UK alum Tom Leach has been the play-by-play “Voice of the Wildcats” for the football Cats for 12 years and nine years for men’s basketball. He is a four-time winner of the Kentucky Sportscaster of the Year award. Tom offers an entertaining and insightful perspective into UK athletics. Column entries will be posted twice per week through April. Read Tom’s full biography
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Check about any of the projections from the NCAA Tournament bracket analysts and there’s a consensus that Kentucky, Kansas and Syracuse are three of the four numer one seeds. And it’s unlikely that will change between now and Selection Sunday.
But Big Blue fans are rooting for the Wildcats to get placed in the Midwest Regional in St. Louis, because it’s much easier to travel there than the other three regional sites–Houston, Syracuse and Salt Lake City–if the Cats survive the tournament’s opening weekend.
CBS Sportsline.com analyst Jerry Palm says St. Louis is the closest site to each of those three schools, so getting place there means being considered the number one overall seed by the selection committee. Therefore, he says Kentucky will need to win out and hope the ‘Cuse and the Jayhawks stumble either this weekend or in their conference tournament. And even then, Palm says it’s not a sure thing for UK.
“It’s not about the number of losses–it’s about the overall profile,” Palm told tomleachky.com. “Kentucky doesn’t have wins over top 10 teams.” He noted that Syracuse and Kansas both have those kinds of wins because their conferences are stronger this year.
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“It’s always special when you’re out there on your homecourt for the last time. There are so many thoughts that run through your mind. I don’t know if there’s anything that really prepares you for it as far as the emotions and sometimes it’s kinda challenging to get back down to earth and play a game.”
That comment comes from former UK All-American Kyle Macy, who played his final home game as Wildcat in 1980.
Two years earlier, Macy was part of a memorable Senior Day as Jack Givens, James Lee, Rick Robey and Mike Phillips bid farewell with a 92-70 rout of UNLV, on the way to the 1978 national championship.
Macy did not score a point but dished out eight assists and he says teammates on Senior Day want to make sure those guys playing in their final home game get the right kind of sendoff.
“That may have been the only game I didn’t score in. We won huge (over UNLV) and that may be one of the loudest times I’ve heard it in Rupp Arena,” Macy told coachcal.com. “You want to help those guys and make it a great memory for them as well.”
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As far as I know, there’s only one player in UK’s history that got a nickname as a result of his blazing speed–Dwight “The Blur” Anderson, who burst on the scene as a freshman in the 1979 season but transferred at mid-semester the following winter.
Teammate Kyle Macy was asked to compare Anderson’s speed to current UK phenom Jonn Wall.
“He was exceptionally fast,” Macy said of Anderson. “And if you compare just in a straight-line run, I think Dwight Anderson might have been faster. But as far as John Wall’s ability to change directions and body control and shift gears, I think he does a better job of knowing how to use that (speed).”
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Kentucky’s 80-68 win over Georgia kept the Wildcats from having back-to-back losses for the first time this season. And it kept alive a much longer streak for coach John Calipari.
The last time one of his teams suffered at least two losses in a row was at the end of 2005 regular season, when Memphis dropped four straight before rallying to make a run to the finals of the C-USA Tournament.
