KSR Today: Meeting more Wildcats and TBT heads to Louisville

Good morning, folks! It’s going to be another great day. Why? Because we get to meet three of the 2024-25 Kentucky Wildcats later this afternoon. A couple of weeks ago, we sat down with Andrew Carr, Otega Oweh, and Ansley Almonor. On Tuesday, we chatted it up with Lamont Butler, Collin Chandler, and Brandon Garrison.

Today, we’ll introduce ourselves to Kerr Kriisa, Travis Perry, and Amari Williams as they make their summer debut with the entire media. Kriisa transferred in from West Virginia while Williams transferred in from Drexel — both of them going into their fifth seasons of college ball. Perry comes in as a four-star freshman out of Lyon County, where he was named Kentucky Mr. Basketball and won a state championship earlier this year.

We’ve heard from Perry plenty over the last couple of years at this point, but this will be our first time talking with him since summer practices began. He’s apparently been lighting it up behind the scenes, so we’ll get a full update on everything he’s been up to since arriving on campus. As for Kriisa and Williams, we don’t really know too much about them personally just yet. We get to change that in a few hours.

As always, we’ll have plenty of content coming to the website with the interviews going up on the KSR YouTube channel. No such thing as a slow day in the world of UK Athletics.

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Kentucky Sports Radio has teamed up with Louisville City and Racing Louisville to provide you discounted tickets in 2024! Both clubs play at beautiful Lynn Family Stadium, the perfect place to spend an evening while the Cats aren’t in action.

LouCity is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, while Racing is the city’s only top-tier pro sports team newly featuring UK Hall of Famer Arin (Gilliand) Wright. Take advantage of those special discounted tickets for KSR fans.

It’s La Familia vs. The Ville in Louisville

The stage has officially been set and it might just be the most anticipated game in The Basketball Tournament history. Both La Familia and The Ville took care of business in their regionals, advancing to the Elite 8 where the Kentucky alums and Louisville alums will meet with a spot in the semifinals on the line.

Since The Ville led in ticket sales through the first three games, they’ll host this matchup, which is set for Monday, July 29 at 9:00 p.m. EST (FS1) inside Freedom Hall. Tickets went on sale last night and immediately sold out. Luckily, Freedom Hall decided to open up the entire arena for this one, so there are plenty of spots still available. Click here to get yours now. The TBT attendance record (7,202) is in serious danger.

And for good reason, too. How often does an opportunity like this come along? Players on both teams are very familiar with the other from their college days playing in this in-state rivalry. We’ve got the likes of head coach Tyler Ulis, Eric Bledsoe, the Harrison twins, Willie Cauley-Stein, and more suiting up for La Familia. Meanwhile, The Ville will trot out rivals such as Russ Smith, Montrezl Harrell, Peyton Siva, Chris Jones, and more.

It’s list cut SZN!

A pair of top recruiting targets for Mark Pope cut their list of top schools on Wednesday. We had five-star guard Jasper Johnson going down to a top five and four-star wing Tounde Yessoufou down to a top 10.

Johnson, who is from Lexington and was in Rupp Arena on Tuesday night to watch La Familia beat Herd That, is inching closer and closer to wrapping up his recruitment. He’s considering Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisville, and North Carolina. Now playing at Overtime Elite for his senior high school season, Johnson could make a decision as soon as August.

Yessoufou finally received an offer from Kentucky on Tuesday after being recruited by the Wildcats for several weeks. He’s down to Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, UCLA, UConn, USC, and Washington. UK is expected to be Yessoufouf’s final official visit, although no date has been scheduled just yet. A commitment could come in the fall.

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NCAA approves more scholarships

Roster changes are coming to college sports with baseball seeing a significant shift. First reported by Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger, power conference commissioners have approved increased scholarship limits for multiple sports. Notably, baseball will now be allowed to use 34 scholarships, an increase of 22 under the previous guidelines. Football also saw a 20 scholarship increase, going from 85 to 105.

• Football 105 (+20)
• Basketball 15 (+2)
• Baseball 34 (+22.3)
• Softball 25 (+13)
• Volleyball 18 (+6)

Teams are not required to reach these scholarship numbers for every season, but they cannot exceed that mark. Many college football coaches, Mark Stoops included, do not believe the new 105 mark is still enough.

Yahoo! Sports notes that the new roster figures are “expected to be included in the long-form agreement in the landmark settlement of three antitrust cases, including the House v. NCAA lawsuit. The agreement is expected to be filed Friday with details on the distribution of the $2.77 billion in back pay to former athletes as well as particulars of the new revenue-sharing model permitting schools to distribute upwards of $20-plus million annually.”

Mark Stoops opens up on NIL

Speaking of Stoops, he was part of a one-on-one interview with Darrell Bird of CatsPause where he was about as open as he’s ever been. Essentially, Stoops said he needs more help with NIL. He was brutally honest with his thoughts, too.

“I have 100 free agents every six months,” the Kentucky head coach told Bird. “You don’t think there’s pressure of raising money to keep them and to pay them what they deserve and to help them? And I’ve done this for two, three years completely alone. I get no help. None.”

“I feel very isolated, very alone. I’ll be honest, I don’t know how long I can take dealing with what I’ve dealt with. Myself, personally, I can only do so much. I’ve never felt this kind of stress and pressure.”

Interesting…

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