– Brandon Knight, Enes Kanter and DeAndre Liggins attended the NBA Combine in Chicago on Thursday. There was a lot of buzz on Twitter about the play of Kanter and the athleticism he possesses. Brett Dawson, now with Cats Illustrated, and Matt May, from the The Cats’ Pause, were in Chicago to cover the event. I’ll link a few of Dawson’s pre-Combine features below as well as some notes from May on the message boards (you must be a TCP member to view them).
> Year off hasn’t slowed Kanter’s rising draft stock> Scout: Liggins needs range of skills to make NBA> Regardless of position, Knight has NBA skills> Ruled ineligible, Kanter made most of year at UK> Knight’s media session> Liggins’ media session> Kanter’s media session
If you want to see how the workouts went, ESPN has a video replay of the event at ESPN3.com.
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– The pairings for the expanded Big East/SEC Invitational were announced Thursday. UK will host St. John’s this season on Dec. 1. You can read the full release here.
One interesting thing to take note of: The annual UK-North Carolina game is typically the first Saturday in December, which would be Dec. 3 this upcoming year. That’s two days after the St. John’s matchup. UK’s schedule for the 2011-12 season has not been completed and there is no official word on if that will be the date or whether it might get changed.
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– Eloy Vargas had a nice showing in his first game for the Sports Reach team in China. Vargas posted a line of 12 points, 10 rebounds, five blocks and two steals in a 77-75 loss to Lithuania.
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– I’m with the softball team this weekend for the NCAA Tournament in Ann Arbor, Mich. Although the first and second rounds from the Ann Arbor Regional will be televised on ESPN2, we will have live blogs of each of UK’s games. You can join the forum on Friday.
As I was watching the team practice Thursday at Alumni Field on Michigan’s campus, I overheard ESPN’s broadcasting crew talking about how stacked the Regional is in Ann Arbor. I noted the other day that three of the four teams in Ann Arbor are ranked in the top 22 of the NCAA’s RPI, but what I failed to realize is that Michigan was ranked No. 2 in both major polls to end the regular season despite being given a No. 10 seed in the tournament. The conclusion from the ESPN broadcasting crew is that the Ann Arbor Regional is clearly the toughest draw. UK has its work cut out for itself this weekend.
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– The Southeastern Conference has entered into a new agreement with the Alabama Sports Foundation and the City of Hoover, Ala., ensuring that the league’s annual SEC Baseball Tournament will remain at Regions Park through the year 2016.
