Doug Flynn's Monday News and Views

Well, hello.  Welcome to the third week of the basketball off-season or, as we like to call it, the 2011-12 preseason.  The blisteringly bright Kentucky future was on display again in North Carolina this weekend, giving us another step in 2011 road to recovery.  But before we jump into celebrating what might be next year, let's first turn our attention to celebrating one of our own.  Former UK basketball player and major leaguer Doug Flynn turns 60 years old today, at least that's what the 1976 Topps (#518) card I bought at a Tampa Mall Sunday for 25 cents says.  Flynn, as you're probably aware, had a one-year run as a UK basketball player before turning his attention to baseball, where he would win two World Series rings and one gold glove award.  It was during those back-to-back titles with the Reds that Flynn had an interesting encounter with former Indiana coach Bob Knight, who came in the locker room to celebrate with the World Series champions.  Knight congratulated every player individually, except for Flynn and pitcher Don Gullett.  After a short while, Knight approached them both to address to cold shouldering and explained that it was because, as he said, "I know where you boys are from".  Kentucky.  Damn you, Bobby Knight.  For standing proudly in the face of one of the planet's most feared creatures and for being one of the most gentlemanly characters on the Lexington sports scene, we salute you this morning, Doug Flynn.  Hope it's a good one.  Now onto a few UK notes...  - Let's just go ahead and get this out of the way and move on.  Still no news on the NBA Draft decisions.  Terrence Jones went home to Portland to think about things and Brandon Knight is still doing the same.  The deadline to put your name in the draft is April 24, but that appears to be a fairly unimportant date for the pair.  Calipari said he's encouraged them to get feedback from the NBA people and if they chose not to, that would be incredibly surprising.  And fantastic for Kentucky fans.  But, the assumption is that both will do so.  That means May 8 is now the date you put on your calendar as a final deadline for a decision.  That's the last day to withdraw from the draft.  - Yet again, the weekend brought an All-Star showcase for Kentucky's incoming superstar quartet.  While the games are often lacking in structure and defensive hustle, three different outings have now essentially given a pretty good indication of what Kentucky can expect from the four players. 

Anthony Davis is an absolute freak.  He'll be one of the nation's top defenders from the first bounce of the ball and has enough ball skill and touch to be as dangerous away from the basket as he is inside, where his length is a killer.  Despite his relative lack of muscle, he seems to be fairly strong and, at the very least, willing to do a little pushing.  Sometimes, one bony elbow is all it takes to create a little space. 

Michael Gilchrist is just complete.  There's really not another way to describe it.  He plays with a presence on both ends of the floor and appears to be the guy who is going to be the backbone of the group.  Just as John Wall seemed to play his way into the de facto leader of Kentucky's first storied class, Gilchrist seems to be the same player.  He was one of the few players who battled defensively in the All-Star contests and you can point to several offensive plays he made as being what you would consider NBA-type moves.

Though his biggest fight is probably going to be with the ghosts of John Wall and Brandon Knight, Marquis Teague seems poised to continue in the lineage of great Calipari point guards.  In the three All-Star games, Teague was a blur and found ways to get guys buckets, whether by driving and kicking it out or running a pick-and-roll. 

It started out with a bang in Chicago at the three-point contest and Kyle Wiltjer's tour of the All-Star games proved to be extremely promising.  What Kentucky is getting in the 6'10 forward is versatility and another skilled player that can create mismatches.  His impact on the floor next season will likely be determined on his defensive ability, but it's his offense that is already making Calipari salivate.  He spoke last week about having him trail on the secondary break for jumpers and knock down shots out of the pick and roll that worked so well with Josh Harrellson.  He's finished his prep career on a frenzy, rising to #18 overall in the ESPN rankings and gives Kentucky an extremely nice player to round out the class.

 - In yet another "some news is big news" type of story, Coach Cal visited Trevor Lacey in Alabama Sunday after his Friday visit was postponed.  The story with Lacey seems to be the same as Calipari's visit and continued push after the two-time Mr. Alabama sparks speculation that Brandon Knight could eventually opt for the draft.  Lacey told Rivals that he spoke with Calipari about who was leaving and who was staying, which should spark some semantics discussion.  But, again, nothing really seems to be known on that front as of now other than Calipari has encouraged him to take a look at where he'd be drafted.  If Lacey were to join Kentucky's team next year, he'd provide yet another scoring threat off the bench in a lineup that could play a lot of small ball around Anthony Davis.  - The other debate that seems set to rage for at least the entire summer is the Rupp Arena situation.  The big news over the weekend was the request of professor Ernie Yanarella (who had the pleasure of teaching yours truly three or four times) for Mitch Barnhart and company to focus more of their money on helping the school's overall budget, rather than the new arena.  That won't happen.  Instead, the discussion will continue over the next several weeks and months over whether or not to renovate Rupp or build a new arena.  The school will push hard for a new arena and it's believed that they could push for one on campus if the city does not want to help in their efforts.  On paper, the path of least resistance between the two parties appears to be a new facility in the downtown area, but it's unclear whether or not Mayor Jim Gray's task force will find that to be appealing during their $350,000 studying of the issue.  Mitch Barnhart made it clear that he wants a "gold standard" facility - a notion that might have been tempered with openness to renovations, but done so knowing that is essentially impossible.  Kentucky fans seem to agree that the bar needs to be raised.  That puts the city in an unenviable spot of either playing the bad guy if they opt to push for Rupp renovations.   - For those of you that might have been underwhelmed with the reports from the first spring scrimmage that the defenese played so well, there was good news over the weekend as the offense took a step forward in the second scrimmage.  There's been a lot of talk all spring about Morgan Newton's development and whispers that he wasn't really prepared for the BBVA Compass Bowl after Mike Hartline's arrest threw him into starting action and it seemed to be on display Saturday.  Newton has the physical tools to be a huge success at quarterback, but he's in the undesirable position of getting his unquestioned shot under center with several young guys around him.  The line is still a work in progress, but the receivers, who struggled heavily in the first scrimmage, played much better Saturday.  We saw with Mike Hartline and Andre Woodson before him that so much of the success of that position is based on timing and successful repetition with those around you.  They got that Saturday.  That's momentum that they'll need to continue to sustain in these off-season workouts if they want to get back into bowl conversations again.  The Blue-White game Saturday should be a very good one.  And, at the very least, a true test of where each unit is at this point.  - In news that might just break your heart a little bit, UConn had their championship parade Sunday and 40,000 people showed up for it.  The police will wake 39,935 of them up Monday morning.  It did get me thinking though.  If Kentucky had won two more games this season, how many people would have descended on Lexington for a parade?  35 million?  Maybe more?   - Finally, as one of the people who love the NBA, I feel it's my duty to at least mention to all of you that don't that you're missing a great start to the NBA Playoffs.  What will likely turn into higher seeds advancing and a fairly predictable and frequently boring NBA Finals had a fanstastic opening this weekend with upsets, intriguing matchups and big-time finishes.  It won't hurt you to watch it.  I promise.  - Out of loyalty to Matt, I went back and watched The Office episode I missed Thursday.  And I am not wavering.  Will Ferrell is awful.  I'll even let you blame it on the writing if you want (I am kind of an expert on that), but that episode sucked. That's it for now.  Make sure you stick around throughout the day as we continue to speculate about just how bright the future will be and start moving toward the Blue-White game.  As usual, the party gets started on Kentucky Sports Radio at 10am on Talk Radio 1080.  It only gets better from there.  Make sure you stick around.  In the meantime, take a second to admire the beauty of this... See you in a few...