at Cumberlands. The flooding of the Cumberland River earlier this month had a big impact on the athletics facilities at the NAIA school in Williamsburg.
9. Football field submerged. “The football practice field and the game turf field were under water,” said Brad Shelton, the director of outdoor athletics facilities at Cumberlands. “We probably had five or six feet of water on it.”
8. Surveying the damage. “When the water went down, the turf was still intact,” Shelton said. “There was a little bit of debris but that was not as bad as we thought it was going to be.”
7. A cleaning crew. The football locker rooms had some damage, Shelton reported. “We’ve got dehumidifiers in there and we’ve got a cleaning crew working on that,” he said. “We turned the power off. They are going through all the electrical outlets, making sure everything is safe.”
6. “We were lucky.” Said Shelton: “Another foot, and it would have gotten our brand-new video board. We were lucky, I think, that we didn’t have any more damage than we did.”
5. Kaiya Sheron. The Somerset High School football star is expected to be the most-ardently recruited quarterback in the state of Kentucky in the class of 2021.
4. A legendary moment. The 6-foot-3, 195-pound QB supplied a moment that will live forever in Somerset sports lore when he threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Tate Madden on the game’s final play to give the Briar Jumpers their first state football title, a 34-31 win over Mayfield in the Class 2A state finals.
3. A UK scholarship offer. The Somerset star, who threw for 3,218 yards and ran for 959 as a junior, said Kentucky and Marshall remain his two scholarship offers. “Kentucky is still on me hard,” he said. “I’ve got a few other schools talking to me.”
2. A West Virginia visit. Sheron recently took an unofficial visit to WVU, whose head coach, Neal Brown, and new offensive coordinator, Gerad Parker, are Kentuckians. The Mountaineers did not offer a scholarship. “They said if I come back in the spring, they want to see me throw a couple more times,” Sheron said.
1. A recruiting leader? Sheron said there is not one. “I am just going to weigh out my options and see what is the best fit for me.”
