Archive for July, 2009

With the 2010 recruiting class getting all of the attention right now, one of top talents in that in class is considering leaving that class.  No, he is not leaving to go overseas or try and get a ruling against the NBA to find a way around the current rules.  He is actually trying to attend Duke this coming season.  Andre Dawkins is hoping to be a part of this coming years team.  This is especially surprising in this day and age when players are trying to find ways out of attending college.  This will surely help Duke out a lot if he is allowed to attend school next season as they had a couple of departures that will definitely hurt.  Gerald Henderson left for the NBA draft and Elliot Williams transferred leaving room for someone to step up.

Dawkins is in the process of going through NCAA Clearing House trying to gain eligibility and permission to skip his senior year of high school.  Dawkins is thought to be a player can step right in and make a difference so this will be a story to follow, as it could have a big impact on the 2009-2010 basketball season as well as recruiting in general.

I am sure everyone is aware by now that Lebron James was on UK’s campus yesterday.  UK Athletics Cat Scratches site has a nice little write up on his visit to UK.  One can only think that this will help some in the recruiting front.  I just have to wonder if anyone asked Lebron about the dunk that we will never see.

As of right is stands that no charges have been filed against any UK player and no one involved in the situation is talking about it.  So there you go….if someone had decided to file charges then things would be different.  Hopefully, the UK players will stay clean the rest of the summer and realize that they used their get out of jail free card.

The details of this incident are going to be message board rumors for a long time to come and you can certainly expect a lot of trash to be talked at the UK-UT game this year.

So, Louisville fans who decided to drag some names in the mud can look for those names to be laying down some big hits.

Hopefully, this is the last time we have to discuss this stuff.

I just received a call that says there could be some breaking news on the UK Football incident over the weekend later today or tomorrow.  I am not going to say anything else right now but look for the news to break.

As the recruiting following continues big news out of Indianapolis today saying that Dominique Ferguson is going to transfer high schools to Hargrave Military Academy.  There has been a lot of talk about whether he would stay at North Lawerence and Oak Hill was one of the schools that was discussed.  Here is some more information on his decision.

I am not sure what impact this will have UK’s recruitment of Ferguson if any, but it sure would have been nice to see him go to Oak Hill.

Coach Cal had some good tweets yesterday letting everyone know who they are working on recruits for 2010 and what to forward to in the future.  It is so great to understand his vision for UK basketball and look forward to the type of talent that he is going to bring in.  Here are some of Coach Cal’s Tweets from yesterday.

If you believe things you are reading, you would think we have dozens of commitments already but we’re still evaluating talent.

It’s gratifying 2 know so many young men want 2 b part of what we’re building. We only pursue studnt-athletes who’ll contribute 2 our goals.

For anyone 2 say were taking transfers or have tons of commitments is disingenuous. Our style of play requires a deep and diverse roster.

The young men who wear the UK uniform are people who dream big dreams and understand that to go far, we must go together.

Also, today Darius Miller will have a press conference to talk about his gold medal.  Ramon Harris and Darius Miller both will be on ukathletics.com live blog (Cat Scratches Blog) today at 1:00.

Slam Magazine also has given us a great look at some of the high caliber recruits in the country and specifically some players who UK is interested in.

At this point it is looking more and more like the latest incident within the UK football program might not turn out to hurt the program that much other than many rumors of players being arrested and etc.  There are several parts to this incident that are becoming more and more clear.

1. There was an incident on Saturday night involving UK players, the UK Police and Lexington Metro.
2. As many as 4 UK players were involved with a shotgun and knocking a door down at the Royal Lex.
3. There were some UT footballs inside of the apartment apparently with a female who attends UK.
4. NO ONE was arrested, despite rumors.
5. There were no gunshots fired, despite rumors.
6. At the hope of many fans in the SEC and UofL, it looks like there is a good chance there will be no formal charges since no one was arrested and it seems to be an issue of UT players naming UK players.
7. The rivalry is certainly going to be heated and look for a lot of trash to be talked between the teams all season long.
8. As far as the UofL fan who supposedly works at the District Court in Fayette County….nice try.  If you do work for the District Court you should be ashamed.  If anyone really wanted to find out if someone had been arrested then all you would have to do is have access to the database in Fayette County or be a Law Enforcement Official and have access to search the state wide database.

Now, I am off to play some NCAA Football 2010.

More and more message boards are starting to pass the incident from Saturday night around and more and more is being said.  Most all blogs and traditional media have remained silent about all of the issues that are being discussed.  The only other media source that even spoke about this last night was the radio talk shows in Lexington. UofL, Vandy, UT, South Carolina and many other rival message boards are picking up on the story and trying to run with it.  A lot is being said on those boards that is false but some have a little truth to them.

KSR, who usually tries to break every story first has waited for some sort of information before they start to talk about anything.  Matt Jones finally said something today and it certainly sounds like he is hoping for the best and UK can not take any more hits on the defense or offense.  Matt did mention Micah Johnson and as I said last night I will not say any names but I do have a full list of names of who were involved and it is going to hurt if everything happens the way that it looks to be heading.

Well, I can tell you that I do know for sure who is involved, but I am not going to say a word out of respect for UK and the players and their families.  I will say that I have seen a ton of posts from a lot of message boards, and it looks like Louisville fans have decided to kick it up a notch.  One of their fans posted this……

It is for sure Micah Johnson, I live in Lexington and work for District Court….I don’t have any specifics, but charges could range from felony fleeing and evading, to felony wanton endangerment, to disorderly conduct, etc….I would suspect that all of them would get some sort of fleeing and evading charge if they forced the police to chase them on foot after being told they were police officers and being ordered to stop….I think thats fleeing and evading 2nd, which carries either a $2,500, $3,000 or $5,000 bond, I can’t remember, I wanna say its $2,500 and fleeing or evading in a motor vehicle is $5,000…..as for the gun charges if it was just fired off and not at someone, then it will probably be wanton endangerment 2nd, which is a think a Class A misdemeanor, but if it can be proven that it was fired at someone or even pointed at some one in a threatening manner then we are talking about felony wanton endangerment and terroristic threatening…..

Either way, I would suspect that if Micah Johnson was as much involved in this as I am hearing, along with Alphonso Smith, I think, then both of their college careers are done with and its a HUGE loss for UK….have no clue who the other two players are or even if Alphonso Smith was involved, I’m hearing he was, but the constant is that Micah Johnson was for sure involved in this…

Now, first off, if this person really does hold the job they say, then they should be in trouble at work for putting this up on a message board.  Kind of ridiculous to say that you work for the court and you don’t know for sure but you would think it is this person or that person.  Either way I can tell you that the person who posted this is either trying to get some kind of attention or just trying to put names out there.

Everything will be out soon enough and it will be very devistating for UK.  I do know that the UK administration is very very upset and has really laid it down on the players.  Most of the players are not willing to discuss any part of this issue other than saying it is very bad and they are shocked.  I am sure there will be some news tomorrow, but would not say that names will be released just yet.

Over the past few weeks I have seen some stories about this player or that player whether it be failing a drug test or not qualifying academically.  Today, I was very saddened to hear that we had possibly 4 UK football players involved in a police chase this weekend.  Two of the four are high profile players and if it turns out as bad as it sounds then it could make a huge impact on the season.  I am not going to get into names or anything like that, but it is very bad and the punishment will probably be pretty harsh. Apparently, the UK Police and Lexington Metro were lead on a foot chase after 4 UK players who were trying to break down a door and had a shotgun.  I am sure the rest will come out very soon as that is all the details that I have and I will not name the players.

Here’s to hoping that this is all a misunderstand and none of it is true.

Here is some other football related news from KSR….