UK Basketball Moves On

Well, consider me speechless. What a game! Just when I was ready to write this season off as a huge disappointment, the Cats come back with a great second half to knock off the only team that has ever gone 35 – 0 in NCAA history. I don’t care if Wichita had a soft schedule. They were an excellent team and Big Blue Nation should be proud.

UK has spent most of the season playing like the freshmen they are, but it seems like we are maturing just at the right time. We put up a good fight against Florida last week, and we have looked great in the tournament so far. I guess that is how it works when you bring in a new bunch of players every year – sometimes it takes them a while to get it together!

We will need to keep on gelling, though, because the road only gets harder from here. Louisville has been sloppy in the tournament so far, but they are a better all around team than Wichita and our old friend Slick Rick Pitino knows how to win in the Sweet 16. How great would it be to stick it to him this week? I can’t wait.

UK Basketball

Sometimes making it to the top just means you have a longer way to fall. UK basketball fans are learning that the hard way this year, as the Wildcats have become the first team ever to fall completely out of the Top 25 after being ranked number one in the preseason. For me, there’s no question who to blame: Coach Calipari.

I know, I know. I sound like a spoiled brat complaining about a Coach who brought us a national championship only two years ago. But every time I watch the team this year, they make mistakes that a good coach would never allow. They don’t share the ball, they turn the ball over, and they are lazy on defense. They are lucky that the SEC is so weak this year, or else they would be in real danger of missing the tournament.

There’s no question that Calipari is an expert recruiter, perhaps the best in college basketball. (He’s so good that I wonder if he bends the rules a bit.) But his weaknesses as an in-game coach and motivator are more evident this year than ever. Even in an NCAA where the best players all bolt for the NCAA after one year, coaches need to be more than just salesmen and recruiters. They can’t forget to actually coach!

Now Calipari is claiming that he made some “tweak” to the offense that will change everything. I’ll believe it when I see it. Watching UK basketball this year has reminded me of that age old lesson: don’t believe the hype.

The NRA is the Mitch McConnell of gun groups

The right to bear arms is one of the most important rights that we have in this country. I’ve been following the gun issue for decades, and I’m old enough to remember when the NRA supported gun control in the 1960s (They actually still support gun control…but more on that later.) So you can rest assured that I know how to tell the difference between a politician who really knows his stuff on guns, and one who is faking it.

I wonder if you can guess which of those two categories applies to my Senator here in Kentucky, Mitch McConnell.

That’s right. Mitch McConnell is a gun phony.

If that wasn’t clear before, it sure is now that he wandered out on stage holding a rifle at CPAC the other day. You’ve probably seen the pictures -- he had this glassy look in his eyes, as if he had wandered off from a group of tourists. He was holding the gun uncomfortably, like he had never touched one before. I guarantee you he couldn’t have gotten that gun to fire properly if his life depended on it.

Yet this is the man the NRA is supporting in the Kentucky Republican primary. How could that be? Why would a group that supposedly defends gun rights align themselves with such a phony?

The answer is simple: power and greed.

The truth is that the NRA and Mitch McConnell have a lot in common. They both pretend to be part of the conservative movement, but they are only interested in stuffing their pockets. They both pretend to protect the constitutional rights of Americans, but behind our backs they are busy making deals with the Democrats to give themselves more power. Make no mistake -- McConnell and the NRA are both Washington fat cats.

And that is why the NRA is supporting him over Matt Bevin, despite the fact that Mitch McConnell looks about as natural holding a gun as Barack Obama does throwing a baseball in mom jeans.

A lot of my hunting buddies hate it when I talk bad about the NRA. They think that it is okay for NRA leaders to make compromises with Democrats and pay themselves million dollar salaries as long as they fight against gun control laws.  So I will ask you the same things that I ask them:

Do you really think that a gigantic Washington lobbying group supports limited government?

Do you really think an organization that makes millions lobbying on gun issues wants the problem of gun control to go away permanently?

I don’t think so. If gun control were no longer a problem, everyone at the NRA would be out of a job!

Until conservatives refuse to be pandered to by people like McConnell and the NRA, the problems in our country aren’t going to get any better. Conservative gun owners need to embrace the truth – the NRA is part of the problem, just like Mitch McConnell.