Kentucky
Kentucky gets early signature win at Champions Classic against Duke | Opinion
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ATLANTA — We’re going to have plenty of time, like maybe a decade or two, to talk about Cooper Flagg. And in the aftermath of Tuesday’s Champions Classic, the presumptive No. 1 pick is going to get his first real taste of what the world of sports takes is all about.
That’s how it works when you live up to the hype for 39 minutes but mishandle a ball in a crowd and then dribble it off your foot with the game on the line. Better get used to it.
But Flagg is 17 years old and Duke is still Final Four caliber team. It’s way too soon to start nitpicking.
It is not, however, too early to render a judgment on the other big storyline from a remarkable night of college basketball.
Mark Pope? Yeah, he’s the real deal, too. Just a couple weeks into the college basketball season, he’s already made Kentucky basketball fun again.
It’s been awhile.
“This group is special,” Pope said after Kentucky’s 77-72 victory, giving him a signature win right out of the gates and at a time when there was — and probably still is — some uncertainty about whether he’s up to this mammoth job.
Time will tell. But one thing you can already see: There’s a major vibe shift around Kentucky basketball.
Freed from the tension of John Calipari’s stubbornness, his deteriorating relationship with Kentucky’s administration and his antagonistic posture toward a fan base that cares like no other in sports, Big Blue Nation will not find this kind of basketball difficult to embrace.
It’s beautiful, it’s energetic, and most of all its drama-free.
Yeah, Kentucky needed a change. They got it. And it looks as if they’re really, really going to like it.
Nothing against Calipari, a Hall of Fame coach whose first 10 years there were phenomenal. But the whole operation got stale, it got contentious, and his last four seasons were a slow-motion train wreck that ended with some embarrassing NCAA tournament defeats.
Still, when Calipari left for Arkansas, there were no guarantees about how it would go for Big Blue Nation. After all the big names said no, the initial reaction to Pope was strongly negative.
Despite being part of Kentucky’s 1996 national title team, he was still a coach with no NCAA tournament victories in nine years at Utah Valley and BYU.
Kentucky fans, of course, quickly embraced Pope because there was really no other choice. He wasn’t just one of theirs, he reminded them what that actually meant. For 15 years, the program was about the Calipari brand. From the first moment he got the job, Pope was determined to flip that back around and make Kentucky the star of the show.
That’s a great way to start a honeymoon, but you also have to show it on the floor. And with a roster that Pope pulled together largely from the transfer portal, there was a scenario where Year 1 was basically a write-off.
“Nobody knew each other,” Pope said.
But you can already see that Pope is really good at three things that will serve him well as Kentucky’s coach.
The first is that he is incredibly dialed in to how players interact with each other and feed off each other. He talked, for instance, about the human nature for people to pull away from problems and the intentionality it takes to do the opposite. You saw that Tuesday when Kentucky got down 10 points in the first half and just kept hanging in the game until the experience and physicality of its older players took over in the final minutes
“I felt like it was really special for us,” said senior Andrew Carr, a forward who transferred from Wake Forest and scored 17 points with two huge and-1 finishes in the final minutes. “Not everything was going our way, and coach talks about turning into each other, the people that matter, and the closer we get it’s harder to beat us.”
The second big trait of a Pope team is the offense. It just flows. For years, one of the big frustrations fans had with Calipari is that the ball didn’t move enough, there wasn’t enough spacing and he didn’t emphasize 3-point shooting until his final season. With Pope, that’s not an issue. The ball zips around, guys move off the ball and everyone has the green light to shoot when open. This was the ballgame: Kentucky made 10-of-25 threes to Duke’s 4-of-23.
And the third thing is that Kentucky just plays really, really hard, which it will need to do against most teams. The Wildcats have some good pieces, but they won’t have a huge talent advantage in most of their big games — and they certainly didn’t against a Duke team with multiple future NBA draft picks. That’s arguably the biggest reason why Kentucky’s effort just wore down Duke to the point where Flagg was too exhausted to execute down the stretch after scoring 26 points and grabbing 12 rebounds in 32 minutes.
“Guys went and sat in the locker room (at halftime) and it was constructive,” Pope said. “Guys do most of the fixing before I get in the locker room. It was just sheer resolve and determination. There was a lot of ebb and flow, and the game almost swung away from us, and the guys reeled it in.”
It’s still too early in the college basketball season to draw a whole lot of conclusions about where either Kentucky or Duke is going to end up. But for Pope, a man who arguably has the best but toughest job in college basketball, it was a validating night.
He said after the game that he’d have felt the same way about his team whether they won or lost, and that’s probably true. But beating Duke is no small thing, and the amount of belief and credibility Kentucky will get from this win will have a cascading effect on the fan base, on recruiting and on the confidence of a team that believes it might have something special.
All in all, Big Blue Nation couldn’t have asked for anything more.
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Kentucky
Several people hurt in Western Kentucky Parkway multi-car accident, officials say
MUHLENBERG, Ky. (WFIE) – Kentucky officials says there are multiple people injured in a three-car accident on Western Kentucky Parkway.
According to a post made by the Central City Fire Department, three vehicles were involved in a crash between the 64 and 65 mile markers eastbound of the parkway.
They say both the eastbound and westbound lanes are closed at this time. The closure should last around 3 hours.
Two people were extricated from a vehicle. Four adults and three juveniles are being taken to the hospital. No update has been given on their conditions.
They say a mass casualty incident was declared, and Ohio County Fire and EMS were called to the scene due to the number of patients.
We will update you when we learn more.
Copyright 2025 WFIE. All rights reserved.
Kentucky
2027 top in-state prospect talks about his Kentucky unofficial visit on Tuesday
Kentucky’s recruiting efforts in the 2026 class have hit a current rough patch, but things are looking promising in the 2027 class, as the staff has already casted a very wide net in the class, with a number of top targets in the fold. As they’re continuing to pursue mostly national targets, a local star is now on the staff’s radar.
2027 in-state guard Braxton Keathley, one of the state’s top prospects even regardless of class, took an unofficial visit to Kentucky on Tuesday for the game against NC Central. Keathley is native of Martin County, KY, and has took the state by storm as he has really stuffed the stat sheet. Just recently, he dropped a triple-double of 34 points, 12 assists, and 10 rebounds last weekend.
The Kentucky staff has certainly seemed to take notice really quickly. He’s also getting plenty of other interest, too, including having frequent contact with Louisville, LSU, Purdue, South Carolina, and Florida State, plus offers from Eastern Kentucky, UT Martin, Ohio, and Bowling Green, among others. Keathley sat down with Kentucky Wildcats on SI to talk about his recent visit to Kentucky. What were his impressions of the staff? He shared a conversation he had with them before Tuesday’s game. He also had some interactions with others, too.
“They really talked about how well I scored it and how they’ve been hearing about me for a long time,” Keathley said of his conversation with the Kentucky staff. “One of the (Kentucky) assistants mentioned he had a coaching friend tell them that they better jump on me quick cause I was really good. I had several fans come up to me and take pictures. Jack Givens welcomed me and talked to me for a little bit and said he’s highly impressed with my game and plans on coming to a game soon. A couple of other UK players came up, they were really nice and said they been keeping up with me.”
As a Kentucky kid, Keathley says he been a fan of the Wildcats since he was little, even getting to train with Tyrese Maxey this summer, and he also had some great things to say about what he saw from fellow Kentucky natives and current Wildcats Trent Noah, Jasper Johnson, and Malachi Moreno. “I looked up to players like Tyler Herro, SGA, Tyrese Maxey, Devin Booker, Malik Monk and Reed Sheppard. I got lucky that I got to train with Maxey for a week in August,” Keathley said. “I saw Trent Noah last night having great energy and keeping a smile on his face during warmups. You could tell he loved every minute wearing that Kentucky uniform. He cares and it shows. I saw Jasper and Moreno warming up hard. The one thing about it, and my dad always told me, it’s a different place. You got to be special to play there and be willing to accept everything that comes with wearing that jersey.”
Interestingly enough, Keathley’s dad coached former Kentucky greats Anthony Epps and Wayne Turner after their time at Kentucky, so Keathley has a family history of being around all that comes with the passion of Kentucky basketball. What did Keathley’s dad learn about the two former Wildcats he got the privilege to coach? “He said they carried a chip on their shoulder and were great leaders always humble but tough. and I have to do the same.” Now, for Keathley, it’s about climbing the ranks nationally. “A couple (recruiting services) don’t have me ranked yet and that’s ok. I’m going to walk in the gym every night and know I outworked you and I’m going to outplay you,” he said. “I’m going to compete like every game is a championship. I’m going to to play with the same passion that the fans have. I’m always all in there’s no going back or in-between.”
Keathley has so much passion for his community in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, and he has plans of doing big things at Martin County. He also shared a message Trent Noah’s dad had for him during their interaction at Tuesday’s Kentucky game. “Something he said that really stuck out. ‘Us mountain people have got to stick together.’ He’s right, Eastern Kentucky has great people and basketball players. Kentucky basketball as whole, we got to stick together through the highs and lows. That’s what we do.”
That’s a great message from a parent of a current Wildcat who was in his shoes before, being a fellow native of that part of the state. The Kentucky staff is certainly going to keep an eye on him as he continues the impressive run he is on so far this season, because he just continues to catch more and more people’s attention with his play.
Kentucky
Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie introduces legislation for U.S. to leave NATO – UPI.com
Dec. 10 (UPI) — U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican serving a House district in Kentucky, introduced legislation for the United States to pull out of NATO.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, posted on X that she would be a co-sponsor of the Not a Trusted Organization Act, or NATO Act. Utah Republican Mike Lee introduced the same legislation in the Senate earlier this year.
“NATO is a Cold War relic,” Massie said in a statement Tuesday. “We should withdraw from NATO and use that money to defend our own country, not socialist countries.
“NATO was created to counter the Soviet Union, which collapsed over 30 years ago. Since then, U.S. participation has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and continues to risk U.S. involvement in foreign wars.”
He added: “Our Constitution did not authorize permanent foreign entanglements, something our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against. America should not be the world’s security blanket – especially when wealthy countries refuse to pay for their own defense.”
NATO was founded in 1949 by 12 members as a military alliance involving European nations, as well as the U.S. and Canada in North America. There are now 32 members, with Finland joining in 2023 and Sweden in 2024.
The NATO Act would prevent the use of U.S. taxpayer funds for NATO’s common budgets, including its civil budget, military budget and the Security Investment Program.
Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty allows nations to opt out.
“After the Treaty has been in force for 20 years, any Party may cease to be a Party one year after its notice of denunciation has been given to the Government of the United States of America, which will inform the Governments of the other Parties of the deposit of each notice of denunciation,” the treaty reads.
During the last NATO summit in The Hague, the Netherlands, President Donald Trump told reporters he agrees with NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense treaty.
“I stand with it. That’s why I’m here,” Trump said. “If I didn’t stand with it, I wouldn’t be here.”
Article 5 was invoked for the first time after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, leading to NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan.
The Kentucky Republican, who calls himself a “fiscal hawk” and a “constitutional conservative,” has been at odds with Trump on several issues, including fiscal spending, foreign policy/war powers, government surveillance and transparency.
Trump has also been critical of NATO.
During his 2016 election campaign, Trump called the alliance “obsolete.”
He urged nations to spend at least 3.5% of gross domestic product on core defense needs by 2035.
In June, NATO allies agreed to a new defense spending guideline to invest 5% of GDP annually in defense and security by 2035.
Five nations were above 3% in 2024: Poland at 4.12%, Estonia at 3.43%, U.S. at 3.38%, Latvia at 3.15% and Greece at 3.08%. In last is Spain with 1.28% though Iceland has no armed forces and Sweden wasn’t listed.
Some Republican senators want stronger involvement in the alliance, including Joni Ernst of Iowa and Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Wicker is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
For passage, a House majority is needed, but 60 of 100 votes in the Senate to break the filibuster and then a majority vote. Trump could also veto the bill.
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