1. Alex Poythress surprised the recruiting world by choosing the Kentucky Wildcats yesterday. The 6’8″ forward, ranked #16 in the class by Scout.com, also considered Memphis, Vanderbilt and Florida. Experts were stumped as to where the third best small forward prospect in the 2012 class would choose to take his talents. When asked about his decision, Poythress said, ““I just wanted to go to a place where I can get better and a place I feel comfortable at.” Kentucky has had the number one class three years in a row dating back to John Calipari’s first year in Lexington. Poythress’ commitment brings the Cats up to number two in Scout’s team rankings, with the Wildcats in hot pursuit of a couple of other top prospects. Never count out Calipari when it comes to recruiting.
2. The Vanderbilt blog Anchor of Gold let out a little frustration after Kentucky nabbed Poythress. The Dores’ website vented about the rigorous academic standards of Vanderbilt University as compared to its competitors, the inconsistencies of the NCAA in handing out punishments against wrongdoers and the “it’s better to get forgiveness than permission” attitude of big time college athletics. The author points out that Vanderbilt is the only football program in the SEC without a major violation on its record and boasted that the Commodores have “graduated every men’s basketball player who exhausted his eligibility for thirty years.” Sometimes you just have to get things off your chest. It sounds like Vandy fans may not just want a good season this year for their men’s basketball program, but they may need it more than we thought.
3. John Calipari spoke with the media on Thursday and indicated he will sit down with sophomore guard Stacey Poole some time in the next day or two. Poole has considered a transfer from Kentucky in reports according to his father. Calipari wants to give Poole all the time he needs to make a decision. “You want every player to stay, fight through it, learn not to run,” Calipari said before adding, “but if a young man doesn’t think his opportunity is here – they all want to play. I will support him.” The issue for Poole seems to be a lack of playing time. Getting on the court doesn’t appear to be in Poole’s future as long as Calipari continues to bring in top shelf talent at the guard position. Kentucky begins the season on Friday night against Marist, and it says here that Poole will most likely not be with the team.
4. Nothing gets me pumped up for the basketball season like a YouTube video. Ole Miss basketball has created a preview video complete with player interviews, highlight footage and team goals for the season. The video is very well done. Coach Andy Kennedy needs to complete a few of these team goals in order to save his job. If the Rebels play half as well as the production of this video, then Kennedy might be able to stick around again next year.
5. There’s at least one website that doesn’t think Kennedy is at the top of the SEC pecking order to get canned. CBS Sports published a list of the twelve coaches on the hot seat this year, and unfortunately two SEC coaches made the list. According to the report, South Carolina’s Darrin Horn and LSU’s Trent Johnson need a strong 2011-12 campaign in order to secure their jobs. Horn’s Gamecocks have been under .500 in winning percentage in each of the past two years, while the Tigers have won only 11 games in each of the past two seasons. This is certainly one list these guys don’t want to be on much longer.

Brian Joyce (333 Posts)

Brian Joyce is an advanced metrics enthusiast, college hoops junkie, and writer for the SEC basketball microsite for Rush the Court.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 11th, 2011 at 6:30 am by Brian Joyce and is filed under microsites, sec. Tagged: Alex Poythress, andy kennedy, darrin horn, john calipari, kentucky, lsu, ole miss, south carolina, stacey poole, trent johnson, vanderbilt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.