Robert Traylor's Thursday News and Views

When you're a kid, there are few things in the game of basketball that burn a place in your brain like the broken backboard and the guys that do it are somehow forever cemented in your memory as a sort of super-human cartoonish figure.  I can remember three players distinctly from my childhood for shattered glass:  Shaquille O'Neal, Darvin Ham and Robert "Tractor" Traylor, who sadly passed away Wednesday at the age of 34.  As Michigan's biggest big man, Traylor was the most cartoonish of them all, possessing nimble footwork and a soft touch to go with his hulking 300+ pound body and brute force.  Though his amateur career was marred by a car crash that triggered the investigation into Michigan's program that resulted in vacating the Fab Five era and every game of his college career and while his pro career is most remembered as the start of the Dallas Mavericks' decade-plus playoff run (Traylor was traded for Dirk and Pat Garrity, Garrity and others traded for Steve Nash), the bulky forward was one of the most unique players I've ever enjoyed watching.  He had surgery on his aorta in 2005, which ended his NBA career, but he continued to play overseas until his death Wednesday.  It's a sad story of someone who died far too young. A few UK notes...   - The big "news" (Cal's term) Wednesday evening was the announcement of the 3.14 spring GPA for the men's basketball team.  It marks the fourth consecutive semester of increased GPA, which Calipari noted was his goal for his teams, and comes during a semester that saw them make a run to the Final Four, making it even more impressive.  Coach Cal's announcement (here on CoacCal.com) was both celebratory and also somewhat backhanded as he opened by noting that most of us don't care about the team's GPA because it should be their private business, but a local media outlet requests it, so he wanted to be the one to "break" the story.  Jerry Tipton (surprise!) was apparently that local media outlet, as noted in his column here.  I am among the group that really doesn't care, so long as they're passing, but it's still news that should be celebrated - especially by a program who gets far too much negative press for sending guys early to the NBA under the widespread assumption that academics don't factor into the equation.  I'm sure this will be celebrated wildly in the next Bob Knight speaking engagement.  - Wednesday also brought the revelation that former Kentucky coach Tubby Smith battled prostate cancer for the last year, but is now free of the disease.  Tubby struggled mightily down the stretch last season, losing nine of his last ten games, and caught a lot of heat from Gopher fans, who expected more of a return than they've gotten in the last three seasons.  Without getting too much into that or debating his time at UK (though I bet that debate will rage at 9am), anyone who was spent five minutes with Tubby Smith knows what a genuinely endearing and caring man he is and I'm glad to hear that he's beaten the disease.  I got my first taste of covering the Cats while I was in school and he was the coach and you'll be hard-pressed to find a nicer guy.  Good for him.  And as my mom (a three-time cancer survivor) always says, cancer sucks.  No matter who it affects.  - In the same article where he mentioned UK's GPA, the Good Doctor Jerry Tipton also noted that there might be some special plans in the works for the Transy-UK game in November.  Tipton says that there are discussions that the two teams will share a pregame meal and then walk to Rupp Arena together.  I'm not sure that I understand this entirely, but there are whispers that it's rooted in tradition.  It's the same route of the famous Billy Gillispie Bar Crawl.  - There are now four more schools to visit for Ryan Harrow, who finished his trip to UK Wednesday.  I'm sure we'll hear soon that the visit went well (when does anyone ever say "It sucked."?) and the NC State transfer apparently spent considerable time with Terrence Jones.  He'll now head to Texas, before getting to Louisville this weekend and then checking out Georgia and St. John's.  His recruitment remains very interesting and, in my opinion, paramount ot what is going on with Trevor Lacey because he essentially offers Kentucky an experienced elite point guard in the class of 2012, which is fairly thin at the position.  When he concludes his tour of the five campuses, he is expected to wait a week or two before deciding.   - Trevor Lacey.  Trevor Lacey.  Trevor Lacey.  That should about cover it.  We're less than a week away from his May 18 decision date and, according to his father, Lacey will choose between Kentucky, Alabama and Kansas.  Nothing else really.  - In other recruiting news, it was mentioned on Twitter that four-star power forward Alex Poythress spent some time talking to Kentucky and Stanford earlier this week.  Poythress is rated as the 25th player in the class of 2012 by ESPN and the 35th overall by Rivals and has offers from a handful of schools, including UConn, Memphis and the entire SEC East.  Except for UK.   - Finally, if your heart didn't get broken again by the Enes Kanter video from SLAM, then you're just a cold-hearted S.O.B.  We've speculated so many times already about how different this team would have been had he been able to play, but that clip is pretty much the first time the general public has been able to see extended footage of him since the Hoops Summit last year.  He's nasty.  And, Turksih money or not, it's a tragedy we never got to see him suit up for the Cats just one time.  That's it for now.  Make sure you stick around throughout the day for all kinds of good times and smiles.  As usual, we'll get the party started with Ryan Lemond in for Matt on Kentucky Sports Radio at 10 am on Talk Radio 1080.  In the meantime, here's one more picture.  Last one.  I promise. See you in a few...