KSR Today: Thank goodness for a new week

Good morning, friends, and welcome to a new week. Man, do we need one. Between Friday night’s deadly tornadoes, Saturday’s loss to Notre Dame, and the women’s team’s loss to Louisville on Sunday, the Big Blue Nation needs a weekend from its weekend. It’s easy to wallow on a Monday morning, but in the spirit of positivity, let’s do our best to turn the page. Come on. Fill up that coffee cup. We got this.

The basketball team gets back to work

There’s no way around it: Saturday’s loss to Notre Dame was bad. Not only was it a Quad Three loss — not good! — we found out just how reliant this team is on Oscar Tshiebwe. Besides Oscar, nothing was working for the Cats on offense. The team shot 2-19 from the outside, the fewest makes of the season and lowest percentage (10.5%). To add insult to injury, Kentucky — the No. 1 team in the country in rebounding margin — got beat on the boards 33-28. Not. Good.

How much will the loss cost the Cats in the rankings? We’ll find out at noon. The team will be balancing practice and exams for the next few days so media opportunities will be limited, but we’ll hear from John Calipari on his radio show at 6 p.m. If you can’t listen, don’t worry; we’ll have a full recap on the website tonight.

Early Signing Day is Wednesday

The next few days will be full of football news as the mad rush to Signing Day continues. So far, the Cats have 18 commitments in the 2022 class:

The one to watch here, of course, is Kiyaunta Goodwin. Over the weekend, Goodwin took his final official visit, checking out Michigan State. He attended the Spartans’ basketball game vs. Penn State, where students chanted “We want Goodwin!”:

Here’s a chant we got started, volume up! pic.twitter.com/l6MzKK492A

— Nate (@nglubs1) December 11, 2021

GO GREEN pic.twitter.com/FEQvPDBrUD

— Kiyaunta Goodwin (@K_Goodwin2022) December 12, 2021

Goodwin is also considering Alabama, Florida State, Michigan, and Texas A&M. Can Kentucky hang on to the five-star giant? Fingers crossed. The recruiting dead period starts today, meaning coaches can’t have face-to-face contact with prospects until January, but they can still communicate via phone and text message. I’m sure Goodwin’s phone will be blowing up from now until he hopefully puts ink to paper on Wednesday.

As for the rest of Kentucky’s prospects, the staff hosted a bevy of official visitors over the weekend. Four-star DK Deone Walker, JuCo CB Zahquan Frazier, Florida edge rusher Khris Bogle, and Virginia Tech receiver Tayvion Robinson were among the visitors on campus, along with current commits Keaten and Destin Wade, Jackson Smith, and Andre Stewart. We’ll have an update on how those visits went as the day goes on.

KSR is starting a Western Kentucky Tornado Relief Fund

The death toll from Friday night’s tornadoes in Western Kentucky continues to rise. Yesterday, Governor Andy Beshear said more than 80 Kentuckians are dead following the storms, and that number will likely climb to triple digits as search and rescue efforts turn into search and recovery. It is the deadliest tornado event in Kentucky history. Later this morning, Matt Jones will announce the details of KSR’s Western Kentucky Relief Fund. You can also donate to the efforts via the state of Kentucky’s official fund at TeamWKYReliefFund.ky.gov.

The KSR Road Trip rolls on

The group is in Sioux Falls, South Dakota as they make their long, strange trek to Las Vegas. Tune in to KSR or the KSR Pre-show to hear about their trip so far. They stopped in Iowa long enough for Max Duffy to do some Citrus Bowl trash talk:

I’s down💙
Excuse the gut, also my feet have never been colder🥶 pic.twitter.com/7vfcc6DrEG

— Max Duffy (@Max__Duffy) December 13, 2021