Kentucky freshman guard TyTy Washington just kept impressing not only basketball analysts but college coaches the more he played last season for Arizona Compass Prep.
     Count NBA draft analyst Matt Babcock, who writes for www.basketballnews.com, among those who did not fully appreciate Washington early last season. Kentucky coach John Calipari and his staff were in the same category because Nolan Hickman Jr. was the point guard they targeted and signed. It was not until Hickman asked out of his commitment that UK went all-in on Washington late in the spring. He signed with UK on May 12.
     So what changed so much with Washington, a one-time Creighton commit, from November to March?
     “When I saw TyTy play at the Pangos All-American Festival last November I think he was a bit overshadowed by some of the higher rated players at the time,” said Babcock. “I really value attending events like those because it gives me an opportunity to evaluate a lot of different players at once.
     “However, the downside is that oftentimes star players dominate the ball in live-play, so naturally a lot of players do get overlooked to a certain extent. When I saw TyTy play against Emoni Bates’ team in March, he was allowed to be himself and run the show. As a result, he shined brightly.”
     Babcock compared the 6-3, 190-pound Washington to former NBA standout Chauncey Billups and says that was intended to be “high praise” for the UK freshman.
     “Now that I’ve gotten to know TyTy and his game so well, I still stick by that statement. TyTy has solid size for a point guard, he’s as tough as nails, shoots the ball with range, and his court awareness and presence are special,” Babcock said. “He also has ice in his veins and doesn’t get rattled. All of which are just like Billups.”
     Babcock believes because Washington was a “late bloomer” and there was limited media coverage due to the pandemic combined to factor into why he was not higher ranked in his recruiting class. However, Babcock has no doubts about his ability.

     Recent Kentucky football commit Tomiwa Durojaiye, a defensive lineman from Delaware, always loved football but in middle school he only played basketball.
     “Football was always the most attractive sport to me and was the game I felt I could use to change the lives of my family and generations to come,” he said. “I played football in fifth grade and then picked it back up in ninth grade. The love was still there.”
     He will not be the highest ranked signee in UK’s 2022 recruiting class but predicts the best is yet to come because of his relatively late start.
     “One of the scary things about me is I have not really scratched the surface of my potential,” he said. “I can be a dominant player but even I do not know how dominant of a player I can be.
     “Everything will work itself out. I am focusing on little things. You can have goals and think about them so much and then get sidetracked. I am more in love with the grind and hungry. That’s the approach I take. I can’t tell guys what to do, but I can lead by example and action.”
     However, he does have lofty expectations/goals.
     “Hopefully I will be one of the best defensive players and get Kentucky to places no one expected like the SEC championship and playoffs,” Durojaiye, who plans to enroll at UK in January, said. “I really do believe that.”
     He has off-field aspirations, too.
     “Just becoming a better person,” Durojaiye said. “At Kentucky, the player development and academic staff, they won’t let me short-change myself and that was one thing that attracted me to Kentucky. The coaching staff, their resumes are perfect and I feel like the best spot that can help me reach my goals. I mean their motto is recruit and develop so I know I can go in there to have a chance to improve and develop on and off the field.”

     Kentucky All-American catcher Kayla Kowalik and teammates Tatum Spangler, Lauren Johnson, Renee Abernathy and Alexia Lacatena recently spent time coaching and mentoring youth softball teams.
     Jay Ising, one of the youth coaches, was impressed with Kowalik’s demeanor.
     “Kayla is a strong leader and she commands the diamond even on a day like this. She has fun with the girls but expected them to play hard and hustle. She is so awesome,” Ising said.
     Her teammates impressed the youth coach, too.
     “All five took so much time with each of our teams and really worked on pitching, catching, fielding. It was an awesome day for our teams and girls,” Ising said.
     Kowalik hopes what impressed the players the most is how “normal” all the UK players were.
     “We can come out with them just like normal people,” Kowalik said. “People put us on pedestals. They look up to us but I also look up to them and how much fun they have playing softball. They play because it is fun. I play because it is a job. College softball really is a job.
     “I grew up loving softball. You do not do this if you don’t love it. You put in 20-plus hours per week in practice and weights. You have to work. That’s why I love to get out and just teach softball to young players who just love the game.”

     Will Levis dreams of being a NFL quarterback, one big reason he transferred from Penn State to Kentucky to play under offensive coordinator Liam Coen. However, Levis tried just about every sport growing up before settling on football as his best sport.
     “I started off with soccer like everyone else because that’s all you could play at an early age. Then I started football but I also tried wrestling, basketball, lacrosse and baseball. I ran track in high school,” he said. “I think playing all those sports growing up was really good for me from a development standpoint and for my motor skills. I learned how to move efficiently and changing sports allows you to move in ways that are not necessarily prominent in another sport.”
     Levis thinks it is “extremely” important for youngsters to play multiple sports and regrets not playing more sports in high school.
     “I only played baseball for two years and then ran track to get faster. I would like to have played basketball and maybe baseball for another year. That is one thing I would change if I could go back to high school,” the UK quarterback said.
     He played shortstop and third base in baseball and said that was actually his second best sport.
     “I was more of a hitter. I could hit the 'blank' out of the ball,” he joked. “I loved going to batting cages or just hitting BP (batting practice). I don’t think there is a better feeling in sports than catching one square on the barrel (of the bat).”
     The feeling he had after UK’s 45-10 victory last week over Louisiana Monroe was special, too. He completed 18 of 26 passes for 367 yards and four touchdowns. It was the most passing yards for a player in his first UK game and most passing yards for any UK quarterback since Patrick Towles threw for 390 in 2014. It was also the most passing touchdowns in one game since Drew Barker threw four in the first game in 2016.
     “You could see that he’s all that he’s been advertised for with his arm strength,” coach Mark Stoops said.

     No player was happier to be starting for Kentucky against Louisiana Monroe than senior tackle Abule Abadi-Fitzgerald. It was his first start after playing in 18 previous games and he had four tackles.
     His moved from Nigeria to Florida at age 12. He was a basketball player but started playing football in high school. He was adopted by his basketball coach and his wife, sat out his junior year when he changed high schools and then got a scholarship offer from UK and others as a senior.
     Defensive line coach Anwar Stewart has praised Abadi-Fitzgerald since preseason workouts started and the senior credits the coach for building his mental toughness.
     “He doesn’t go easy on anybody when it comes to that. He’s always onto me

about the little things and trying to help me get better, more mentally tough,” Abadi-Fitzgerald said before making his first start. “I think that part especially has really helped me elevate my game. The more mentally tough I got, the better I was able to play and the less I was able to think and the more confidence I was building.”
     Abadi-Fitzgerald admitted he had been looking forward to starting in the line with tackle Josh Paschal and nose guard Marquan McCall, two other seniors.
     “They’re not just my teammates, they’re my brothers. We’re always trying to build each other up and try to help each other, so when we’re on the field together we play for each other,” Abadi-Fitzgerald said.

     Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart says adding Oklahoma and Texas to an already potent Southeastern Conference is just part of the “ever changing” college athletics landscape that schools have to learn to adjust to.
     “They are remarkable programs and bring incredible resumes to a really deep league,” Barnhart said. “Our coaches are going ‘Oh boy. It just got tougher.’ But if you win something, it will be incredibly special.”
     While the emphasis has been on what impact adding those teams will have on football, both Texas and Oklahoma are strong in a lot of sports just like most SEC teams.
     “It is not lost on those programs (Texas and Oklahoma) that they are walking into a deep league,” Barnhart said. “We have to figure out traveling and scheduling challenges and what does that mean to each team (in different sports).
     “You continue to be who you are and not lose the culture of our program. We have to make sure we don’t lose our work ethic and we will be fine.”
     won national championships in rifle and volleyball last year. The women’s swim team won the SEC title for the first time. Golfer Jensen Castle recently won the U.S. Women’s Amateur. Former and current Cats earned medals at the Tokyo Olympics.
     Barnhart noted the longevity overall of head coaches at Kentucky and how that has added to momentum for the UK athletics department.
     “You don’t want to get left out. Our programs have championed one another,” Barnhart said. “No one wants to get left out. We are remarkably positioned in many of our sports and I am excited about that. It is about culture and not getting left out of this thing.”

  Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week 1:

     “I’ve met a ton of college coaches over the years. Some are great, others lie every time their lips move. There has never been a more decent human than Tubby Smith,” Rivals.com college basketball recruiting analyst David Sisk on former UK coach Tubby Smith.

Quote of the Week 2:

     “You could tell she was a freshman and leaned heavy on Kayla (Kowalik) to work through meeting people. She said she has not seen anything like BBN and how welcoming they have been. However, she has the look of a strong player that will show out,” Aftershock Softball coach Jay Ising after UK freshman pitcher Alexia Lacatena, a member of the Italian Olympic team, helped coach/mentor his players.

Quote of the Week 3:

     “The Big Dog, we are going to cut him off. What are we going to do? He gets a lot of good sound bites. Good for the media, bad for me. No, he’s good for me 98 percent of the time,” UK coach Mark Stoops on associate coach Vince Marrow’s media quotes.