If you’re in the Lexington area Friday night and are looking for some evening plans, make sure you consider checking out the No. 13 ranked volleyball team as they take on North Carolina in the Kentucky Classic, or head over to the UK Soccer Complex as the women’s soccer team takes on Eastern Kentucky. Each game starts at 7 p.m., so good luck making that decision.As far as UK related news goes, here are a few newsworthy items regarding UK Athletics…

• With the addition of two new schools to the SEC, the conference has decided to change the format of the Women’s Basketball Tournament for just the second time in SEC history. The tournament will now include all 14 SEC teams and the tournament will be played over a five-day period. The first day will see the 11 and 14 seeds going head to head in the first game, and the rest of the tournament remains relatively unchanged.  The 2013 SEC Women’s Tournament will be held at the Arena at Gwinnett Center in Duluth, Ga., on March 6-10, 2013.

• After receiving its highest preseason rank in program history at No. 13, the 2012 Kentucky volleyball team checks in at No. 12 in the Volleyball Magazine National Pre-Season Poll. Tennessee and Florida also make the rankings out of the SEC at No. 16 and No. 20 respectively.

• A recent ESPN.com piece ranked the top 50 men’s college basketball programs over the last 50 years, and Kentucky came in at No. 3. In short, the writers used a point scale based on overall success of the program and several other contributing factors. Read more about them HERE. Duke and UCLA topped the list just above Kentucky. They also take a look at the best players, best teams and best coaches during that period. Here is a look at their starting five.

50 in 50 starting five (1962-present)G – Kyle Macy (1977-80)F – Jamal Mashburn (1990-93)F – Jack Givens (1974-78)F – Anthony Davis (2011-12)C – Dan Issel (1967-70)

• Over the last few years, you have seen some very familiar faces on John Calipari’s bench. Scott Padgett, Wayne Turner, Tony Delk have all served on Calipari’s staff, and now former Wildcat Marquis Estill will join the staff as an undergraduate assistant Calipari announced Thursday. Estill, 30, played three seasons at Kentucky, amassing 936 points and played on two SEC Championship teams.

• With plenty of familiar faces around the basketball program, once new face has emerged in the form of Kevin Massey, a new student manager. Massey suffered a brain tumor in 2010 before overcoming a dire prognosis, and has now made a recovery that allows him to serve as a manager of the basketball team. Make sure you check this article out to see how Calipari helped make this young man’s dream come true and his fantastic story at CoachCal.com.