Apologies for the lack of content the last couple of days. I’ve been away from the blog doing a few other things, but we’ll have coverage for you this weekend on the UK softball appearance in the Super Regionals. Here are a few notes and links we didn’t get to in the links from this morning:
– Rock Oliver has been profiled before, but ESPN.com takes a unique look at what type of strengthening Oliver is trying to do in the weight room. His biggest area of concern, according to the ESPN story, is the size of an athlete’s neck.
“The No. 1 mechanism that’s absorbing a lot of the shock is the neck, so we need to get that bigger,” Oliver says in the ESPN story. “We’re really proud of that. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have ever been talking about that. Ten years ago, I would have been talking about our bench [press] and our vertical jumps.”
The story details some of the improvements UK has undergone since his arrival. Check out the full story here.
———————– Still about a month away from the 2011 NBA Draft, but below are the latest projections. The consensus among the four linked below is that Brandon Knight is headed to the Utah Jazz with the third overall pick. DeAndre Liggins is also listed in the second round in every one of the mock drafts with the exception of Chad Ford of ESPN’s, which does not have a second round listed.
> Draft Express> ESPN (must be an Insider)> MyNBADraft.com > NBADraft.net
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– Football head coach Joker Phillips will be featured on “Spotlight: 2011 SEC Spring Football,” on Thursday at 8:30 p.m. on SportsSouth. The show will air between games three and four of the second day of the 2011 Southeastern Conference Baseball Tournament. Phillips will discuss the current status of his team, his coaching philosophy heading into the new season and what his team needs to be successful in 2011.
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– Interesting quote by former UK football star Randall Cobb in a story on RotoExperts.com. Cobb, a second-round selection with the Green Bay Packers told writer Scott Engel that he would have waited in the green room until the seventh round if he knew the Packers were going to select him. You can read the full feature on Cobb here.
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– Made it out to the UK Softball Complex this afternoon to watch some of the preparations going on for this weekend’s Super Regionals. I can tell you firsthand that a big chunk of UK’s staff is putting in a lot of hours behind the scenes to make sure Kentucky’s first Super Regional is done right. To give you an idea, Kentucky is accommodating 50 people from ESPN’s broadcasting crew alone. I’ll have details like that in a feature sometime Thursday, so keep an eye out for that.