Before he was sure how talented Cason Wallace was on the basketball court, Richardson (Texas) High School coach Kevin Lawson knew he was going to be special.
     “It’s his character that I like better than anything. I would love Cason and think he was the best even if he was not good at basketball. He is a great kid,” said Lawson. “He is the type of kid, and I have been doing this a long time, who is special.
     “When he walks in and sees my wife and kids he says hello to them and gives my boys a high five. When he leaves he goes by and says goodbye to everyone. That is who he is and has nothing to do with him being one of the best players in the country.
     “I just knew he was special when he started doing that. He always takes time to give my wife a hug and say hello. I just like who he is.”
     Wallace (6-4, 185 pounds) is also a top 10 player in the 2022 recruiting class who plans to make his college choice Nov. 7. The leader for the combo guard seems to be Kentucky where he would join 2022 commits Skyy Clark, Shaedon Sharpe and

Chris Livingston. Wallace is a five-star recruit and one of the best backcourt defensive players in the 2022 recruiting class.
     “He’s just good at everything. He makes everyone else on the team better. He’s tough and will always guard the other team’s best player,” Lawson said. “He’s not a kid who will score 30 points. He can do that but he almost passes too much to make others better and does not put himself in position to score 30.      “You would think he has sticky on the end of his fingers. He just sucks the ball to him on deflections, rebounds. He’s just a winner and in defensive transition the way he blocks shots is off the charts. I have not seen anyone do what he does. You think a guy is going to get a layup or dunk and Cason will swallow him up.
     “He might be even better on defense than offense just because of the way he changes the game and frustrates the other team. Not many players can do that. But he’s so good it’s hard to say what he is really best at.”
     However, Lawson says fans at whatever school he picks are going to love his demeanor. He remembers a tailgate football fundraiser the basketball team did when Wallace was a sophomore. Players were bringing extra drinks from the parking lot to the basketball office.
     “My wife is in the office at my desk. The players sit down and a kid reaches in to take a soft drink. Cason said, ‘Hey, put that back. You didn’t pay for it.’ He was doing that because that is who he is,” Lawson said. “My wife, Kelly, could not wait to tell me about that. I tell that story to coaches recruiting him because that really tells who he is as a person even when nobody’s looking. That’s just who he is and why he’s special.”

     Kentucky will play at No. 1 Georgia Saturday afternoon and both ESPN Gameday and SEC Nation will be on hand for the game that will likely decide who wins the SEC Eastern Division. Both teams are unbeaten — the only SEC teams without a loss — and it will be the first time No. 11 UK has ever been part of a game in which both teams had at least a 6-0 record.
     Three years ago No. 9 Kentucky faced No. 6 Georgia for the SEC East championship at Kroger Field and the Bulldogs won 34-17.
     Linebacker DeAndre Square, UK’s leading tackler, remembers that game and insists it will be different this week.
     “We had a nice amount of star power (in 2018). but I don’t feel like we were ready for the moment. I feel like we’ll be ready for this moment. It’s a big week. The guys are ready,” Square said after UK beat LSU 42-21.
     Former all-SEC running back Anthony White believes Georgia might be more apprehensive about the game than Kentucky.

     “Georgia is probably more scared. We know how good Georgia is. We don’t even know yet how good we are,” White said. “Georgia knows about our pushing and shoving (running game) but now they have to wonder what else they have after the LSU win. We closed out that win against good SEC athletes.”
     Kentucky junior running back Chris Rodriguez, the SEC’s leading rusher with 759 yards (6.3 yards per carry), had 147 yards and one touchdown on 16 carries against LSU and also caught a touchdown pass.
     “We know what we have planned next weekend. We like to say we have a 24-hour rule, like yeah we just had a great win, but once the 24 hours are up, it’s on to the next one,” Rodriguez said. “I’d say everybody is clued into what we want to do, and everybody wants to win. It’s a player-led team, and rather than the coaches having to get us hyped or anything, I feel like we know what we’ve got to do to win.”

     After Woodford County kicked a late field goal to beat Franklin County, Woodford coach Dennis Johnson reached out to Franklin junior running back Kaden Moorman on the field.
     “I told him one day he is going to make a lot of money playing football,” said Johnson, a former all-SEC defensive end at Kentucky. “He’s a big-time talent. He has a Power-5 body and moves.”
     Johnson said knowing a team has to stop Moorman, who verbally committed to UK last week, is one thing. Doing it is another as he has 777 yards and 14 touchdowns on 92 carries in seven games along with 10 receptions for 124 more yards. He also returned kickoffs for touchdowns against Ballard and Woodford. On defense, he has a fumble recovery and 12 tackles.
     “He reminds me of guys in the NFL who you can close the front hole and he has that innate ability to slide and regain his feet and speed at 210 pounds,” Johnson said. “That’s the one thing that really jumps out about him.
     “When you are a star player, teams figure out how they think they can stop you. But he has such a good slide step and regains his feet and speed so quick that it doesn’t always work even when you think you have him stopped.
     “That’s why I told him he has a chance to make a lot of money. He catches

the ball out of the backfield. He returns kicks. He can play corner(back) and lock up receivers. He plays on special teams.”
     Johnson said the UK commit reminds him of former UK running back Derek Homer with the way he runs and break tackles.
     “Except he is bigger than Derek now,” Johnson said. “You can tell he enjoys the game and is in love with the process. There are a lot of good running backs in Kentucky but he has God-given talent. He possesses all the skills you want a great running back to have.”
     Johnson watched Moorman break a kickoff return for a touchdown against Ballard. He wanted to squib kick the ball tto start the second half of their game but the kick went too far.
     “I knew immediately we were in trouble. We have a couple of kids who run pretty well and they could not close on him at all,” Johnson said. “Once he hit that crease, it was over. I knew he had speed but maybe not that much speed to be that big.
     “He’s will be a guy that by the time he’s a sophomore at UK will be another version of Chris Rodriguez. He is big now and imagine when they get him on a weight and meal program. He will be 225, keep that speed and just be special.”

     UK Radio Network analyst Mike Pratt, a former Kentucky All-American, says the lack of preseason buzz for basketball this year is understandable and no cause for concern.
     “There has been a hangover from last season. Fans have not lost faith but they still cannot comprehend last season. I do think a lot of fans are excited about what Cal did in the offseason, but don’t want to be fooled like they were last year,” Pratt said.
     “Football buzz was always in August and September. If football stumbles early, talk turns to basketball. This football team had a little more juice. It was an attractive team to start the season with a new coordinator, new quarterback, new juice.”
     So will there soon be more “juice” for this basketball season?
     “A dead man would have more juice than we had last year,” Pratt joked. “Nobody was more disappointed with last season than (John) Calipari. He was

torn up about the year. I think he took the necessary steps to get the train back on the track. I don’t know how far the train will do but I can assure you it will not be a year like last year.”
     Pratt said the “pieces didn’t fit last year” for Calipari’s team and that it does not matter whose fault that was.
     “Pieces that did not fit left,” Calipari said. “(Davion) Mintz stayed and he delivered last year. When you have a turnover in players, you either fix the problem or you don’t get it fixed no matter who the players are.
     “You cannot judge this group against last year’s group except when they start playing. It sure looks to me like the pieces fit a lot better. I am not saying they will win a national championship. Who knows about that? There are a lot of good teams out there. I think it will be a dogfight to see who wins the championship but Kentucky has players to have a chance to do that this year.”
     Big Blue Madness is this Friday night.

     Recent American Idol contestant Alex Miller of Garrard County will sing the national anthem before the Kentucky-Tennessee game Nov. 6 at Kroger Field and the life-long UK fan can’t wait.
     “Kentucky contacted my publicist and I was jumping up and down when I found out it was the Tennessee game,” Miller, a recent Garrard County High School graduate, said. “I would say I will be pretty nervous but I will feel right at home. Kentucky is the team I rooted for all my life.
     “I have been to UK football games. I enjoy watching Kentucky football and for me to get to be part of a game is just unbelievable. But it is a lot of pressure. If you mess up the national anthem everybody knows.”
     Miller recently released a new single — “Don’t Let The Barn Door Hit Ya.” It’s on over 650 jukeboxes in Texas Roadhouse restaurants across the nation

because he is the chain’s October Artist of the Month.
     He also got to open for Hank Williams Jr. at the Wisconsin State Fair and for Josh Turner at the Kentucky State Fair.
     “It is more great exposure for me to get to sing the national anthem at Kentucky,” he said. “Maybe I will pick up some new fans who enjoy my music.”
     He’s traveling and performing full time across the country.
     “The craziest thing so far is when I was flying from Detroit to Seattle and as I was getting off the plane the pilot said, ‘Are you the boy from American Idol?’ He said he was a big fan and had to get a picture for his daughter,” Miller said. “But I love that and can’t wait to get to sing in front of all those Kentucky fans before Kentucky plays Tennessee.”

     Johnson Central assistant coach Justin Arms says when Grant Bingham was a freshman he was the team’s best offensive lineman and he knew then Bingham had a chance to be a special player.
     “His sophomore year was his coming out party, especially the state championship game against Boyle County. Some blocks he laid that sprang our backs caught the eyes of a lot of college coaches,” Arms said. “Boyle County was loaded with talent and the coaches were there to see them but they got to see Grant really put on a show.”
     The senior offensive lineman is a UK commit and will enroll at Kentucky in January.
     “Grant is a blue collar guy. He works tremendously hard in practice, the weight room and on game night,” Arms said. “He has fantastic natural ability and tremendous lateral agility.
     “Grant played basketball and is also very good in tennis. You might look at him and think he looks like a banker but when you line up and the ball is snapped Grant is going to make some people wish they were not across from him. He’s just a great kid and I think he will be a great player for Kentucky.”

  Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week 1:

     “So we can play with anybody. But we can't get ahead of ourselves either. This game will humble you, you have an opportunity to be humbled every seven days,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops on his team’s 6-0 start.

Quote of the Week 2:

     “UK fans are not always known for being that loud and excited from start to end. It was really a great atmosphere. The other schools we have gone to you see that from the beginning of the game to the end. This was a great game for him to attend,” Nicole Key, mother of UK recruiting target Dane Key, on the UK-Florida atmosphere.

Quote of the Week 3:

     “Woke up this morning w/a smile on my face thinking about @UKFootball. What @UKCoachStoops, his staff and those players are accomplishing is a testament to team and perseverance. This has truly been an amazing climb over the last nine years. Can’t wait to see how this all unfolds!” UK basketball coach John Calipari after Kentucky’s win over LSU.