Practice report: spring football

Posted at 3:04 p.m. EDT - Eric Lindsey, UK Media Relations

The headline at spring football practice was the surprise appearance of men's basketball Coach John Calipari, but much more went on during the morning workout at Nutter Field House. Here are some notes:

• UK Coach Rich Brooks said it was a "sharp" practice, much better than what he saw on Wednesday. "Our enthusiasm was good. We looked quick, decisive and I was very pleased with the effort today."

• For the second straight practice, the Wildcats were not in pads, but Brooks said they will be in pads and full contact for Saturday's practice.

• Brooks said the quarterbacks looked a lot better Friday than they did on Wednesday. Brooks said they were sailing the ball too much in Wednesday's practice but said there were a lot less balls on the ground in Friday's session.

• Randall Cobb is fine health wise, Brooks said. Cobb will be in pads Saturday, but he won't be in any contact drills. Brooks said he might start easing him into contact drills as early as a week from Saturday and said he expects him to be participating in full contact workouts by the final two weeks.

• Cobb said his knee feels great but said they're taking a lot of precautions because they'd much rather him be healthy in the fall than in the spring. Cobb said the biggest hurdle for him is the mental part of injury, but he said he's ahead of schedule and is working on getting his speed back now.

• Cobb said he's embracing his role at wide receiver because UK has a lot of great quarterbacks coming in. "I'm just going to do my role on this team. Whatever I have to do, I'll take care of." Cobb did take a few snaps at quarterback on Friday. 

• Speaking of wide receivers, it's one of the biggest question marks on this year's team. With the ever-changing quarterback role last season, the season-ending injury to Dicky Lyons, Jr. and the inexperience on the outside, UK's receivers struggled mightily for most of the season. With a year under their belts, with Cobb playing primarily receiver and with some added depth, the unit is expected to be much better this year.

• Brooks on the wide receivers: "I think you saw quite a bit of improvement in the bowl game. I think that improvement is even more marked now, and now you've got an E.J. Fields thrown into the equation, who has looked very impressive the first few days. I think the receiver corps is going to be much, much improved through the rest of this spring as well as next fall."

• Brooks said their improvement speaks to the difficulty of freshman wide receivers coming in and playing in the Southeastern Conference. "The fact that they learned under fire, they know what they have to work on and get better on. They're attacking that and taking care of the things they need to improve on."

• Wide receiver Kyrus Lanxter pointed to the time off before the bowl game and bowl practice as to when the receivers started to finally click. "We all got our timing right and we got comfortable with each other. The coaches started trusting us a little bit more so we could take a few more chances."

• There are 12 wide outs listed on the spring depth chart, not including the true freshmen that will be coming in. The depth chart has senior-to-be E.J. Adams starting on one side and Lanxter starting on the other. Keep in mind, Cobb is listed low on the depth chart only because he's still recovering from his knee injury and won't participate in full contact drills all spring. Expect him to be the No. 1 or 2 wide receiver in the fall.

• Departing seniors Lyons, Tony Dixon and Braxton Kelley were all at practice to watch.

Bell rings up Cat Scratches

Posted at 1:37 p.m. EDT - Eric Lindsey, UK Media Relations

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Chanda Bell made me look silly. Check that - she made me look like a fool.

Earlier in the week, I had the fine privilege (or so it seemed at that time) of standing in the batter's box and going toe-to-toe with Bell, the freshman phenom on the UK softball team.

Bell, a right-handed hurler from Indianapolis, Ind., has already tossed a no-hitter - the first in program history - thrown a school-record 15 strikeouts on three separate occasions and has the single season school record for most strikeouts in a season with 185.

Ah, so what, I thought. Not that far removed from my so-called athletic "glory days," I figured I could stand up there and get a couple of hits off Bell (15-7) without much of a problem.

Turns out it was a big problem. I couldn't have been more wrong.

In one on the more embarrassing moments of my life, Bell sized me up blew me back into the oblivion. In a matter of about 15 pitches, Bell had me feeling like I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.

My embarrassment had nothing to do with some sexist notion or superiority complex. It had to do with just how bad I missed.

I wasn't even close most of the time. I could have been swinging with an oversized tennis racket and not made contact with the junk she was throwing at me. I'm pretty sure people a half mile down the road at Cliff Hagan Stadium could feel the overwhelming wind from my whiffs at the UK Softball Complex.

It didn't take me long to figure out I was in over my head. If you're wondering, yes, I did make contact - three times! - but I wouldn't characterize them as screaming, line-drive shots. In fact, I'll admit they were all luck.

Twice I fouled the ball straight back, and the other one was a dribbler down the third-base line that didn't even roll out of the infield.

I was asked by several of my colleagues and friends what the hardest part was about facing Bell. Most people thought it would be the speed of her pitches, but it was actually the movement she had on them.

Don't get me wrong, Bell throws some serious heat, but I went up to the plate expecting that. What I didn't expect is for the pitches to look they were going to hit me at one second, and before I could even blink, be three feet to the right, clipping the right corner of the plate.

It was like Bell was throwing a 100-mile per hour marble at me instead of a softball.

And don't even get me started on her riseball and off-speed stuff. Forget about it. I don't think I was within three feet of any of those pitches.

Bell was in every sense of the word unhittable.

Fox Sports to televise 'Let's Meet John Calipari'

Posted at 1:35 p.m. EDT - Pete Camagna, UK Media Relations

FOX Sports South will televise "Let's Meet John Calipari," a 30-minute show introducing Calipari as the new University of Kentucky men's basketball head coach. "Let's Meet John Calipari" will be televised on Friday, April 3 at 6:30 p.m. EDT on FOX Sports South.

Calipari drops in on spring practice

Posted at 12:50 p.m. EDT - Eric Lindsey, UK Media Relations

A special guest dropped by spring football practice Friday morning at Nutter Field House.

Yes, you guessed it - new basketball Coach John Calipari made an appearance for the last 15 minutes of practice.

Calipari and football Coach Rich Brooks shook hands on the field and talked for a few minutes before Brooks took Calipari over to meet and address the team. The Wildcats huddled up and gave Calipari a huge ovation.

Calipari talked with them about doing things together as a family. He stressed that it's not just about basketball or football, it's about helping each other as a program, whether that is men's basketball, women's tennis or any other sports.

"It's important for our whole department to work together - that nobody puts themselves above somebody else," Brooks said. "We're all in this together."

Afterwards, Calipari stuck around for a few minutes to sign autographs and take pictures with some fans.

"It was very nice of Coach Calipari to come over for an opportunity to address him to the team," Brooks said. "All our players want to go out for basketball now. It's great to have him in the Wildcat family." 

The Wildcats' first practice under John Calipari

Posted at 1:13 a.m. EDT - Eric Lindsey, UK Media Relations

Not even 36 hours after John Calipari was hired to become the 22nd head coach in program history, Calipari held his first practice Thursday night at the Joe Craft Center. Cat Scratches had an exclusive look at Kentucky's first practice under Calipari. Here are some observations from the Wildcats' first workout:

• Practice started at 8:30 p.m. and lasted about an hour and a half. Per NCAA regulations, teams are allowed two hours of drill instruction per week until April 15.

• The entire 2008-09 roster was there, including senior Jared Carter.

• The practice was extremely instructional. Calipari's demeanor was pretty intense, but he doesn't teach by yelling, calling out players, stomping his feet or any of that. He was very hands on and very talkative. Calipari would stop drills if he didn't see what he liked, but he also didn't hesitate to stop practice and single out a player if he was doing something right.

• Dribble, dribble, dribble. Calipari mentioned his love and philosophy for the Dribble Drive Motion Offense in his introductory news conference, and he wasted no time implementing it in his first practice. The first hour was dedicated solely to dribbling and driving the ball to the bucket. Calipari started the players off with different dribble-drive layup drills, and then increased the number of defenders as practice wore on until they finished with a three-on-two drill.

• Of course, the main component of the Dribble Drive Motion Offense is dribbling. The only negative I drew from the practice was the Wildcats' sloppiness in handling the ball. I heard Calipari say a couple of times that they were going to have to get much better handling the ball.

• Calipari wants them to play extremely fast. He doesn't want any hesitation when they have the ball and he even stopped a few players a couple of times for slowing up. No matter who has it - Calipari said he's going to teach everybody, post players included, to drive it like they were guards - he wants them taking it straight to the basket as fast as they can for a layup or lob pass.

• One of the biggest things I took out of practice was Calipari's message of simplicity. He said he's not running the And 1 team and wants to make the game as simple as possible for them. 

• Calipari likes the ball in the air. The only bounce he likes is when it comes to dribbling. He's not against bounce passes all together, but he doesn't like wrap-around passes or bounce passes underneath the basket because guards can come in and pick them off.

• As much as the practice was about the dribble drive, it was also about layups. Calipari said the point of the offense was to get easy layups. Part of that, he said, is they have to make all of them. UK missed quite a few in practice, and Calipari said they'll eventually chart every single shot in practice, from layups to 3-pointers to half-court shots. He said if you can't make them in practice, you won't be able to make them in the game.

• Just an observation, but I believe Darius Miller is going to flourish in Calipari's system. I thought he had a phenomenal first practice under Calipari, and the coach even praised him one time for his ability to drive the ball to the basket. Calipari told Miller he was going to "drive his brain out" playing for him.

• Kyle Macy came by practice and watched the entire session. Calipari came over during and after practice to shake Macy's hand and talk with him for a few minutes.

• And finally, practice was extremely upbeat. The guys were constantly clapping, very attentive and looked like they were just having a good time.