Content provided by John Clay’s Sidelines.

Here’s a chart comparing John Wall’s first seven games at Kentucky to Brandon Knight’s first seven games at UK. If you remember, Wall sat out Kentucky’s first game last year as part of his punishment for receiving extra benefits while an amateur. You will also notice, that Wall played 13 more minutes than Knight to this point, but took 23 fewer shots. Wall had 30 more assists, but two fewer turnovers than Knight at this point. And Brandon has had a harder time getting to the foul line. Wall had taken nearly twice as many free throws by this point. That’s the main reason why Wall had scored 11 more points.

Content provided by John Clay’s Sidelines.

Update: Now official, as Florida has issued a release.

Brett McMurphy of AOL FanHouse is reporting that Urban Meyer is stepping down as Florida’s football coach.

He says there will be a press conference tonight.

Gator Updates claims there will be a press conference at 5 p.m.

Get ready for the Charlie Strong to Florida rumors. The Louisville coach was defensive coordinator at UF before finally getting his head coaching shot at U of L. Ironically, Strong was named co-Big East Coach of the Year today with UConn’s Randy Edsall.

Content provided by John Clay’s Sidelines.

More of John Calipari’s meeting with the media yesterday to talk about tonight’s game with Notre Dame.

Content provided by A Sea Of Blue.

Urban Meyer Resigns

Content provided by John Clay’s Sidelines.

Kentucky leads the series with Notre Dame 41-18. The Cats have a 23-9 record against the Irish at Freedom Hall. In fact, Notre Dame has lost 10 straight games in the building, including the last seven against Lousiville.

Notre Dame’s last win at Freedom Hall came on Dec. 27, 1980 when Digger Phelps’ team beat Joe B. Hall’s Cats 67-61.

Three of the last four games Notre Dame has played at Freedom Hall have gone into overtime. Last year, Mike Brey’s club lost 91-89 to Louisville in double overtime. In 2009, Louisville beat Notre Dame 87-73 in overtime. In 2006, Louisville beat the Irish 89-86 in overtime.

Here are the last 15 meetings between the Cats and the Irish:

Content provided by A Sea Of Blue.

Go here to check out my comprehensive preview of tonights renewal of one of UK’s oldest rivalries.

Go ‘Cats!

Content provided by A Sea Of Blue.

Tonight, the Kentucky Wildcats take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in my home town of Louisville at the former home of the Louisville Cardinals (and now Rupp Arena West), Freedom Hall.  Of course, yours truly and the missus will be at the event enjoying the evening.  For that reason, Ken will be doing the postmortem tonight.

Those of us who have been around a few years (some may read as “old”) remember the day when there was a genuine rivalry between Kentucky and Notre Dame.  For those of you who don’t remember that rivalry, I’d like to refresh your memory by referring you here and here.  Those two links are to Jon Scott’s site, BigBlueNation.net, which have not just one but two rivalry pages about Notre Dame.

Let’s take a look at how these two teams compare, record wise, this year:

Kentucky, so far, has played a much, much tougher schedule including more games away from home.  But the Irish have defeated their only RPI top 50 opponent, while Kentucky has lost 2 of their three games versus the RPI top 50, but does have one big win versus the highly ranked Washington Huskies.

Moving on to roster changes, let’s see what has happened to the Notre Dame roster between last year and this:

Of course, we all are aware of the loss of Luke Harangody, who led the Irish in scoring and rebounding for a couple of years, but also notable is Tory Jackson, who was the straw that stirred the Irish cocktail last year, dishing out over 5 assists per game.

Not much to say here.  Eric Atkins was a Rivals.com 4* recruit out of high school and is playing major reserve minutes in his first year, even starting one game.

Unlike Kentucky, Notre Dame’s roster is chock full of juniors and seniors, and that fact will matter against Kentucky.  The Irish are not as talented, but they are vastly more experienced and every single one of these players with the exception of the freshmen have been playing in coach Mike Brey’s system for years.

The Four Factors to Winning

The Four Factors for this game look like this:

As you can see, this chart favors Notre Dame, slightly.  They get to the line more often and rebound the ball offensively better than Kentucky, at least when we consider the numbers strictly.  Kentucky shoots a little better and both teams take good care of the ball

What this chart does not tell you is that ND has done all it’s damage versus weak teams.  The toughest team Notre Dame has played was the Wisconsin Badgers on a neutral floor, and they won that low-scoring affair 58-51.  Notre Dame did also beat a pretty good Georgia Bulldogs team on a neutral court in overtime, so if you want a pretty good idea of where this team is, look at that particular game.  That game was a foul fest heavily in favor of the Fighting Irish, just like the UNC-Kentucky game was.  The Dawgs’ athleticism forced the Irish into 20% turnovers, an uncharacteristically high number for the normally circumspect Irish.

Overall Game Analysis

This game pits solid, mature Division I players against NBA-talented freshmen, something Kentucky will see a lot this year.  Mike Brey’s squad is a solid offensive club with mostly the same strengths and weaknesses as Kentucky, except that UK is stronger defensively.

But one thing they do a lot better than Kentucky is get to the line and shoot free throws.  As we all know by now, that is the most efficient way to score in basketball, and Kentucky must find a way to minimize the impact of that statistic, either by getting a high percentage of offensive rebounds, or shooting a very high eFG%.

One of the things we have seen so far this year from John Calipari is that he is not pressuring as much on defense as he did last year, and consequently, UK is not producing turnovers at a very high rate.  Notre Dame does not really pressure much on defense, being more of a club that tries to beat you with offensive efficiency. 

It will be instructive to see if Calipari tries to attack Notre Dame’s ballhandling like Georgia did.  It didn’t quite work out for Georgia, and with Kentucky’s thin bench, I don’t think I’d bet on that approach.

Overall, Kentucky will have to win this basketball game by doing what it has done all season — taking care of the ball, doing a good job on the offensive glass, and hitting shots. Kentucky is an improving defensive club, and if they continue to improve, it will mean good things versus the Irish.

Content provided by John Clay’s Sidelines.

USA Today has comprehensive report on just exactly what college football coaches made in 2010.

I’ve broken it down SEC coaches by total compensation, by cost of each win, and by cost of each SEC win.

Content provided by A Sea Of Blue.

We were told this might be a possiblity.  If Wannstedt coaches the bowl game, which he has reportedly been given the opportunity to do, his team will most likely be pumped to send him out a winner.

Content provided by John Clay’s Sidelines.

Liveblog: Kentucky-Notre Dame basketball