Each Wednesday here at Cat Scratches, we’re going to take a look back at the latest week’s news in UK Athletics from around the Web.
Best on the ‘net
Men’s basketball: Liggins, Cats play with swagger (Eric Crawford, Louisville Courier-Journal)
Liggins finished with 19 points, five rebounds, five steals and three assists.
“He was fabulous, fabulous,” UK coach John Calipari said. “Defended. I told our team we’ve got to figure out a way to get him eight to 10 shots a game. He made six tonight, but he got fouled a bunch. He deserves it, the way he defends.”
Men’s basketball: Boxing bag helps motivate UK in 73-61 win (Aaron Smith, Kentucky Kernel)
Heading into the Tennessee game, an unfamiliar training tool was brought out by UK head coach John Calipari.A boxing bag.It was to instill toughness in a team that had dropped two straight games on the road – two losses that also contributed to some pent-up frustration the players were able to take out.”I was trying to break through that bag every time I punched it,” Josh Harrellson said.
UK Hoops: Wildcats fall short against Tennessee in electric Memorial atmosphere (Mark Story, Lexington Herald-Leader)
Tennessee was in Memorial Coliseum, there was 6:10 left in the game and Kentucky — having fought back from 48-38 down — now led 59-58. For just a moment, the old barn rocked with a vigor that Adolph Rupp himself would’ve recognized.
Before a loud crowd of 7,126 and a national ESPN2 audience, Kentucky was standing toe-to-toe with the mighty Orange and had the giant wobbling.Football: New assistant Glenn Holt motivated to get to bowl (Chip Cosby, Herald-Leader)
A lot of people might take Kentucky’s five-game bowl streak for granted, but you can bet that former Wildcat receiver Glenn Holt won’t be one of them.
Holt, who recently joined ex-UK quarterback Andre Woodson as student assistants on Joker Phillips’ staff, lettered at Kentucky from 2002-05 and never got to play in a bowl game. UK’s bowl streak started the following year with a trip to the Music City Bowl.
Wildcats in the Pros
Super Bowl winner Masthay has fans in his hometown (Murray Ledger & Times)
Masthay signed with the NFL’s Green Bay Packers a year ago last month, won the starting punting job and turned in the highest net average (37.6) yards of any Packers punter since 1976.He was one of the most valuable players in the Packers’ 21-14 NFC Championship victory over the Chicago Bears, limiting dangerous returner Devin Hester’s impact of the proceedings.That’s a far cry from the fall of his junior year at Murray, his first playing football.
Jodie Meeks a fixture in Philadelphia back court (Delaware County Daily Times)
Jrue Holiday and Jodie Meeks have comprised the Sixers’ starting back court for the last 32 games. As a rookie last season, Meeks didn’t even play in 22 games, and in the 60 in which he did see action he averaged a paltry 12 minutes.Entering tonight’s game in Atlanta, Meeks has played 1,018 minutes this season. That’s 300 more than he logged last season and a little more than 200 minutes away from the amount of time the 23-year-old played as Kentucky’s scoring star as a junior in 2008-09 – and the rigors of college ball are light years away from the NBA grind.DeMarcus Cousins impresses in Kings’ loss to Utah Jazz (Silicon Valley Mercury News)Although he played only 30 minutes and had foul problems early, Cousins still finished with his fourth 20-point effort in the past five games.”Cousins is amazing. The sky is the limit for him,” (Jazz forward Al) Jefferson said. “He’s going to be something special.”Congratulations are in order for former Wildcat point guard Rajon Rondo. For the second consecutive season, the Celtics’ maestro was named a reserve on the Eastern Conference All-Star team. UK will be well-represented on All-Star Weekend February 18-20 with Cousins, John Wall and Eric Bledsoe participating in the Rookie-Sophomore game in addition to Rondo playing in the main event.News from UKathletics.comRifle: UK eying run at elusive national titleMen’s Basketball: Knight named finalist for Cousy AwardBaseball: Kapteyn listed among NCAA’s potential breakout performersTennis: UK falls against No. 1 VirginiaGymnastics: VIDEO: UK registers season high vault, beam scoresVideo of the weekThe Rupp crowd was already revved up for a rivalry game against Tennessee, but the atmosphere was taken up a notch with John Wall in the building for the first time since leaving UK to become the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft. Wall was shown multiple times on the ESPN broadcast and on the big screens in the arena, but the moment of the night came when Wall completed UK’s famous cheer as the honorary “Y.”
