Tyler Thompson Joins the Team Full Time…and Other Notes

It is with great excitement that KSR announces tonight that Tyler Thompson is joining KSR as a full-time writer and the new News Editor. This announcement is a long time coming and is especially sweet since today is her 2nd anniversary of her first post on the site. We found Tyler in a Blogger contest four years ago and since then, she has become a go-to person and one of the core members of KSR. Her features, including Tweet Beat, are loved by our readers and her ability to connect with the audience has been great to watch. I also have been tremendously impressed with how Tyler helped turn KSR from a Boys Club into a site that has the best male/female diversity of writers of any entity covering UK sports. On a personal level, Tyler has become a good friend to all of us and I am so pleased with how excited she seems to be about this news. She becomes KSR’s second full time writer, joining the great Drew Franklin. For those of you scoring at home, the KSR masthead now reads:

President: Matt Jones
Editor in Chief: Drew Franklin
News Editor: Tyler Thompson
Technical Director: Andrew Jefferson
Weekend Editor: Ally Tucker

Please join me in welcoming Tyler to the KSR family full-time, as she now gets to shed her current “real job” life and join the fun world of covering UK Athletics for a living.

A couple of other Thursday tidbits:

— The football coaching search continues and the last 48 hours provided little in the way of real news. UK is still compiling its list of top-tier candidates and I continue to hear that 4-5 names are emerging. I am confident that two of those names are Sonny Dykes and Kirby Smart, but the other names are still in some dispute. I am told that UK is still pursuing one NFL “big name”, and gauging interest from a couple of others, but they are getting close to having a final list to begin interviewing. While many names are being bandied about in public today that I think have some validity (Butch Jones, Mike McIntyre and Ron Caragher), another is off base (I dont think Phillip Fulmer is a serious candidate). At this time, I think we are still at least a couple of weeks away from a decision, and the process will continue, with a couple more names leaking out over the next week.

— The mystery illness of Ryan Harrow continues to be a big story around UK Athletics. Harrow has yet to practice and he is unlikely to play tomorrow versus Lafayette, but we still don’t have a complete grasp on what is wrong. The fatigue description has some speculating mono, but there has been no indication from UK that this is the case. We likely will know more going into the game tomorrow about just how long Harrow is expected to be out.

— Also, it is worth noting that the Harrison Twins did sign today, making sure that all conspiracy theories about them come to an end. The question continues to be who will join the Twins, Marcus Lee, James Young and Derek Willis at Kentucky, and it looks like we won’t know the answer until the Spring. If Kentucky can somehow get one of Andrew Wiggins, Juluis Randle or Aaron Gordon, they become the favorites to win the national title. If they get two, they become a juggernaut. We will see the answer in April.

— And finally, how about the Lil Wayne sighting at the UK-Duke game. He sat on the floor in a bizarre outfit (shown below) and apparently taunted the Duke players from start to finish. I am not sure if he is a “UK fan” per se (he has previously expressed allegiance to North Carolina), but it was clear who he was for that night. When you are on top, the wagon gets bigger, so even if for one night, Weezy joins.

Congrats again to Tyler and I will see you at 10 am tomorrow morning. Tomorrow night, the KSR Postgame Show will originate live from Glenn Creek Brewery in Chevy Chase in Lexington, so if you get a chance, stop by after the Lafayette game