By Ira Combs
Tri State Sports Media Service Inc.
As we enter the last week of January, the Kentucky Wildcats” special season is still on track at 19-0 with games coming up this week at Missouri (Thursday, 9:00 ET, ESPN) and Alabama at home (Saturday, 7:00 ET, SEC Network). Most of the college basketball gurus don’t think there will be a bump in the road this week, but sometimes that’s when lightning strikes. Cal’s boys did dispose of Missouri in Rupp Arena a couple weeks ago pretty easily and the Alabama game will be at the friendly confines of Rupp Arena so it’s doubtful anything earth shattering will happen this week unless it’s with the only other undefeated NCAA Division I team over in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The Virginia Cavaliers have a tough road ahead over the next two weeks in ACC play (Duke & U of L at home and North Carolina & NC State away) while UK has an upcoming road swing of back-to-back games on the road at Florida and LSU within three days of each other after the Georgia game on Feb. 3 at home. If both the Cats and Cavs are still undefeated after wadding through those tough waters, then we can all start getting excited and talking about something that could be very special which would be the prospects of something I’m not sure has ever happened before -- an NCAA championship game with two undefeated teams.
Hey, we can dream, can't we? It’s not Hollywood but we can still dream.
On the home front, UK's Devin Booker continues to open eyes across college basketball with his uncanny shooting from behind the arc. He is now hitting at a 64 percent clip the last five games. Just last weekend the SEC Network’s premier weekly show, SEC Now, did a poll among their host and game announcers of who were the Top 5 three-point shooters in the SEC. Guess what team had two players in that Top 5 list? None other than your own Kentucky Wildcats. Sophomore Aaron Harrison was ranked the third shooter from behind the arc and Booker, multi-talented freshman, was the top-rated long-range specialist in the SEC.
Double Dip Weekend For BBN
In the Fall, most of Big Blue Nation loves a double dip weekend of Keeneland racing on a Saturday afternoon and UK football at CWS on Saturday evening. This coming weekend you can get the winter version of double dipping UK basketball style. This coming Saturday, as mentioned earlier, you have UK playing Alabama at Rupp Arena with tipoff slated for 7:00 p.m., then on Sunday afternoon you can catch Matthew Mitchell’s UK Hoops team in Memorial Coliseum, battling the Georgia women's basketball team at 1:00 p.m. And you still can get back to most parts of the Commonwealth at a decent hour to watch the Super Bowl or for a good night's rest to start Monday morning off for another week at the office.
There is only one more of these double dip weekends left in the season and it comes when the men play Arkansas on Feb. 28th, then the UK Hoops team plays No. 1 South Carolina the following day -- Sunday, March 1 -- at Memorial Coliseum.
You can go online at www.combsbrothersonkysports.com for more coverage of UK basketball and football as well as KHSAA basketball and football. You can also follow me on Twitter at @combsbrothers5.
