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KSR Today: Gator Bowl practice and "Camp Cal"

Zack Geogheganby:Zack Geoghegan12/27/23

ZGeogheganKSR

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Photo by Dr. Michael Huang | Kentucky Sports Radio

Good morning, folks! The Kentucky football team is currently down in Jacksonville, FL as they prepare for Friday’s Gator Bowl showdown against the No. 22 Clemson Tigers.

Practice started on Tuesday (former Wildcats Josh Allen and Luke Fortner even stopped by) and the boys will be back out on the field again this afternoon to continue prep for the Tigers. KSR’s Nick Roush and Adam Luckett are in the Sunshine State where they’ll be at practice later today (and covering the team the rest of the week) for interviews from the coaches and players.

We’ve already heard from one group, too. Following Tuesday’s practice, offensive coordinator Liam Coen was joined by linemen Tre’Vonn Rybka and Eli Cox for quick interviews. You can hear everything those three had to say below. Stay tuned to the website this afternoon for plenty more pre-bowl game prep. While you wait, check out Luckett’s “What we know heading into Gator Bowl” article to stay in the loop.

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Camp Cal is back

It’s that time of the year again. Kentucky men’s basketball is in the middle of a lull in the schedule, which John Calipari uses as an opportunity to practice, practice, practice, before practicing so more. Now known as “Camp Cal”, the team returned from holiday break this week and will now begin practicing twice a day with SEC play right around the corner.

That was just one of the many topics that Calipari discussed during Tuesday’s pre-recorded episode of his weekly radio show. He also showered Adou Thiero with praise, challenged Justin Edwards, and acknowledged that this team doesn’t have bad practices — typically a good omen for Cal-coached teams. You can get all the highlights from the show here.

Kentucky is set to host Illinois State on Friday before taking another eight days off in between games. UK will have played just four total games in December. Calipari is using this time to fine-tune this already fun group.

Reed Sheppard won SEC FOTW (again)

Four times this season has a Kentucky Wildcat won SEC Freshman of the Week. DJ Wagner has done it twice, and as of Tuesday, Reed Sheppard now has too.

Sheppard played just one game last week, Kentucky’s 95-76 win over Louisville. But his performance was more than worthy of the honor. Sheppard finished with 11 points and a career-best 11 assists — the most dimes ever by one player during the Kentucky-Louisville series. He also recorded a pair of steals (staying on pace to shatter the program’s single-season steals record) and led UK in plus-minus at +27.

According to KenPom, Sheppard is also first in the country in true shooting percentage (76.3%), second in effective field-goal percentage (74.4%), and fourth in three-point percentage (57.8%). He’s pretty good.

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Coaches Poll drops (?) Kentucky one spot

We don’t quite understand it either. On Christmas, the AP Poll bumped Kentucky up one spot to No. 8 for its 19-point drumming of the Cardinals. The coaches did the opposite though, sliding the Wildcats down to No. 9 on Tuesday.

USA Today Coaches Poll – Dec. 26

RankTeamRecordPTSChange
1Purdue11-1790 (24)
2Kansas11-1760 (1)
3Houston12-0751 (7)
4Arizona9-2659
5UConn11-2629
6Florida Atlantic10-2618+6
7Tennessee9-3613
8Marquette10-3531-2
9Illinois9-2520+2
10Kentucky9-2513-1
11North Carolina8-3460+2
12BYU11-1378+3
13Oklahoma10-1371-5
14Colorado State11-1326+3
15Duke8-3316+4
16Gonzaga9-3300
17Clemson10-1280+1
18Memphis10-2271+5
19Baylor10-2251-9
20Creighton9-3161-6
21James Madison12-0159
22Ole Miss12-0153+3
23Wisconsin9-3148+1
24Texas9-2138-2
25Providence11-288

Florida can’t wait for the Super Bowl

Kentucky doesn’t head down to Gainesville until Jan. 6, but Florida basketball fans are already preparing for the first SEC game of the season. Florida’s home arena (Exactech Arena; 10,133 seats) has already sold out for the game against UK. Tipoff is set for 12:30 p.m. EST on ESPN.

The “orange out”, or whatever Florida ultimately ends up doing when Kentucky comes to town, shouldn’t matter all that much though. UK has actually won straight in the building formerly known as the O’Connell Center. It’ll be six straight in about 10 days.

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2025-01-27