I haven’t done one of these in a while. Let’s see if I remember how.

The views I’m about to express are not necessarily those of anybody else but me, but they ought to be, and as a matter of fact, they probably are.

Bob Knight made a comment to the media this morning or last night or whenever he did it, I don’t care. He said something to the effect of “John Calipari is the representation of the lack of ethics in college basketball,” paraphrased to avoid litigation from ESPN. That’s fine. It’s his right as an American citizen to say that. And it is true that John Calipari was the head coach at two programs that had all the wins in Final Four seasons vacated. This cannot be disputed. It happened, and it doesn’t matter if Calipari himself was personally cleared of any wrongdoing in either situation. Perception is reality, and it also doesn’t matter if, in my own personal opinion, that the stuff that happened with the NCAA and Memphis is fishy because burden of proof was on the defense in the case rather than prosecution.

What has Calipari done at Kentucky? Obviously something had to happen to prompt Knight to say what he said. The only thing I can think of is go 10-0 and have the best start of any UK head coach besides Adolph F. Rupp. Also, Calipari beat the tar out of Knight’s old team on their home court. While I don’t know if Knight and Indiana have mended their severed relationship, one has to wonder what prompted him. I’m just throwing out suggestions.

He also wondered why (paraphrasing again) Calipari was still allowed to coach after the vacation of the two seasons. And the lemmings at ESPN First Take wondered this as well. Ignore that Calipari was personally cleared of all wrongdoing and let’s assume that just the opposite happened and he was found completely responsible on all counts. First Take called for a year suspension without pay. Why should Kentucky pay for that when no rules have been broken on their end? If Calipari weren’t at UK, I might be joining Knight in beating that drum, but he’s here, so I’m just defending my coach.

Also, is John Calipari really enough of a cheater, crook and slimeball that he’s the embodiment of sleaze in college basketball or athletics or whatever Knight said? What about *gasp* Indiana’s own Kelvin Sampson? Knight knocked Calipari for putting two schools on probation – which isn’t even true, as only wins got vacated – but his own school is CURRENTLY ON PROBATION. What about Knight’s ESPN colleague Lou Holtz? Here’s a guy who left his teams under clouds of sanctions, only to get opportunity after opportunity to leave the next team under a cloud of sanctions. What about Jim “God” Valvano? If you watched college basketball before 1993, you would know that Valvano was as crooked a coach as there has ever been. Then he got cancer and died, and while that is tragic and while the V Foundation has done a great job funding cancer research, it was as if Jimmy V’s flaws left him as soon as he died. Again, I’m just trying to defend my coach.

In the long run, haters will hate. Calipari has already made his response on his website. I won’t spoil it because it’s premium info, but let’s just say he took the high road. You know why there’s so much backlash against Roy Williams for removing that heckler from his game last week? Much of has to do with all the winning Williams has done over the course of his career. Would this incident have been all over the sports talk radio circuit had Sidney Lowe ejected a heckler from an NC State game? Think about it. The best thing Calipari can do about it is keep on winning. Sandy Bell has this program on the straight and narrow. One of our players could be a practicing magician and pull quarters from people’s ears and Bell would report it to the NCAA. All Cal has to do is keep on winning, and he will.

And one final note to Coach Knight: You may have run a squeaky clean program, but when it comes to ethics and values in college basketball, don’t throw chairs in glass houses.

I’m Seth Stogsdill, and that’s my opinion.

Thanks for reading.

That team would be your 2009-10 Kentucky Wildcats. I haven’t been able to write since the Connecticut game, so I have things to say.

When a team depends as much on freshmen as this Kentucky team does, you usually don’t see that team win the kinds of games like Kentucky did Saturday at Indiana or last Wednesday against Connecticut. While there is such a thing as a good loss (the 1996 SEC Tournament being the best example), you still play to win the game, and those good losses are quite the rarity. This team faced two tests these last two games and passed with flying colors.

Against Connecticut, UK faced foul trouble of the highest level, essentially down to Patrick Patterson and four bench players for the last part of the first half. UConn, with its knack for tough, physical defense, built a decent lead, never really let up on either side of the court, but Kentucky came back and withstood a late punch to hold on for dear life to the win. That Connecticut team is only going to get better, especially once Ater Majok starts playing. What made the second half of that game so great was that they were able to come back with Patrick Patterson out with an injury for a chunk of the half. DeMarcus Cousins and Ramon Harris stepped up in particular, making huge plays during the big run. And of course, John Wall took over Madison Square Garden in a way that I haven’t seen a Knicks player do since Allan Houston went nuts against the Pacers in the ’99 playoffs. If I were Donnie Walsh, I’d trade as much of my roster as necessary to end up with the first pick in the draft so I could select Wall. Has there been a sure thing in the draft as sure as John Wall being a transcendent player? Bill Simmons called him a cross between Derrick Rose and Dwyane Wade. That’s insane.

Your typical team of young lions loses the UConn game, at least in December. The Fab Five definitely lose this game in December. This team is different. This team has the potential to be special, and they’re ahead of schedule to realize that potential.

The Indiana game was a huge step in the direction of realization of potential. My most loyal readers know that I have family in Indiana, so it’s never fun to lose to those guys. For starters, how about the student section chanting “Cal’s a cheater” and “SAT?” Now, I’m not trying to claim moral superiority over Indiana fans. Lord knows Kentucky’s gotten in trouble so many times that Sandy Bell is afraid of one of our athletes picking up a lucky penny on the street. However, isn’t Indiana CURRENTLY ON PROBATION? Before Kelvin Sampson, Indiana had only one thing on which to hang their hat: they ran a clean shift. Now, they can’t even claim moral superiority. I don’t go around telling people how to drive their cars. Indiana fans shouldn’t make fun of a program/coach/player for cheating. It’s common sense, Hoosiers.

As for the game itself, this may come off as crazy (in fact, Coach Cal would tell me as such. “You’re CRAZY, Seth. You’re just crazy.”), but it reminded me of a conference road game in the mid-90s. Indiana wanted this game something fierce. If you couldn’t tell that, go back and watch the first five minutes, especially the part when an IU player took a charge on Cousins that nearly brought Tom Crean to violent orgasm. They wanted that game. All of their players were hitting shots in that first half as if they had channeled the spirit of Jimmy Chitwood. They wanted that game. Maurice Creek looked like Reggie Miller. They wanted that game. Then their field goal percentage dipped below 90% and before you knew it, Kentucky had the lead. John Wall dunked on Jordan Hulls – sort of. He actually went around Hulls in midair. The man is a cartoon. Indiana couldn’t have played any better in that first half. If they shoot like that for one half against any Big Ten opponent, they win, end of story. They trailed by one against Kentucky.

Here are some other things I liked about the Indiana game.

The three guys who play small forward on this team combined to score 21 points. That tripled their effort against UConn. When these guys score 15 points or more, it’s going to be a rough night for the other team.

UK doubled Indiana’s rebounding total and tripled their offensive rebounding total. Patterson alone had eight offensive rebounds. That man is a rock. And he’s made a ton of money by staying put.

Wall might have had his best pure point guard game of the season with 11 points, eight assists and one turnover.

Indiana tried multiple defenses, but mostly zoned. They played their zone with the same tenacity that they played it against Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh couldn’t get anything going at all. Kentucky got anything it wanted. Kentucky’s offense was so dominant that if it were the NBA, it would have been a perfect game for one of those Larry Bird experiments like shooting all threes or all lefty shots.

While I don’t know for sure if your typical team of young lions loses the Indiana game, they probably don’t win it by 17. Indiana shot well enough in the first half to deliver a knockout punch to all but a handful of teams (Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Syracuse, Texas and Villanova – that’s the list). Your typical team of young lions might buckle at the first sign of adversity in a hostile environment. This team didn’t, and I couldn’t be more pleasantly surprised, as I figured the UNC/UConn/Indiana stretch would produce at least one loss.

This team is going to be favored in every game they play unless Florida or Tennessee win out until they host Kentucky. It might be preposterous to say Kentucky will go undefeated, but they won’t lose too many as long as everybody stays healthy. And we’ll treat most of those teams like Snookie.

Thanks for reading.

1996.

Not only was it a pretty good year, but that now equals Kentucky’s all-time wins total after the thrilling and emotionally exhausting win over the North Carolina Tar Heels. As a fan, you might think I’m joking when I say this, but it’s completely true: I have never been more nervous during a ballgame as I was during the North Carolina game. This is probably the best regular season win for Kentucky out of conference since December 2005 when Rajon Rondo acted out his own personal fatwa against the Louisville Cardinals. It’s been a long time since December 2005. Let’s see why it went so well.

Patrick Patterson might not have put up his best statistical performance of his career, but it was one of the best performances of his career, and I’ll tell you why: Timing. The constants with Patterson have been defense and rebounding. He’s getting his in those areas regardless of the opponent and that’s why he’ll have a long and prosperous pro career. But it had been tough for him to get the ball in times where the team needed to rely on him as a rock. That didn’t happen yesterday. Times got tough in the second half when John Wall cramped up. Every time Carolina looked close to dagger mode when making their run, there was Patterson, hitting shots, blocking shots, grabbing rebounds, helping out on high screens, doing whatever it took to swing the momentum the other way. My hat’s off to Patrick and he deserves to have a season as special as this one has started off.

John Wall is the man. You got the feeling that the guys would come out tight to start, and that’s what happened as they missed on several good looks. Then John Wall got the ball in transition, had Larry Drew retreating like the French army at the Maginot Line, crossed Drew over and flew in for a huge jam that is currently the background wallpaper on my computer. Then John Wall got the ball in transition, again dribbled right at Drew, only this time drove baseline and threw up some left-handed reverse layup garbage that went in. If the 28-2 run that blew the game open was a Russian-style execution, Wall’s dunk was the pistol whip to the back of the head. The circus shot was the trigger being pulled. And UK was down 9-8 at that point. Didn’t matter at all – the storm was on its way.

The absolute best play of the game happened when Kentucky led by seven early in the second half. Wall was out with leg cramps (Jodie Meeks and Tony Delk had leg cramps as well – all the great ones…) and Kentucky was turning it over at an alarming clip as the Heels chipped into the lead. After another turnover, Carolina ran a great play to get John Henson wide open for an easy dunk. Carolina has been on TV quite a bit this year and I’ve seen Henson dunk on some guys. He might be thin, but he’ll throw it down on you. Daniel Orton met him at the rim and swatted a Spalding imprint on Henson’s forehead. Kentucky got the ball and Orton caught Patterson on a fast break for a dunk. Cats lead by nine. Orton played about as well as a guy can play without scoring a point.

The reasons why this win was so special are the grand schemes, both this season and the overall picture. When a team depends as much on freshmen as Kentucky does, it is unusual for that team to give up that big of a lead and still hold on for a victory. Kentucky wasn’t perfect yesterday. Heck, in the second half, they weren’t even that good at all. But they made enough plays in crucial situations to pick up a win over one of the six good teams in the country this year. And Carolina played pretty well and should be a top 3 team in February and March. That speaks volumes about what this team accomplished by beating them. Also, beating Carolina might end up being the deciding factor in the race to 2000 wins. Downplay it all you want, but if Carolina got there first, they’d probably hang a banner for it next to their Helms title.

Beat UConn.

Thanks for reading.