ACC Roundup - The Wake-Kentucky Spat Continues As Sarr Makes His Choice
It’s like a Real Housewives show lately.
After being courted by many schools, including Duke, Wake Forest transfer Olivier Sarr picked Kentucky on Thursday. This came as a disappointment to new Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes but as sweet payback to Big Blue Nation after Forbes seemed to mock the value of a Kentucky education compared to one from Wake Forest. Forbes said Saar was his #1 priority but so much for that.
Over at Kentucky Sports Radio, Matt Jones continues to mock Wake Forest, this time by going after Josh Graham, who has a Triad radio show although as far as we can tell, not the official Wake Forest show.
In fairness to Jones, Graham seems to have started it by insulting KSR and tweeting that “I think that we could do their radio show better than they could.”
Apparently Graham went after Kentucky by playing Dueling Banjos and mocking Jones’ accent.
Ironically, the song was written by Arthur Smith, who was born in South Carolina before he decided to upgrade by moving North of the Border to Charlotte so pointing it west at Kentucky seems kind of short-sighted.
One of the things about sports around here, as we’ve said before, is the that you have be more sophisticated because you have four ACC programs and the mutual animosity drives everything - but it’s not like Kentucky where everyone pulls for the same school. You can’t mock UNC too hard when your boss went to school there and if your spouse is a Duke fan, you really don't want to rag on Duke too much. Same principle works with State and Wake Forest.
Kentucky’s always been fair game for Duke and UNC though, so have at it Wake!
It’ll be fun to watch this food fight develop. Kentucky wins on numbers and on the court, but this is a fight that Wake could conceivably win. Certainly Graham seems okay with a fight. BBN is always up for a rumble and Jones doesn’t mind getting in front of the parade.
And while Kentuckiana seems to think they’re stomping Wake Forest into the ground, what they’re actually doing, surprisingly, is elevating Wake Forest to their level. So it’s been a heck of a start for Forbes. Maybe there is something to that crack about a Kentucky education.
Former ACC official Mike Eades has hung up his whistle and will become Coordinator of Men’s Basketball Officials for the SEC. We’re sure he’ll do well there but the complaints that the ACC is taking a big hit are kind of silly. At best he’s 1⁄3 of a crew. An individual official can be replaced and if the ACC’s vetting is good, he might get replaced with a great young ref. It’s not nearly as big a problem as some are making it out to be.
This could be fun: Virginia will face Villanova at Madison Square Garden next season. It’s always entertaining to see a team face Virginia and try to figure the defense out.
Here’s a weird thought: is Virginia still the defending champions? Not technically, but who else has a claim? No one, that’s who.
As the Courier-Journal points out, Louisville has gotten rid of just about everyone involved in the Adidas scandal....except Adidas. That’s a bit awkward.
Trey Jamison will be leaving Clemson after two years. He really didn’t do much there and probably won’t be missed very much, at least not on the court.
For anyone interested, here’s a look at how Syracuse’s renovation is coming along.