Halftime of the BCS National Championship’s Tuesday News and Views
It’s halftime of the BCS National Championship and Auburn leads Florida State through the first two quarters, 21-10. It took a fake punt on the last possession of the half for Florida State to get a touchdown on the board several plays later, or we’d be talking SEC blowout for the eighth year in a row. It still has the potential to finish that way, although the Seminoles will get the ball when the action returns. But it’s important to note the leading team at the half is 15-0 in BCS championship history. Uh oh, Flawda State.
To the surprise of nearly everyone, Auburn is playing a complete game, not just running the ball. Quarterback Nick Marshall is 7-for-13 for 113 yards and two touchdowns. His counterpart, Jameis Winston, is 6-for-15 for 62 touchdowns and one coughed up fumble going the other way.
Off the field, ESPN 2’s “Title Talk” is the worst production in the history of television. The “talking heads” broadcast without play-by-play is getting destroyed on Twitter for how atrocious it has been thus far. You know it’s not good when the ESPN ticker promotes upcoming commentary from country music singer Taylor Hicks; however, it did make a small recovery before the break with Tebow and Manziel sharing the stage. Keep it in your pants, ESPN.
I’m ready to shut the computer down for the evening and enjoy the second half so here’s your Tuesday News and View. Enjoy, and Go Auburn…
UK moved up to No. 14 in the AP poll, still No. 16 in the coaches poll.
The Cats jumped one spot in the Associated Press college basketball poll without playing a single game, but the real star of the updated rankings was Duke’s plunge from the top 10. The Blue Devils fell to No. 16, marking the first time Duke hasn’t been ranked in the AP top 10 since December of 2007. That’s an impressive run, one I’m glad is over.
Ron Morris voted Louisville No. 3 again.
Ron Morris is back with another WTF AP ballot this week. In case you missed it, we tried to call Morris on the air last Tuesday to ask him what he was thinking with his absurd AP ballot — he ranked Louisville third after the loss to UK. Morris stood his ground again this week, ranking Louisville third again, ahead of one-loss Michigan State, undefeated Syracuse, undefeated Wisconsin, undefeated Wichita State, and undefeated Iowa State.
Check out his poll here. (That’s what she… Never mind.)
Coach Cal said this team’s basketball habits were the worst he’s had.
On the Monday morning SEC coaches teleconference, Coach Cal said this team’s basketball habits were the worst he’s ever had in his coaching career:
“This team’s habits, basketball-wise, were far worse than the other teams that I’ve had. They’re great kids, now; they just have bad basketball habits. And trying to understand and get them to define how we have to play together, and how individuals have to be responsible for each other and to each other, has been the challenge.” — Calipari
He said the winter break has been good because the extra practice time has allowed them to zero in on the areas that needed improvement. There were four areas on offense and four on defense and they scrimmaged every day for almost to hours work it all out. Now he’s ready to see if it translates into games.
Alex Poythress is smiling.
It shouldn’t be news, but after watching Poythress for a year and a half now, it is news. BIG news.
Calipari said Alex Poythress is smiling in practice, something he hasn’t done a lot of in the past. He praised Alex for how great he has been lately, saying he has finally “broken through mentally.”
“Alex, WOW,” Cal said on his call-in show Monday night.
The next step: “Go get more baskets.”
Basketball is back, finally.
The 11 days off has been brutal for fans of Kentucky basketball, but we only have to suffer one more day before the Cats return to action. Camp Cal is officially over, too, as the team scaled back to one two-hour practice on Monday. Calipari said he doesn’t want to wear them out with three games in seven days ahead.
“But they’re good. They’re in good shape.”
eRupption Zone tickets are available to the public for Wednesday.
With the students still away, the regular folk can take advantage of winter break by purchasing eRupption Zone tickets to Wednesday night’s game against Mississippi State. Fans can start lining up for eRUPPtion Zone tickets sales Wednesday at 9:00 am. Tickets will be $5.00 each (cash only) and are limited to one per person. Tickets will go on sale 90 minutes prior to tip-off at the Rupp Arena Box Office and are available on a first-come/first-serve basis.
Upper level reserved tickets are also still available for the game, as well as the Texas A&M game on January 21. Visit www.UKAthletics.com/tickets for more information.
This guy is awesome.
Shakey is our UK Fan of the Week.
Wildcats were shut out of the SEC weekly awards.
Awards aren’t given for practicing and watching The Wolf of Wall Street, I suppose.
Tennessee’s Jordan McRae and Arkansas’ Bobby Portis took advantage of UK’s week without games, winning SEC Freshman of the Week and SEC Player of the Week respectively.
Enjoy it while you can, boys.
Keep voting for Jack Demsey’s in the ESPN Bar Bracket.
Our good friends at Jack Demsey’s, the official bar for Cats fans in New York City, are in ESPN.com’s NYC Bar Bracket. Take a second to vote (it literally takes one second) and hopefully Demsey’s will win the whole thing so we can brag about Kentucky having the best sports bar in New York City.
JD’s is currently losing in the first round (but has the second most votes in the whole contest) so help out by voting here. You can vote multiple time if you clear your cookies or browser history or however that works.
There’s a song called “Archie Goodwin.”
“Catch me ballin’ out, Archie Goodwin; my team just got the dub, that’s a good win.”
Meh.
That’ll do it for tonight. BTI will be by at 9:00 a.m. with a post I guarantee you’re going to love.
33 Comments for Halftime of the BCS National Championship’s Tuesday News and Views
Very Impressive rhyming. I never would have come up with Goodwin rhyming with good win.
This rhyming has nothing on 2 Chainz. ” She got a big booty so I call her big booty.” That right there is pure poetry.
“ballin like Archie when he was 16″….wish he would have “balled” like that when he was 19, freshman year. Still love him even though he was the only shooting guard that couldn’t shoot!
Drew, ragging on this knuckleheads ranking is waste of time. Before the season Matt made a horse ass of himself with Gotlieb top 20 because he had UK 7 or 8. We have under performed so far… I think we can all agree. Hopefully the tide is turning then this knucklehead will look ridiculous.
Wonder who stoops is rooting for tonight?
Good question. Does he cheer the team he helped build win a NC or the team that beat Alabama on a 1 second on the clock 106 yard runback? Does he want the SEC streak to stay alive or see Auburn justify his brother’s claim the SEC’s annual claim to the title is propaganda? Remember that there’s 17 million dollars per SEC school on the table thanks to the new SEC network to keep the brand strong, which will weaken if Alabama & Auburn have back-to-back-to back losses.
Should be rooting for the SEC, that’s where he coaches.
Good answer. Loyalty counts.
He’s rooting for FSU I’m sure considering he rooted for Oklahoma over the SEC the other night. As for loyalty how about loyalty to your family as well as the very kids you coached just two years ago? Or does conference loyalty only count?
You wrote Winston has thrown for 62 touchdowns, and they are still losing holy cow
Uh, Drew, not to be nitpicky, but Auburn did not blow Oregon out in the ntl championship a few years ago. They had to kick a field goal at the end.
S-E-C! S-E-C! S-E-C! S-E-X! S-E-C!
**** Auburn.
Oh well, streak had to end sooner or later. Well played, exciting game.
We shouldn’t have let Randy Sanders get away.
The defense that Coach Mark Stoops built at Florida State just won a National Championship by beating Auburn. This makes me feel good to be a Kentucky football fan.
Yeah that’s why auburn lost. Uh oh oburn
Fun game to watch, Fl St was the best team in this match up.
Controls his life.
(cue the yut response about me being on the KSR board in three, two…)
Kinda like your UK obsession controls yours?
I mean its not like our football team even came close to contributing to the streak. Rooted for FSU bc of stoops connections and it helps validate him and his plans. What happened to when we hated our rivals. I know they don’t root for us in basketball.
It could be argued that Florida State’s defense got better after Stoops and D.J. Elliot left. I don’t necessarily see it that way but some people here in Florida do.
It got better when he got there, he was there last season and they had one of the best defense, before he was there they had one of the worst.
Uh Drew, football is 60 minutes, not 30 minutes. blow out? oops Looks like Auburn of the SEC choked one away. oops. Oh and yes the FSU defense is better this year. Also, I thought Marcelys Jones being flipped was a virtual lock too? oops again huh?
Drew if you really want us to vote for Demseys, put the freaking link in the post. I would love to help them out, but I’m not gonna go searching around for something like that.
It says “help out by voting here.” The word “here” is a hyperlink to the poll.
Internet comment sections showcase the worst of humanity.
We sure do miss Stoops and Elliot. Both will be fired at uk within 2 years.
yeah we won lets go rape a chick
“But it’s important to note the leading team at the half is 15-0 in BCS championship history.”
Why is it important, Drew? We see this all the time: “No team has ever . . . come back from 0 and 3 to win a 7-game series.” But no one ever explains the significance of these little factoids. The statistic dangles out there for the reader to infer something. It’s never been done before, and therefore . . . what? It won’t happen this time?
Well, guess what. FSU wins. So much for history. Here’s something that’s important to note: Things that have never happened before happen all the time.
We’ve been sitting on the couch since November watching football. Now what do we do?
Looks like we have the best basketball and football league now.
Are you kidding? The only team that looks good from the ACC in basketba right now is Syracuse. And even that is just because they barely leave the Carrier Dome before conference at. Duke and UNC are both still wildly overrated.