Before his junior season started, Nashville four-star receiver Shamar Porter and his parents wanted to make trips to several schools he was considering for his college career. However, they took a slightly different approach.
     Instead of driving to college campuses on different trips, the family rented an RV and traveled to several states on one trip to look at schools. One was Kentucky where he verbally committed on Jan. 28.
     “Those were basically my official visits. Me and my parents visited the school where I thought I should go before I committed,” said the 6-3, 180-pound Porter.
     He attended a camp at hometown Vanderbilt and then went to camps at Clemson, Georgia, Cincinnati and Kentucky along with a few other places.
     “It was really a fun thing to do. Dad wanted to try something different, so he just got us a RV when it was time to get serious about where I was going,” Porter said. “We drove to different schools and then back home. It was pretty much all football talk. I knew I had to make my decision because schools might not always wait on you because they have spots to fill.
     “We just came to the conclusion that Kentucky was right for me. I got along well with all the coaches. You can talk to coach (Mark) Stoops and feel comfortable and know you can trust him. I got along with other coaches at other schools but it just was a different connection at Kentucky.”
     He liked the Kentucky offense — Liam Coen was the offensive coordinator when he committed — along with the facilities to help develop NFL players.
     Porter is one of the highest ranked players in Tennessee and a top 30 prospect nationally at his position.
     He knows Kentucky freshmen Barion Brown, Destin Wade and Keaton Wade, who are also from Nashville. They once played on a 7-on-7 team together.
     “I have friends on all the top SEC teams and talked to them about college ball,” Porter said. “I have talked to Barion. He said I have nothing to

worry about. He made me feel not so pressured and let me know my time was coming. He lets me know things about practice, schemes, plays.”
     Porter says he is not a “hyped” player who will be screaming on the field.
     “I am more relaxed and just want to do my job,” he said.
     Brown has had a phenomenal freshman season at UK already going into UK's game against Iowa in the Music City Bowl in Nashville on Dec. 31. Porter is bigger (he is 6-3, Brown 5-11) but Brown is faster — he has a 100-yard kickoff return this season.
     “He is crazy fast. I raced him in the 100 (meter dash) last year. Once he catches the ball, he just takes off,” Porter said. “I have to try and make sure my routes are smoother.”
     In 2021 he had 33 catches for 495 yards and seven scores before a torn labrum kept him out of the postseason. He had 32 catches for 557 yards and 10 touchdowns in a 7-4 season when he said he was normally double or triple teamed. He also returned punts but said he would like kick returns to Brown at Kentucky.
     Porter ran the 100 in 10.87 seconds last track season and barely missed setting a school record, something he says he will “definitely” do this season. He will not enroll at UK in January because Ensworth does not let students graduate early. Porter is not worried about that leaving him behind others at UK.
     “My expectations at Kentucky are to make sure I get developed mentally and physically on and off the field not just for football but so I can grow as a man,” he said. “As a team, I want to play for my team. I am not selfish and into making highlights. I just want to do my job.”
     Even though he has been committed to Kentucky since January, teams have continued to reach out to Brown about flipping his commitment. Georgia and Tennessee have sent him more mail than any other schools.
     “It’s not as bad as before I committed when the mailman used to wrap letters in rubber bands and sometimes he could not even get it all in the mailbox,” Porter said. “I remember coming back from spring break and I had about 50 or 60 letters from 10 more schools that we spread out across the whole floor in my house.”
     Porter feels fortunate that his parents have been

Four-star receiver Shamar Porter, right, with UK freshman Barion Brown after Kentucky beat Louisville.

such good mentors for him. His father is a personal trainer and former body builder while his mom is a licensed therapist who helps with the “mental piece” of his game.
     “Dad helps me with physical stuff. We lift after school,” Porter said. “Mom works with me on psychological stuff on weekends. She really encourages me. I once wanted to go into sports medicine but now because of my mom I want to be maybe a therapist or sports psychologist.”

     For the fifth straight year, Kentucky volleyball had the Southeastern Conference’s Player of the Year when league coaches picked sophomore setter Emma Grome.
     Last weekend Grome helped UK beat Loyola-Chicago and Western Kentucky to reach this week’s NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen.
     Grome found out she had won the SEC’s top honor via social media.
     “I heard about it from Twitter and Instagram, but I was really honored and I think it shows a lot about our team,” Grome said after UK’s first NCAA win. “We have so many good hitters on this team and as I was able to do today, we keep it really balanced.
     “I think just having so many different options makes it really fun for me because I can have a little bit more freedom to be deceptive and I have a lot of confidence in my hitters, so they definitely help.”
     Grome has 1,200 assists in 28 matches along with 221 digs, 43 kills and 33 service aces. Kentucky has six players with 100 or more kills led by Reagan Rutherford (372) and Adanna Rollins (302).
     Coach Craig Skinner says the balance in the UK offense is a coach’s dream.
     “There are times I have no idea where Emma will set the ball and I have no idea I am pretty sure the (opposing) middle blockers don’t either,” Skinner said. “Having plenty of options makes (opposing) coaches spend time in the video room preparing for us but there really is no way to tell where Emma is going with the ball.”
     Kentucky will play San Diego Thursday at 8 p.m. EST in Palo Alto, Calif., on ESPNU San Diego advanced with 3-1 wins over Northern Colorado and Washington State while UK swept Loyola-Chicago and Western — the Cats have won five straight matches, all by sweeps. The Palo Alto regional final will be Saturday at 10 p.m. EST on ESPNU. Host Stanford and Houston meet in the other match Thursday.
     “We like going into someone's house and kind of taking over and that's a lot of fun and the routine is always the same there and we've tried to make sure that's the case at home as well,” Kentucky’s Azhani Tealer said. “So, testament to our coaching staff and how they keep things the same and it's fun to go in and kind of take someone's house over.”
     Grome said the main thing is just to keep focused on what lies ahead.
     “We played a very tough schedule to get us ready and we are playing our best right now,” Grome said. “Everybody is doing what they should be doing and that’s what just has to continue.”

     Kentucky likely is going to lose several players in the transfer portal and will be looking for help at various positions in the portal again. One priority will be the offensive line.
     “Simple answer, are we looking for a little bit of help in the portal at offensive line? Yes,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said.
     “There were times we underperformed, but I felt like they got a lot better as the year went on. I felt like some of that’s on us, the coaches. We got caught short at left tackle, had a left tackle (Dare Rosenthal) leave a year ago who decided to play in the NFL and didn’t make it. If he was here, we wouldn’t have to kick Kenneth (Horsey) out to left tackle and he would play inside. Then all of a sudden, you’re pretty stout.”
     The UK coach called it an “unfortunate decision” that Rosenthal, a LSU transfer, made because he did not make a NFL roster.
     “There are a lot of people in these young men’s ears and sometimes they listen to the wrong people,” Stoops said.
     Stoops said he felt good about returning center Eli Cox and guard Jager Burton.
     “Need some help at a couple positions, get a little bit of depth there from the portal, that would definitely help,” Stoops said.

     Kentucky is looking for depth at running back for the 2023 season and has found a new high school target in Akron running back Lamar Sperling, a Buffalo commit and Ohio Mr. Football in voting by the Ohio Prep Sportswriters Association.
     Hoban, 17, got his Kentucky offer after running for 358 yards in a state title game loss after he ran 38 times for 278 yards and four scores in a semifinal win.
     Kentucky was his first Southeastern Conference offer.
     "I know that Kentucky is full of dogs and full of coaches who want to better your craft. I also know they are very up front with you so that’s good," Sperling told Rivals.com.
     The 5-10, 190-pound Sperling insisted he was still committed to Buffalo but after running for 3,984 yards and 59 touchdowns this season — he also caught a touchdown pass — he has to at least wonder what playing at Kentucky might be like and recruiting coordinator Vince Marrow and has a knack for finding late gems in Ohio.

  Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week 1:

     “The UCLA-Kentucky game (on Dec. 17 in New York) will be one to watch. That won't be one for the faint of heart. That's two well-coached teams who will absolutely go at each other,” Bellarmine coach Scott Davenport after his team lost to both teams.

Quote of the Week 2:

     “I think we have very good options on our campus that are good, good players. Not a lot of experience, but good, good football players and they’re good leaders and good men,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops on his search for a new starting quarterback.

Quote of the Week 3:

     “It takes grit to want to go in there and know you're going to get bumped and pushed, and the only way you can get comfortable doing it is doing it. He's got to just go in there, and there's going to be some car crashes. The grit is between him being special,” UK coach John Calipari on senior forward Jacob Toppin.

     Kentucky assistant coach Orlando Antigua had a list of things that UK wanted to see Oscar Tshiebwe do better this year — shoot from 17 feet, pass better, make better decisions with the ball in his hand and play more consistently in space — to show he could do more than just play with his back to the basket.
     However, Antigua also knows there is a lot more to Tshiebwe than what he does on the basketball court even if he was national player of the year last season and is averaging 14.2 points, 13.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game while shooting 55.4 percent from the field.
     “He is such a unique player and person,” Antigua said. “He is so positive with anyone he meets. He makes it hard for anyone to take shots at him.”
     Antigua also understands that Tshiebwe has a journey planned that goes well beyond basketball.
     “He has a calling in his life to follow in father’s footsteps as a preacher,” the Kentucky assistant coach said. “He wants to say yes to anyone who asks him anything.
     “Part of his maturity is being able to tell people no when it comes at the expense of his time. He has to continue to work on that because he wants to help anyone he can or do whatever he can for anyone. It’s part of his calling that defines him in his mind a lot more than what he does on the basketball court.”seen him doing it for years. He’s that good,” Lowe said.