When Mark Pope announced that he would be taking questions directly from BBN, we all knew things could get interesting. But honestly, it turned out pretty good; you had some honest questions and some good answers. Sure, there were sarcastic questions that just were never going to be answered, but Pope did address the GM situation. While it wasn’t the answer a lot of people hoped for, at least there is now a clear hierarchy within the basketball front office. Let’s break it down.
Kentucky
The CFB Playoff Reveal Show was Terrible, but it was Great News for Kentucky
Wow. That was something. The first-ever 12-team CFB Playoff bracket was revealed on ESPN and that was one hour of my life that I will never get back.
The CFB Playoff Bracket Reveal Show was terrible when there were four teams in the field. It somehow got worse when they added eight more.
Booger McFarland is still spewing nonsense. Joey Galloway won’t let his bad take — Indiana should have benched Kurtis Rourke vs. Ohio State — fade into oblivion. Nick Saban has been outstanding on television, except when he talks in circles about strength of schedule to defend Alabama.
Those gasbags aren’t what makes the show bad. What makes the show bad is they don’t talk about the CFB Playoff games.
CBS cracked the code years ago. Here are the one-seeds, now let’s show you who’s playing. It’s not that hard. One year they tried to change things and college basketball fans rioted. That experiment only lasted one year.
College basketball’s Selection Sunday special lasts 30 minutes and you can immediately begin filling in a bracket. It took 30 minutes for ESPN to share who got byes. Then 15 more to reveal the rest of the field. While showing one more side-by-side of SMU and Alabama, Rece Davis acknowledged, “I don’t mean to drag this out,” all while dragging it out even further.
The length of the CFB Playoff Bracket Reveal Show is not the only thing that makes it terrible. College basketball’s Selection Sunday is a celebration of what’s to come in March Madness. Rather than focusing on the teams that made it, ESPN prioritized the teams that didn’t make the final cut, which is actually great news for Kentucky fans.
The Consequences of Alabama’s CFB Playoff Absence
Folks, we might just get to keep playing the Governor’s Cup after all.
When Oklahoma and Texas were added to the SEC, there was a push to increase the number of SEC games per year from eight to nine. A coalition led by Mitch Barnhart and Mark Stoops pushed against that at the Spring Meetings. The argument was made under the guise of protecting inter-conference rivalry games, but let’s be honest with one another. Kentucky has a hard enough time with an 8-game SEC schedule. Adding another could be devastating.
Coaches and administrators ultimately decided to table the discussion for two years for two reasons. One, ESPN wasn’t going to pay the SEC more money to play more SEC games. Two, no one in the SEC knew how the CFB Playoff Committee would act in a 12-team format.
Nick Saban turned the tide, no pun intended, by siding with Stoops and getting everyone to agree to play the waiting game and temporarily stick with an 8-game SEC schedule. The first thing Saban said on ESPN after the results were revealed was to question why Alabama should play non-conference games against Notre Dame and Ohio State when the CFB Playoff Committee is not incentivizing teams to play a challenging schedule.
The first 12-team CFB Playoff has given the SEC a good reason to stick with an 8-game league schedule for the foreseeable future.
Got thoughts? Continue the conversation on KSBoard, the KSR Message Board.
Warm and humid weather for Preakness Stakes this weekend
The second race of the Triple Crown is May 16 in Laurel, Maryland. Conditions at Preakness Stakes are expected to be warmer with humidity. There could be a spotty thunderstorm after the race.
Golden Tempo won the Kentucky Derby. He won’t be at the Preakness. And that’s becoming a familiar story.
This marks the second straight year and the third time in five years that the Derby winner has decided not to compete in the Preakness Stakes despite having a healthy horse. The reason is almost always the same: two weeks isn’t enough time.
Trainer Cherie DeVaux made the call quickly after Golden Tempo’s dramatic last-to-first Derby victory on May 2.
“Golden gave us the race of a lifetime,” DeVaux said in a statement. “We believe the best decision for him moving forward is to give him a little more time following such a tremendous effort.”
DeVaux and Golden Tempo are focused on the June 6 Belmont Stakes instead.
The pattern is pretty clear.
From 1997 to 2018, every Kentucky Derby winner ran the Preakness, keeping the Triple Crown path intact. That streak ended with Country House, who won the Derby on the disqualification of Maximum Security, was scratched from the Preakness. The sport has been wrestling with the question ever since. Maryland’s racing leaders have considered moving the Preakness one week later, from the third Saturday in May to the fourth, though no change has been made.
Of the 14 horses entered in the Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park on May 16, just three made the trip from Churchill Downs. None of them won the Derby. One nearly caused the biggest upset in recent memory.
Ocelli (Post 2, 6-1)
The most intriguing Derby returnee. Ocelli finished third at 70-1 odds on May 2, giving trainer Whit Beckman and jockey Tyler Gaffalione a surprise ticket to Laurel Park. He was the lone maiden in the Derby field and remains a maiden heading into Saturday. Nobody expected him to be here.
Incredibolt (post 12, 5-1)
The morning-line co-favorite among Derby runners. Incredibolt finished sixth at Churchill Downs and trainer Riley Mott moved quickly to point him to Laurel Park. Jockey Jaime Torres won the 2024 Preakness aboard Seize the Grey. The connections believe the 1 3/16-mile distance suits Incredibolt better than the Derby’s mile and a quarter.
Robusta (Post 4, 30-1)
The longest shot of the Derby trio is Robusta, who finished 14th of the 14 in the Derby. The question with any horse coming back this quickly after a tough Derby is how much the race took out of him. At 30-1, it seems the market has answered that question.
COVINGTON, Ky. (WKRC) – A Northern Kentucky man is in jail, accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl who’d been reported missing.
Matthew Wade, 40, faces charges, including sexual abuse, unlawful transaction with a minor and assault.
Covington Police say they found the teen at Wade’s home on Highway Avenue on Monday. According to the police report, he was knowingly hiding her, knew she was missing and had cut her ankle monitor off.
Investigators say the teen was given alcohol, marijuana and magic mushrooms.
The girl told police wade slapped her and choked her.
Officers also say they found guns in the home.
Mark Pope has confirmed that no official GM position will exist for at least this season, and most likely won’t exist going forward. Why? Because he has the responsibilities spread out across 4 different people, and believes that is the best way forward.
“In this ever-changing college basketball dynamic, everybody is trying a different solution. For us, instead of hiring a singular GM, we’ve gone with a more comprehensive general management team approach. We have four members of the team. Keegan Brown is a data analysis and roster construction expert who’s worked in both college and the NBA. Nick Robinson is our salary cap strategy and management specialist. Kevin Sergent is our compliance officer, and he deals with all of our contracts and legal language. Kim Shelton is our JMI liaison, and she does all of our NIL contracts that deal with corporate sponsorships. That’s our four-person general management team.”
But who is each one of these people, and what makes them qualified?
Who’s doing what in the Kentucky basketball front office?
Well, Keegan Brown has been a video coordinator in the G-League. That essentially means he would go and watch all the videos on league opponents and potential prospects, and come up with data-backed scouting reports for the coaching and front office teams. Pope has worked with Brown at BYU, so there is some familiarity there.
Nick Robinson also worked with Mark Pope in Provo, being an assistant coach from 2019 to 2024 and following Pope to Lexington. He has been on staff all 3 seasons now, and is being tasked with handing out Kentucky’s money and setting a budget for each player.
Kevin Sergent is not new to Kentucky; he has been in Lexington since 2020. But this is his first time handling compliance on his own; his official title is Senior Associate AD for Athletic Compliance. He handles all the rules, applying for waivers, basically making sure the entire staff is doing everything the right way.
Kim Shelton is a UK alum who was more known for soccer than anything else. She was part of the very first Kentucky women’s soccer team and is a former CEO of Lexington Sporting Club. She worked for Kentucky when Commonwealth was renamed as Kroger Field, and played a role in setting up naming rights for Kentucky Proud Park. Right now, she is kind of the bridge between Kentucky and JMI, specifically handling BBNIL Suite.
If you don’t remember what BBNIL suite is, it’s essentially the opt-in program where student athletes agree to only work with deals through JMI. They find offers, broker deals, and help athletes make money. It is, of course, optional, but if players decline, they will not be able to use the University of Kentucky logos in their NIL marketing.
Trent Noah is probably the most successful NIL athlete who opted out. The Kentucky native is handling his own NIL, and by the amount of ads and cardboard cutouts I see littered around the state, he seems to be doing pretty well.
Seeing JMI integrated again into Kentucky Basketball is probably going to make some of you uneasy, and I get that. But everyone who has worked with them who has officially gone on the record says they are a pleasure to work with.
And that’s how Mark Pope wants it done. There is a theory out there that he wants a GM, but JMI won’t let him. Considering he has chosen 2 of the 4 people personally, I highly doubt that’s true.
What do you think of his explanation, and what do you think of how he is handling the GM role?
-
New York8 minutes agoFlag With Swastika and Star of David Flown on N.Y.U. Building, Police Say
-
Los Angeles, Ca14 minutes agoEarly morning Montebello fire leaves resident critically injured
-
Detroit, MI38 minutes agoWhat big announcement at DPSCD Hall of Fame Gala could mean for Detroit students
-
San Francisco, CA50 minutes agoCasting shade on shadows: S.F. supervisor seeks to bar using shadows to block new housing
-
Dallas, TX56 minutes agoDallas Approves $180,500 for New Botham Jean Boulevard Street Signs
-
Miami, FL1 hour agoMiami residents sue over land for Trump presidential library
-
Boston, MA1 hour agoBoston has a secret society built on opium money in ‘The Society’
-
Denver, CO1 hour agoDenver weather: Nearing record highs again