Worst. Apology. Ever.

I swear. Saban knows no limits. His defense was hit hard by graduation, injury, suspension…what’s he to do when his team captain and starting safety is arrested? Normal, human coaches would try to coerce the police to go easy on him. Screw that. Saban skips the cops and goes straight to manipulating video evidence. Four times actually. Four separate surveillance cameras directly contradicted the report the officer filed.

See, there’s no possible way that a cop lied. If he said Johnson resisted arrest then that’s what happened. Right? Umm, no.

Now here’s the great part. The Tuscaloosa City attorney has agreed to drop the disorderly conduct charge with the condition that he performs community service. Yep, you read that right. I’m sure the city attorney phrased it otherwise, but he might as well have said, “Rashad, we lied, we hurt your reputation, and we brought negative attention to you and your teammates. Someone is going to pay for it. Rashad, that someone is you.” He didn’t do what he was accused of doing, and since they would get reamed in court if they prosecuted, they’ve agreed to just punish him like they planned without all that burden of proof nonsense.

There’s no indication that officer Derek Kilgore who wrote the fallacious report will have any sort of suspension. You remember suspension, right? It’s that thing the angry masses demanded Johnson receive? Saban mentioned it. He said that Johnson would not be getting one because of what he saw. Saban took a lot of heat for that decision, too. Imagine that. He said that he took each offense case by case. Silly Saban. It’s not important whether they actually did anything wrong or not. It only matters that they were in a public place with thousands of other people when the clock said three AM. Judgment must be swift and severe. And whenever possible, uninformed.

Stuff to do when you’re home sick

Not homesick, but home sick. Got it?

In case you haven’t noticed (please, oh please tell me you’ve noticed) I haven’t posted anything this week, or at least since Monday. Well that’s because my body’s immune system is currently fighting a losing battle against microscopic enemies intent on killing me. Seriously, I thought Scarlet Fever had been eradicated. OK, it’s not quite that bad, but right now I am blogging at about 75%. Yeah, I blog hurt. So if this sucks worse than usual, I have an excuse.

The only thing worse than feeling like Brodie Croyle the morning after the Iron Bowl is the mind-numbing boredom. I lucked out today because the Alabama high school basketball championships are on TV today, and hopefully tomorrow I’ll be up to playing some NCAA football on PS2, but the other days have crept by. So in case you all contact this vicious strain just by reading this, which I have no doubt is possible - go dip your face in isopropyl alcohol right now - I’ve come up with a few ways to pass the time til you’re able to walk 10 steps without having to stop to rest.

 In no particular order…

1. Keep a bottle with all the phlegm you’ve coughed up to impress your friends. If you really want to get scientific, you can keep a separate bottle for each individual hockalization, so you can compare color and consistency as you go through all the stages of flu-dom. Right now I’m working on a good 6 oz. of brownish-yellow ooze.
2. If you have a hard time falling asleep during the day, try this fun drinking game. Take a shot of Nyquil everytime a car insurance commercial comes on. You’ll be in a coma-like slumber in less than 20 minutes, guaranteed. Or you can watch my wife’s favorite channel, TLC, it works just as well.
3. Preseason Baseball! Just kidding, I ain’t that desperate, yet.
4. Pandora Radio. Ghost turned me on to it. It’s an excellent way to find more bands you don’t care about. Just kidding, it’s pretty neat.
5. Continue to ponder why so many people google Sophia Bush.
6. Name your bed sores, and plan for their future.
7. Turn your ceiling fan on reverse rotation and pretend it’s actual snow coming down and not accumulated dust. If you have a really high ceiling, then you’ll probably have enough material to make a dustman. Ours is a double tray, so I was able to recreate the Battle of Gettysburg.

That’s all I have for now, I need to rest and What Not To Wear is comi……

Gentlemen, start your excuses

Absolutely H-U-G-E news coming from the Bluegrass State.

Apparently, freshman phenom/young Karl Malone clone Patrick Patterson, is out for the rest of the season with a stress fracture. This means that the Wildcats had better win the SEC tournament, because their bubble just burst otherwise.

The Vols were going to win Sunday anyway, but now this is going to be a steamrolling. I honestly hate that this has happened. I hate it for Patterson, and I hate it because the thrashing that is inevitable will mean less.

I hope you get better very soon, Patrick. Please, get well enough in time to declare for the NBA Draft.

The Legacy of Tennessee’s 2004 Basketball Class, A Comparison

The hot topic of conversation for the past four years when Tennessee and Kentucky meet is how in the world Kentucky missed on Chris Lofton. The topic has been as beaten in the ground as the Tebow-Superman references.

On the surface, the recruiting gaffe that Kentucky and former coach Tubby Smith committed when it came to courting Lofton is nearly unprecedented, true. After all, this is a kid who grew up bleeding Kentucky blue, became a prep legend in his hometown of Maysville, Ky., made a strong argument for Rupp Arena being renamed Lofton’s Launchpad and helped bring one of UK’s biggest rivals from the doldrums of apathy to the height of excitement and a No. 1 ranking.

But an equal disgrace is just how everybody in the country missed out on JaJuan Smith. The goofy-looking kid from Decatur, Tenn., played for one of the worst teams in his region during his McMinn County days. Despite putting up big numbers offensively and becoming a terrific defensive player, coaches snarled their noses at his 6-foot-1 frame and questionable decision-making. He was even left off the first team of his local newspaper’s All-Star team.

Buzz Peterson told Smith he could walk on at UT with every intention of offering him a scholarship once he earned it. From the moment he stepped on the court for the Vols during the disastrous 14-17 campaign that saw Peterson fired, UT fans knew Smith had what it took to be a quality SEC guard.

Yet, Smith never gets any press still. And Lofton? Though not as disrespected as he used to be, he is only this year getting mentioned among the best 20 players in the country.

Lofton and Smith have let the basketball court be their proving ground. Despite there being a countless number of guards rated better than them in the country coming out of high school, there may not be a better senior guard tandem in all of the NCAA. If so, Kentucky’s backcourt of Joe Crawford and Ramel Bradley is at least in the question.

Speaking of Crawford and Bradley (like how I segued into that?), now’s as good a time as any — perhaps the final time with the Vols and Cats squaring off Sunday at noon in Knoxville — to look at just how underrated Smith and Lofton were/are.

Now, in fairness to UK, I have to say that the Wildcats’ 2004 recruiting class was supposed to be the nation’s best, boasting NBA player Randolph Morris. Also, there’s another guard who would be a senior now who’s starting for the best team in the NBA — the Boston Celtics’ Rajon Rondo.

So, it’s understandable why Lofton wasn’t on Tubby’s radar. At least, it was then. Here are the statistical comparisons for the four who stuck around in the wake of Rondo’s early declaration:

• Crawford 122 games, 470-1082 FG (.434), 171-496 3-point (.345), 10.8 ppg
• Bradley 123 games, 385-832 FG (.463), 166-467 3-point (.355), 10.1 ppg
• Lofton 120 games, 653-1431 FG (.456), 408-959 3-point (.425), 16.7 ppg
  
• Smith 118 games,323-984 FG (.430), 231-629 3-point (.367), 10.7 ppg

Of that loaded recruiting class for the Big Blue, Crawford was supposed to be the stud. He was rated the No. 9 overall player in the country by Rivals.com out of Detroit Renaissance High School. Rondo was the 25th rated player overall out of Oak Hill, and NYC’s Bradley — who prepped at Florida’s The Pendleton School — was the 91st-rated player in the country.

Way down on the list but still in the Rivals Top 150 was Maysville’s Lofton at No. 146. Nowhere to be found was JaJuan Smith. If you wanted to find out when he came to UT, according to Rivals, he doesn’t exist. Also on that Vols’ basketball recruiting class that year? A 6-foot-6 guard out of Oregon by the name of Erik Ainge. Hey, he had the bloodlines, right?

For as much credit as Bruce Pearl gets for turning around UT’s program — and deservedly so — Lofton and Smith deserve more than their share. I don’t care what everybody says about the Vols, and I love where this program is going, things are simply not going to be the same next year without Lofton and Smith launching 3s from just across midcourt.

You want a Big Orange Legend? First, look to Lofton — a player so driven by the snubs from his home state schools that he lived in the gym, striving to continually improve his game to the point where he could be an All-American.

Want another one? Look to Smith, a player who shrugged off other offers to respectable basketball programs to walk on at UT because it’s where he always wanted to be.

The legacy of Crawford and Bradley can be found in recruiting rankings. The legacy of Lofton and Smith can be found in the foundation of a program.

One more final statistic: The Vols’ winning percentage with Lofton and Smith is .685 — that’s 85-39. Kentucky’s with Crawford and Bradley is .682, or 88-41.

“So, what’s the argument then, Ghost,” you may ask. “Aren’t wins and losses all that matter?”

Of course. But look deeper at those numbers. Mighty Kentucky — the proudest program east of the Mississippi — was 28-6 the year they arrived, the year they inherited the program. UT was 14-17.

This year? Kentucky is 16-10. Mighty Tennessee is 25-3. Thank you, Chris and JaJuan.

Ramar, you’ve got a long way to go to be mentioned with the guys on your right and left

Kentucky vs. Tennessee…Vols need this one bad!!!

Sunday is THE DAY for the Vols. Yes, I know all the hoopla was for the Memphis game, and then it was the Vandy game because it was the Vols first game as #1. Well we don’t need to go over whats already been said about that game, so we move on to Kentucky.

Tennessee is trying to win their first outright SEC regular season Championship in 41 years. The Vols can’t clinch it Sunday, but a win would go a long way toward sealing the deal, and a win would also mean Kentucky cannot pass UT in the standings. The game tips off at noon at Thompson-Boiling Arena, a place where Tennessee has won 30 in a row. Who was the last team to beat the mighty Vols at home? Yep. Kentucky.

Bruce Pearl will once again be decked in that beautiful orange blazer, maybe that will blur the vision of the Big Blue enough for the Vols to grab a victory of Ashley Judd’s beloved Wildcats. Now let me say this, at the beginning of the season when UK lost to Gardner-Webb and the powerhouse of San Diego, I wrote the Cats off. Bad idea. They have responded with some quality wins, including a win over the Vols at Rupp eariler this year. In my opinion, they still need another good win or two to make the tourney, and oh boy how another win over Tennessee would do the trick. Bruce Pearl knows how big this game is, and has been trying to sell his team on the importance of winning the SEC title, placing more emphasis on that rather than being ranked #1. He has pleaded for Big Orange faithful to bed down early Saturday night, and be pumped and ready to go at noon Sunday, even saying he would even go as far as giving students a pre-game meal if they got tucked in early Saturday night.

So this game is huge. HUGE! Kentucky will have confidence coming in, and Tennessee better be ready. I think the Vols will win, but it won’t be easy…not that it ever is in the SEC.