A day for good bye and goodbyes

[Radiated]

A day for good bye and goodbyes
UK looking like UK as rivalry is renewed
By Jerry Tipton
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
There's a reason today marks the seventh straight regular season that ends with a Kentucky-Florida game. They continue to be the Southeastern Conference's marquee teams.

Though for the first time no championship is at stake, the game is still freighted with customary significance.

Most obviously, the winner gets the second and last first-round bye in next week's Southeastern Conference Tournament. Only once since the league expanded to 12 teams and split into divisions in 1992 has a team played in the first round and won the tournament: Arkansas in 2000.

So winning four games in four days can be done. Not that Kentucky wants to try to duplicate the feat. "It's tough," UK Coach Tubby Smith said on Friday. "But we can do it if we have to."

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/sports/colleges/university_of_kentucky/14021371.htm

[Radiated]

Piece of Africa in Gator's heart
CATS HAVE TO CONTAIN NOAH, OTHER BIG MEN
By Jerry Tipton
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Many eyes will be on Florida center Joakim Noah, whose then career-high 26 points helped beat Kentucky last month. But two sets of eyes in Rupp Arena today figure to be especially trained on Noah: his father, former professional tennis star Yannick Noah, and his grandfather, Zacharie, a soccer player good enough in his younger days to play for his native Cameroon in the 1961 French Cup.

Noah's father and grandfather went to Gainesville on Wednesday to watch him score 37 points and grab 11 rebounds in a victory over Georgia. They heard the crowd chant his name in appreciation.

Now comes a different setting and a different greeting.

"I don't think they've ever experienced anything like Rupp," Noah told reporters after the game. "I'm going to get it pretty bad up there."

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/sports/colleges/university_of_kentucky/14021374.htm