(AP photo/Jeff Chiu)

Kelenna Azubuike poured in 31 points last night in Golden State’s 146-105 win over the miserable Minnesota Timberwolves. The former UK star just missed his career-high of 33 against the L.A. Clippers in November of 2007.

In six games this year, Kelenna is averaging 15.5 points and 4.8 rebounds per game.

An excerpt from Rusty Simmons game story in the San Francisco Chronicle:

(Don) Nelson has said he’s going to keep Azubuike in the starting lineup “for a while,” and the forward made sure it’ll be a long while. He had 31 points - two points off his career high - in 29 minutes.

• Jennifer Smith of the Herald-Leader reports on UK women’s exhibition basketball win.
• Mark Story of the H-L thinks UK should keep Morgan Newton as the starting quarterback.
• Jerry Tipton writes on UK’s new shooting guard, Patrick Patterson.
• Chip Cosby reports that Rich Brooks sure doesn’t think Vandy is a gimme game.
• Wildcat Blue Blog is tracking the race to 2,000 wins.
• Brett Dawson of the C-J writes that Kentucky isn’t taking Vanderbilt lightly.
• Matt May of the Cats Pause writes on the UK quarterback quandry.
• B.W. Jones of the Kentucky Kernel writes on the Kentucky quarterbacks.
• Eric Lindsey of Cat Scratches writes that UK is banged up, but not broken.

• Larry Vaught of the Danville Advocate-Messenger writes on UK assistant Orlando Antigua.
• Tom Leach has notes from Brooks’ press conference plus video.
• Andy Hutchins at the Sporting Blog thinks Mississippi State will be the best team in the SEC.
• Inner Circle asks, what if Memphis had won the national championship?
• Wildcat-Den says the quarterback situation is wait-and-see.

• Ron Morris of The State doesn’t think that Steve Spurrier is washed up.
• Mr. College Football, Tony Barnhart, thinks it will be Alabama and Texas in the BCS title game.
• Kevin Brockway of the Gainesville Sun reports on Florida basketball winning its season tune-up.
• Don Kausler of the Birmingham News reports that Nick Saban thinks we should give the refs a break.
• David Climer of the Tennessean writes that criticizing refs is an easy call for some.
• Kevin Scarbinsky of the News writes on Bama quarterback Greg McElroy.
• David Brandt of the Clarion-Ledger writes on Ed Orgeron’s return to Oxford.
• John Adams of the Knoxville News-Sentinel writes that Ole Miss is a tough Nutt to crack.
• Randy Rosetta of The Advocate reports that LSU looks to regroup after loss to Alabama.
• Marc Weiszer of the Athens Banner-Herald writes on Georgia running back Washaun Ealey.

Andre Ware

We’re going to crank the MARs back up. (Don’t worry, we’ll get to we writers soon, promise.) With the Cats back on the SEC Network for Saturday’s football game at Vanderbilt, time to judge the network’s color analyst, former Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Andre Ware.

What say you on Andre, thumbs-up or thumbs-down?

Previously: Chris Fowler - Lee Corso - Bob Davie - Gary Danielson - Brent Musburger - Kirk Herbstreit - Todd Blackledge - Brandon Fisher - Brent Carney - Dan Rieffer - Rob Bromley - Alan Cutler - Kent Spencer - Dave Baker - Mary Jo Perino - Mike Cameron - Chris Cross - Dick Gabriel - Larry Glover.

• 7 p.m. — Isiah Thomas and Florida International takes on defending champs Roy Williams and North Carolina.
• 9 p.m. — Albany State travels over to Syracuse.
• 11 p.m. — Our state’s own Murray State is at California.

• That’s the end of the press conference.

• “The thing I think is critically important, as I mentioned, that extra month of practice is critical in the development of young players, particularly when they aren’t the ‘five-star’ players.”

• Says that Cobb could, at worst, play “in a small splint,” but could affect his receiving ability and his ability catch punts. Best-case scenario is that it settles down and he doesn’t have to wear a splint.

• Says Cobb’s body is “night-and-day better.”

• On Bobby Johnson, “I think he does a great job. He’s a guy that I met when he was coaching at Furman. He’s just a solid guy, no-nonsense fundamental. He’s obvisouly a guy who’s done a much better job than those who rank his recruiting classes. He’s done better job against certain teams than we’ve done.”

• Asked if Hartline’s return will do anything to Newton’s confidence. Brooks says no. Says that Newton better prepare as he has been preparing, that he’s going to be the guy.

• Says Mister Cobble has done good things, but they chose to redshirt him.

• “I don’t think anything is manageable this time of year,” when asked if Vandy is a more manageable road game.

• Asked about Ryan Mossokowski, says his strength is still not where it needs to be, but “his decision-making is pretty good. . . . I think that will be an interesting thing moving forward.”

• Vandy is throwing it more. “The other thing they did, they introduced a wildcat package with the freshman quarterback taking the direct snap.” Mackenzi Adams, “is a capable runner,” he’s not as good as Larry Smith, the freshman quarterback who was the Commodores’ starter before he got hurt.

• Says he likes the running back spot for the future. “They could all use an extra month of practice, if you will.”

• Said John Conner won’t play tight end, because he’s “not an on-the-line guy. He’s a move guy.” Means they like to put Conner in motion and block at point of attack.

• On Maurice Grinter, “You pretty much you know when you throw it to Maurice, he’s going to catch it. That’s never been the problem. The problem has been his blocking.”

• On Newton, “He still has a long way to go.”

• Said Newton through tight spots, rifle shots, and “much better accuracy and much better decision-making,” against Eastern, but part of that was because he was not going against an SEC defense.

• On Newton, “I see a guy who has always had some confidence, but had trouble adjusting to the speed of the decision-making.”

• Says he wants to make sure that Hartline won’t “be hobbling around,” this week in practice.

• Says “I think the Morgan Newton you saw Saturday was light years away from the Morgan Newton you saw in the Auburn game. That progress has been evident to us as we’ve gone through practice, the last two weeks particularly.”

• “You can go through any of those games we’ve played them and you can take one play, one play, and it’s the difference between winning and losing.”

• Says his point is that Vandy has never been an automatic win for Kentucky.

• Players said they haven’t gotten over Mississippi State game. Brooks says he wants to get them over that.

• Asked about quarterbacks by Chris Cross. Brooks says Hartline looked pretty good last week, and ran around a little Sunday. He says that Hartline will try to go through a full practice on Tuesday. Says Hartline was a lttle bothered running around Sunday.

• Says only game that Vandy’s defense got “gashed a little bit” was the Georgia Tech game.

• Says Vandy coach Bobby Johnson always puts on the field a sound, well-coached team.

• “This is a series, and a game, that has been as close as it can be, year-in and year-out.”

• Talks about the competitiveness of the series. UK leads series by one game.

• Randall Cobb will practice in a cast on Tuesday. His other ailments are “light years better than a week ago.” Says also that Derrick Locke will practice, and feels much better.

• Ross Bogue has a strained knee. Hopes to take some reps in practice on Tuesday. Gene McCaskill will probably miss practice because of a turf toe. Trevard Lindley suffered a regular ankle sprain Saturday, and will try to practice Tuesday.

• Brooks says that T.C. Drake will miss the Vady game with a pulled groin. He will miss 2-3 weeks.

• The UK-Georgia game will be at 7:45 p.m. on Nov. 21. It will be on either ESPN or ESPN2.

• Morgan Newton was named SEC Freshman of the Week.

• Rich Brooks is in the house. So we will getting started in a couple of minutes.

• Susan Lax wants to make sure we mention that the UK women’s team has an exibition game tonight at 7. And the women open the season Friday at 11 a.m. — yes, 11 a.m. — at Memorial Coliseum against Boston University. It’s the first women’s game of the college basketball season.

• Player interviews today were Alfonso Smith, Corey Peters and Calvin Harrison.

• Here at Wildcat Den. We’re getting ready to interview the players. I’ll have video of that later on today.

(H-L photo/Mark Cornelison)

Big Blue Links for Monday:

• Chip Cosby of the Herald-Leader reports that Rich Brooks bemoans UK’s injury list.
• My column saying that SEC football has that old familiar feeling.
• Zagsblog reports that Tobias Harris had a good visit to West Virginia.
• Rivals says UK basketball has the nation’s best frontcourt.
• Brett Dawson of the Courier-Journal writes that Morgan Newton has been strong in Mike Hartline’s absence.
• Larry Vaught of the Danville Advocate-Messenger is getting a lot of DeAndre Liggins questions.
• Cat Scratches reports on Jodie Meeks’ progress in the NBA.
• Brian Rickerd of the State-Journal writes on Kentucky’s win over Eastern Kentucky.
• Aaron’s UK Football Blog says Cats have lost a grid recruit to Nebraska.
• Wildcat-Den says UK football wants to finish the season on a high note.
• Wildcat Blue Blog is doing a “Meet the Wildcats” series.
• Inner Circle talks John Calipari and sustainability.

• Randy Rosetta of The Advocate reports that LSU has lost Charles Scott for remainder of regular season.
• Pat Dooley of the Gainesville Sun writes that Florida is what it is — unbeaten.
• Evan Woodbery of the Huntsville Times writes that Georgia and Auburn are close foes.
• Bill Bryant of the Huntsville Times writes that Julio Jones quickly made a bad Alabama game good.
• David Paschall of the Chattanooga Times Free Press writes that Alabama used passing game to beat LSU.
• Ray Melick of the Birmingham News writes that SEC officials can’t escape the shadow of doubt.
• David Climer of Tennessean says criticizing SEC officials is easy for some.
• Orange and Blue Hue says it will take Florida’s 27-3 win over Vandy.
• Rocky Top Talk hands out awards for Tennessee’s romp over Memphis.
• DawgSports says yes Georgia beat Tennessee Tech 38-0, but . . .