1.  Florida kicker Caleb Sturgis is close to being 100% after a back injury.

2.  Jon Gruden believes Charlie Weis will bring UF the best play-action passing game the best perimeter screen game in college football.

3.  Writer: Shaka Smart is not part of Billy Donovan’s coaching tree.

4.  Former Dennis Felton assistant Mike Jones has gone from Georgia to VCU… and the Final Four.

5.  Kentucky and UConn — who meet in the Final Four Saturday — both benefited from late-season losses.

6.  The Wildcats are now the favorite to win the whole NCAA tourney.

7.  Big Blue fans are snapping up the Final Four memorabilia.  (Nice photo, too.)

8.  South Carolina will hold its Pro Day for NFL scouts tomorrow.

9.  AD Mike Hamilton says of Cuonzo Martin: “We just knew he was the guy.”

10.  Ohmygodohymygodohmygod!  Pat Summitt learned of Martin’s hiring from ESPN.  Heads must roll!  (How did UT’s track coach find out?  The swimming coach?  And why must the women’s basketball coach be alerted?)

11.  The Vols want to win… and do it the right way.

12.  The people closest to Martin continue to talk him up.

13.  There will be no quick decision in Vanderbilt’s quarterback race.

Kentucky’s John Calipari might not be the best coach in the land, but he is the best manager.

What’s the difference?

This writer grew up following the Atlanta Braves.  Dating back to his first run with the Braves, Bobby Cox has always had my respect.  I just didn’t want him in the dugout in a seven-game series or a final winner-take-all game.

Cox’s tendency to go against “the book” bit him often in big games, in big series.  For a fan, that was incredibly frustrating. 

But Cox also — more times than not — had his team in position to be in big games and big series at the end of one grueling 162-game schedule after another.  When it came to pushing the right buttons, managing personalities in the clubhouse, and developing a team over the long haul, no one was better than Cox.  There’s a reason he’ll be in Cooperstown.

Calipari is comparable to Cox.  And before Kentucky fans start sending the angry emails, just think back to what you yourselves were saying this time last year after UK had fallen to Bob Huggins (again) and his 1-3-1 zone.  “Where were the adjustments?”  “Why did they keep jacking up threes?”  “Why didn’t Calipari settle his guys?”

And remember, last June the big question in the sports world was: How could a UK team featuring five NBA first-round draft picks not have made the Final Four?

Well Calipari has repaired his reputation in this year’s tournament by vanquishing his old nemesis Huggins, upsetting Thad Matta’s far more dominant Ohio State squad, and then slipping by Roy Williams’ Tar Heels in the Elite Eight.  That’s great coaching.

But once again, it’s Calipari’s management that has been the most impressive aspect of Kentucky’s season.

No coach in the country does a better job of collecting NBA-caliber talent.  And no coach in the country does a better job of getting his young stars to do two things young stars don’t often do: play defense and play selflessly.

This UK team — with fewer stars than last year’s squad — has improved as the season has worn on.  In a stretch from mid-January to mid-February this bunch was just 5-5 in SEC play.  Kentucky lost six out of seven league road games at one point.  Terrence Jones was accused of being selfish.  DeAndre Liggins hadn’t figured out his role.  Josh Harrellson was best known for being Billy Gillispee’s whipping boy.  And Brandon Knight was still growing up.

But UK has gone 12-1 since that 5-5 stretch.  They captured the #2 seed in the SEC East and then rolled through the league tournament to capture yet another conference crown.  After being handed a #4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, they continued to slice through the bracket like Knight driving to a bucket.  Jones has been more a team player.  Liggins has become a complete threat, leading UK to a win over UNC with his defense and a late three-pointer.  Harrellson has become one of the tourney’s feel-good stories and Knight has most definitely grown up.

All under Calipari’s tutelage.

There will always be questions about Calipari’s ability as a bench coach.  Anyone with as many career wins as UK’s coach is bound to be critiqued and broken down.  Faults will be found.

But when it comes to managing a team, its players, its personalities, and its chemistry, no one does a better job than Calipari.  This year’s Cats prove that.

No athletic director in the country has taken a more sustained beating in recent months than Tennessee’s Mike Hamilton.  The vocal Vol fans of the talk radio/messageboard universe are squarely agin’ him.  A few important UT boosters are also believed to have lost faith in his leadership.  And the national media has been sticking in its knives first for Hamilton’s decision to keep Bruce Pearl and then for his decision to fire him.

Despite all that, Hamilton appears safe.  For now.

Tennessee chancellor Jimmy Cheek gave support to his athletic director yesterday following the introductory press conference for new basketball coach Cuonzo Martin.  “I think if you look at this hire we just made, we really made an excellent hire — Mike Hamilton is behind it.  He’s the one that made the decision.  He asked me to come in and look at Cuonzo, and I did.  I said, ‘This is the person I think we ought to hire.’”

Cheek also told The Knoxville News Sentinel that since he allowed Hamilton to make the hire, obviously he has “confidence in his decision-making ability.” 

“He’s our athletic director,” said Cheek.

It is common knowledge among the media in Knoxville that Pearl’s unpopular ouster was orchestrated by Cheek and a few key Vol boosters who no longer wanted the school’s name dragged through the mud.  Hamilton was left to deliver the news to fans and they have killed the messenger, in turn.

It’s also believed — strongly by MrSEC.com — that Hamilton was instructed to prepare the fanbase that a change in leadership was likely coming in the run-up to the NCAA Tournament.  Hamilton followed orders — we believe — and was pilloried by Vol backers and talking heads across the country for undermining his team’s chances in the NCAA Tournament.  (The Vols finished the season 12-15 in their last 27 games, so it’s a little hard to blame UT’s loss on the AD’s comments.)

But now that Hamilton has been allowed to become the scapegoat for the Pearl mess, how can the University of Tennessee keep him?  Fair or not, when angry Tennessee fans hold back on their season-ticket purchases this year — and it sure sounds like some will — Hamilton will be pinpointed by many as the reason.

It’s entirely possible that Hamilton will suffer a fate similar to former Southern Cal AD Mike Garrett’s.  Garrett was kept on through the Trojans’ date with the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions because he knew the ins and outs of the NCAA’s case and the USC defense.  You don’t change attorneys midway through a murder trial.  But once the verdict came in, Garrett was KO’d and replaced by Pat Haden.

Hamilton and Tennessee go before the COI in June. 

Hamilton is the man who fired Phillip Fulmer.  But for the first time in decades, fans weren’t filling Neyland Stadium.  He hired Lane Kiffin who left him after one year and started Hamilton’s terrible downhill spiral.  He hired Pearl — once his greatest accomplishment — but that coach let him down as well by committing NCAA violations and then attempting to cover them up.

The buck stops with the AD.  Sometimes fairly, sometimes not (like when he’s simply following orders).  But with fans lining up against UT’s top man, the Vol administration has a choice to make — either push him overboard this summer or attempt to rehabilitate his reputation.

Whether Cheek’s comments from yesterday were the start of a rehab project or were just a delaying tactic designed to show support through June is anyone’s guess. 

But we’ll guess “delaying tactic.”

The hottest name in the coaching world today is Shaka Smart.  VCU’s second-year coach has his Rams all the way through to the Final Four.  It’s a near-miracle run for a team that most ESPN pundits pointed to as the least deserving at-large team in the field.

But while America gushes over Smart’s run — and we at MrSEC.com quietly murmur a warning: “Stan Heath” — some credit should be given to the guy who built the VCU team with which Smart is excelling. 

When Anthony Grant takes his Crimson Tide into its NIT semifinal game against Colorado tonight, Bama’s coach can know that he’s had a hand in two Final Four runs this year.  He built the roster for VCU’s journey and he’s coaxed 24 wins out of the roster he inherited — to a large degree — from Mark Gottfried.

At VCU, Grant recruited the Rams’ current juniors and seniors.  Here’s what Kansas Bill Self had to say about them after Sunday’s loss to VCU:  “You can usually tell who can really recruit, what programs do the best job recruiting, because they’re playing with the guys that you look at them when they’re juniors and seniors and think, ‘How in the world did they get them?’  VCU’s program has done that.”

Kevin Scarbinsky of The Birmingham News takes that comment, combines it with Grant’s record in his second year at Bama and says UA’s young coach will have the Tide in an NCAA Final Four “sooner rather than later.”

At Alabama, the only current starter signed by Grant is excellent freshman point guard Trevor Releford.  The rest of the main pieces were left behind by Gottfried.

“He left behind a nice nucleus, which Anthony has molded into his image defensively and intensity-wise and grittiness,” said ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla.  “It’s all Anthony Grant basketball now.”

Yes, it is.  And way things have played out might be even more impressive than had the coach built and taken one squad to a Final Four.  Grant showed that he can build a high-caliber roster at VCU.  Then he moved to a new school and has shown that he can coach-up the pieces he inherited.

We at MrSEC.com aren’t ready to declare Grant to be one of the nation’s elite coaches yet.  At some point, he’ll have to take a team he’s built and coach it deep into the NCAA tourney.  And we also remember that John Pelphrey and Trent Johnson got off to fast starts in the SEC, too, only to cool quickly.  There are no guarantees.

But when it comes to Grant, there’s no denying that his work at Bama and his previous work at VCU certainly suggest the Crimson Tide program is headed in the right direction.

Next step: Tonight at 9pm ET versus Colorado at Madison Square Garden.

Mike Anderson and Cuonzo Martin have completed the set.  The SEC now has a full roster of 12 basketball coaches again and we thought it would be interesting to compare their resumes when they were hired. 

As we showed yesterday, there’s really no guarantee when it comes to hiring hoops coaches.  Some promoted assistants and mid-major hires have done well.  Some proven BCS-level coaches have gone belly-up (with a number leaving the SEC under an NCAA cloud). 

So below, here’s what the SEC’s 12 schools had to go on when they brought in their current coaches:

As you can see, a lot of hay has been made over coaches’ connections to other coaches.  Lineage is still important in the South.  Eight of the league’s 12 coaches were hired — in large part — because of whose coaching tree they’d sprouted from.

In terms of the best pre-SEC track record, that would clearly belong to John Calipari.  But.  Kentucky had to endure quite a bit of ridicule for hiring a man of Calipari’s reputation (whether it was fairly earned or not).  Soon after arriving in Lexington, his 2007-2008 NCAA runner-up at Memphis was stricken from the record books because of an ineligible player.  Coach Cal — as UK fans will quickly point out — was never charged by the NCAA in the scandals at UMass and Memphis.  Still, it was a bold hire… which seems to be paying big dividends already.

When it comes to unproven before their SEC arrivals, Billy Donovan, Cuonzo Martin and Andy Kennedy lead the pack.  Donovan had just two years under his belt with no NCAA tourney appearances when UF snapped up the former Rick Pitino assistant.  Two national titles later and that one looks like a good roll of the dice. 

Tennessee fans can cross their fingers about Martin.  He has just three years under his belt and has not reached an NCAA tournament either.  Like Donovan, his main claim to fame comes from his coaching ties.  In his case — like Kevin Stallings — Gene Keady is at the head of the coaching tree (as well as current Purdue coach Matt Painter).

Kennedy had served one season as the interim head coach at Cincinnati following the ouster of Bob Huggins.  Like Donovan and Martin, Kennedy’s work under a proven head coach provided the impetus for the hire.

Rick Stansbury is the SEC’s only current assistant-to-head-coach promotion.  But MSU administrators were well aware of him as he had served on predecessor Richard Williams’ staff.

Basketball prospect Kevin Ware is still requesting a release from the national letter of intent he signed with Tennessee in November.

“Yes I am,” Ware told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The AJC’s story, which was posted at 3:15 eastern time on Monday afternoon, stated that Ware had not yet spoken to new Tennessee coach Cuonzo Martin. Ware told the AJC he missed a call from Martin on Monday morning and then left a message with Martin when he missed Ware’s call later in the day.

Martin said Monday afternoon during his introductory press conference at about the same time that he had spoken to both Ware and point guard Chris Jones, who is UT’s other signee for the class of 2011.

It’s unclear if Martin and Ware have actually been able to speak. Both made it be known that they would like to speak soon, and Martin said on Monday that he would meet with Ware and Jones next week after the Final Four takes place in Houston.

Ware’s release doesn’t appear to have been granted to this point. He told the AJC that UT officials would like him to meet with Martin before a decision is made on Ware’s request for a release. Jones indicated the same last week during a conversation with MrSEC.

Ware has appeared anxious to find out more about Martin.

“He’s a good guy from what I’m hearing … good reputation, good background,” Ware told the AJC.

Here are some of the latest commitments in the SEC.

1. LSU picked up its 23rd signee for the 2011 class when athlete Jerrard Randall gave his signature to the Tigers.

“I wanted to find a place I could call home and LSU is that place for me,” Randall, who originally chose Oregon, told Rivals.com.

2. Tight end Ty Smith committed to Georgia. The in-state prospect is the third commitment for Georgia’s 2012 class.

“Actually I grew up a Georgia fan, so I’ve always been a fan of the Dogs,” Smith told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

3. Auburn received a commitment from wide receiver Alex Taylor from Lester, Ala.

“I felt like this was the place I needed to be at,” Taylor said.

4. Offensive lineman Devon Desper from Madison (Miss.) Central High School has committed to Mississippi State, becoming the first commitment for the Bulldogs’ class of 2012.

When you think of Twitter, you probably think of snide comments, misspelled insults, and 140-character micro-rants.  But in the case of former Tennessee basketball assistant Tony Jones, Twitter was his outlet to show a little class as he held the door open — figuratively — for new head coach Cuonzo Martin:


Congrats to Cuonzo Martin a very good person and a solid basketball coach.

Vol Nation give him time he will do a great job.


Considering the amount of hand-wringing in the aforementioned Vol Nation over Martin’s hiring, Jones’ comments were probably much appreciated by the new coach.

Jones served as Tennessee’s interim coach during Bruce Pearl’s 8-game suspension last season, going 5-3 over that stretch.

But not all of Jones tweets are of the lovey-dovey variety.  In case you’re wondering who UT’s coaches blame for ratting out their barbecue to the NCAA, check this posting from last Friday… moments after Kentucky’s victory over Ohio State in the NCAA Tournament.


Never thought I (would) say it Great Job Cal.  Have a good trip back to Columbus Thad.


Hmmm.

In case you missed it over the weekend, Steve Spurrier and the Columbia Police Department had a little fun with the media on Friday.  The Caroilna football coach was handcuffed — as you can watch below — as part of his explanation of how star recruit Jadeveon Clowney was detained, cuffed and frisked outside a Five Points bar last week.




As it turns out, there was a robbery in the area and the perps — always wanted to write that — matched Clowney’s description, dreadlocks and all.  Police spotted the big defensive end, cuffed him and questioned him.  Then they let him go.

“That was a mistaken identity,” Spurrier said.  “I asked him, ‘Jadeveon, you weren’t down there drinking, being loud and making a disturbance?’  He said, ‘Coach, I don’t ever drink.’  He doesn’t drink.  He’s not even a drinker.  He said he went down there with some guys.  Now, I wish he hadn’t gone and hopefully he’s doing to learn not to go down there real soon.

“But, you know, I think he walked in two or three bars.  All the fans started chanting, ‘Clowney, Clowney’ again.  Hopefully he’ll get tired of everybody saying Clowney.  Hopefully out there in (Williams-Brice Stadium), that’s the next time people are going to start chanting ‘Clowney, Clowney.’  That’s the next time I hope to hear that.”

Well handled, Coach.

1.  About 2,500 Kentucky fans were waiting on their hoops heroes when the Wildcats returned to Lexington last night.

2.  John Calipari says his team survived battles with everyone from “Louis to Robinson to Ali.”  (Good line.)

3.  UConn’s Jim Calhoun says he has no relationship with Calipari at all.  “None.”

4.  Steve Spurrier says he did not “poach” Bruce Ellington from South Carolina’s basketball team.

5.  This writer wonders what kind of hire Tennessee fans thought they could make.

6.  Cuonzo Martin — pronounced CON-zoe — made about $300,000 a year at Missouri State. 

7.  UT must have felt the need to make a quick hire.  (Either they feared Missouri would fallback to Martin or the big fish just weren’t biting.)

8.  Over the weekend, Vandy “moved the ball pretty well” in a scrimmage.