NYC Firefighter Statue of the Day Wants Afternoon Notes and Podcast

Good afternoon, Kentucky fans, and welcome to your Monday Afternoon Notes and Podcast, live from my hotel in Atlanta.  I landed in the ATL last night and haven’t found a fellow UK fan yet, but I know you’re on your way.  Let’s paint this town UK blue, again.

—  Coach Cal met with the Lexington media prior to this afternoon’s practice in the Joe Craft Center and he opened things up with an update on Ryan Harrow. Cal said his point guard is having blood work done to find out why he doesn’t have energy. “Gotta get him to 100% and find energy,” he said. “He doesn’t have energy, none.” It’s unlikely that he’ll practice today, which means we probably won’t see him in the Duke game.

—  Julius Mays didn’t practice yesterday and his contact will be limited in today’s practice. Cal said they glued the gash over Mays’ eye when it should’ve been stitched. “Nobody likes needles,” he said. “But we should’ve made him get it stitched.”  Mays is expected to play tomorrow night.

—  Like Tyler mentioned in the morning teleconference notes, Cal is preaching rebounding to his guys.  He said he is having to go back and teach them how to box out — “6th grade level basketball,” he said — and it’s taking up practice time when they could be working on something else.

—  “It’s going to be a test,” Cal said of the game. “Mason Plumlee may be the best big guy we see all year.”

—  Want to feel old?  Willie Cauley-Stein hasn’t heard of Christian Laettner’s shot that beat Kentucky in 1992.  “I don’t even know who that is,” he said of Christian Laettner.  Alan Cutler told him, “You’re going to want to YouTube it.”

—  To be fair, tickets were pretty hard to get. Waryland is everyone’s Super Bowl.

Whoops! Polson parents did not go to waryland game

— Jerry Tipton (@JerryTipton) November 12, 2012

— Jarrod Polson told Tipton he received over 100 text messages after Friday night’s game. His favorite was from Cameron Mills, who Polson looked up to when he was younger. Polson said Mills texted to say he’s proud because he knows what he’s going through. “It was pretty cool,” Polson said.

—  A quick shoutout to Michael Atherton and Jim Goodwin and their co-workers at Owensboro Municipal Utilities.  They are volunteering in New Jersey to help clean up the Hurricane Sandy mess and decided to drive over to the Barclays Center in the line truck to try to get a last-minute ticket to the game.  When they couldn’t afford tickets, the Barclays Center got word of why they’re in town and let them inside for free.

—  KSR will be at STATS in Atlanta tomorrow morning from 10:00 to noon for the show and we’ve invited Christian Laettner to stop by and say hello.  We hope to see you there, too.

— Today’s podcast features McGriddles, Jarrod Polson talk, a Duke preview, coaching suggestions, and Russia???