MLILY Mattresses in Lexington, KY

Kentucky has finally posted its official nonconference schedule for the 2023-24 basketball season. The team twitter accounted released the full and action-packed slate to the public, which notes dates and locations for each matchup.

Take a look:

Nov. 6: New Mexico State (home)Nov. 10: Texas A&M Commerce (home) | Wildcat ChallengeNov. 14: Kansas (Chicago, IL) | Champions ClassicNov. 17: Stonehill (home) | Wildcat ChallengeNov. 20: Saint Joseph’s (home) | Wildcat ChallengeNov. 24: Marshall (home)Nov. 28: Miami (FL) (home) | ACC/SEC ChallengeDec. 2: UNC Wilmington (home)Dec. 9: Penn (Philadelphia, PA)Dec. 16: North Carolina (Atlanta) | CBS Sports ClassicDec. 21: Louisville (away)Dec. 29: Illinois State (home)Feb. 10: Gonzaga (home)

After some complaints in recent years about an underwhelming out-of-conference schedule, especially at Rupp Arena, the Big Blue Nation has to be happy with this lineup. Excitement for the fanbase may mean added stress for John Calipari, who is looking at an absolute gauntlet of a schedule.

First off, the SEC is as strong as it’s ever been on the hardwood, while this nonconference slate features home blockbusters vs. Miami and then Gonzaga in the middle of conference play. Then the ‘Cats leave Lexington to play North Carolina and Kansas in annual multi-team events.

Kentucky also gets some real breaks, too. Louisville won just four games last season and make for an ideal first true road test, since beating them shouldn’t be much of one. New Mexico State kicks off the season and they haven’t played basketball since Feb. 8 since the team was disbanded over a nasty hazing scandal. There’s two pretty easy wins.

Additionally, the game against Illinois State is somewhat local (or at least regional), but the real reason ISU comes to town is Kentucky’s senior star, Antonio Reeves, who played three seasons with the Redbirds before transferring to Kentucky.

Lastly, there’s also Stonehill, a little-known hoops school out of Easton, MA that’s entering its second year at the Div. 1 level. The Skyhawks actually had a solid first year playing in the NEC, where they tied for second at 10-6 with Fairleigh Dickinson, who wound up beating Purdue as a 16-seed. Plus, coach Chris Kraus was named the lague’s Coach of the Year.

Overall, Kentucky is facing one of the premier schedules in the entire country, and it includes a slew of high-profile matchups outside of league play.

Kentucky logged a rare South Florida recruiting win on Friday when four-star prospect Hardley Gilmore committed to the Wildcats. For the third recruiting cycle in a row, UK has landed a blue-chip receiver.

The Pahokee (Fla.) High wideout reclassified from the 2025 class into 2024 over the summer and took official visits to Kentucky, Penn State, and UCF. Miami also threw its hat in the ring in August. But in the end, UK was able to hang onto this outside receiver who glides across the football field.

Let’s step into the KSR Film Room to see what Gilmore can bring to Lexington. The top-300 recruit flashes good movement skills leading to early wins, created separation, plus-level ball skills, and potential as a vertical target.

Release equals wins

A lot goes into making a good wide receiver. However, it’s hard for any wide receiver to be good if they can’t get off the line of scrimmage. Hardley Gilmore can get off the line of scrimmage.

The long-limbed prospect shows some wiggle off the line helping him stack cornerbacks and create separation.

Gilmore wins early and that allows him to be a deep threat on the outside. Once winning at the line, the four-star prospect does a good job of ball tracking by finding the pass in the air and reeling it down. The route tree is limited for the 2024 commit, but the film leads you to believe that the Pahokee (Fla.) High product can develop into a strong route-runner. Gilmore can get off the line and shows some strong change of direction when asked to bend a vertical route inside without breaking stride.

Finishes routes with ball skills

Getting open is only worth so much. Wide receivers have to finish passes with receptions. On an assortment of reps, Hardley Gilmore flashes excellent ball skills with good hand-eye coordination. Whether in close coverage or avoiding the sideline, Gilmore is a good finisher with strong hands.

Whether in traffic down the sideline on a vertical throw, tight roping while reaching for an off-target pass, or reeling in a fade in the low red zone, Gilmore does a great job looking the ball in and completing the catch. The four-star prospect can make tight window plays and that will help instill confidence in his quarterback and play-caller.

The hand-eye coordination and ball skills combo is excellent.

Outside receiver with playmaking potential

On tape, Hardley Gilmore plays in a spread offense that adopted many concepts from Art Briles‘ veer-and-shoot scheme. The high school prospect wins consistently by getting off the line of scrimmage and having a ton of space to run into. Kentucky will ask the prospect to become a more refined player in their pro-style scheme, but the skill set is undeniable.

Gilmore has more than enough speed to be a vertical threat and flashes suddenness as a route-runner that raises his development ceiling. The plus ball skills, impressive ball tracking, and good catch radius only increase his potential at the next level. The wide receiver could become an excellent double-move weapon thanks to his movement skills, catch radius, and ball skills. Thanks to his ability to get off the line, the blue-chipper might even be able to play some X receiver into the boundary.

Hardley Gilmore is a strong recruiting win for Kentucky with a translatable skill set that might be able to make an impact early. I would like to see more run-after-catch plays with tackle-breaking on tape, but there is no denying that this is a legit high Power Five level receiver target with WR1 potential in a good college offense.

Rhyne Howard is arguably the most decorated player to come through the Kentucky women’s basketball program. In 114 career games, the 6-2 guard racked up 2,290 points, 789 rebounds, 3334 assists, 262 steals and 109 blocks for averages of 20.1 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 2.8 APG, 2.3 SPG and 1.0 BPG. She was a three-time All-American and two-time SEC Player of the Year before being selected No. 1 overall in the 2022 WNBA Draft — the first Wildcat to come off the board first.

Frankly, you don’t do it better than Rhyne Howard did in four years of college basketball.

And she continued that dominance in the pros, earning WNBA Kia Rookie of the Year and AP Rookie of the Year honors while also being named a WNBA All-Star in her first season. Overall, the star Wildcat now with the Atlanta Dream averaged 16.2 points while adding 4.5 rebounds and 2.8 assists per contest. It’s been more of the same in year two, averaging 17.8 points, 4.7 rebounds and 3.2 assists in 32 games played.

She’s accomplished just about as much as you can in the sport individually, certainly making her hometown of Cleveland, Tennessee proud. That’s why the city is honoring Howard with a road named after her — and her former coaches were there to celebrate the moment.

Current Kentucky coach Kyra Elzy and former coach Matthew Mitchell traveled down to Cleveland for the unveiling of Rhyne Howard Drive, the moment shared with Howard and her family.

Honoring Howard’s historic careers at Bradley Central and Kentucky

Rhyne Howard Drive is located in front of her old high school, Bradley Central, in Bradley County. It’s where she was named Tennessee Gatorade Player of the Year and Miss Tennessee Basketball before her historic career at Kentucky and ongoing success in the WNBA.

“Nothing but the man above,” Howard said on social media after the unveiling. “Truly blessed. Now who wanna take a drive?”

It was an honor handed down by the House of Representatives in Tennessee.

“Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the one hundred twelfth general assembly of the state of Tennessee, the Senate concurring, that we honor and congratulate Rhyne Howard upon being selected first in the 2022 WNBA Draft, salute her outstanding basketball career at Bradley Central High School and the University of Kentucky, and wish her much continued success as she competes in the WNBA.”

Doesn’t get much better than that.

More than a decade after it was displaced from the Old Fayette County Courthouse, the Lexington History Museum has found a new home in another historic Lexington landmark.

The museum, which also goes by the name LexHistory, held a ribbon cutting Saturday at the Dr. Thomas Hunt Morgan House at 210 North Broadway.

“We are thrilled to welcome visitors and share Lexington’s incredible history,” Executive Director Amanda Higgins said in a news release. “Lexington deserves a museum where all our history—the known and unknown, the celebratory and the cautionary—can be told. I’m proud to be a part of bringing this valuable asset back to the community.”

From learning about the work of Lexington-born Nobel Prize winner Dr. Thomas Hunt Morgan to an exhibit explaining why IBM chose to locate in Lexington, “even if you’ve lived here your whole life, you’re going to find something you didn’t know about,” Higgins said in an interview.

Board Chairman Jim Dickinson said Saturday marked a major step in the museum’s “journey back to visibility and impact in our community.”

“We are very excited to be open to the public, but you know, this is only the beginning,” he said.

In 2025, he said the city will celebrate the 250th anniversary of its founding, and the museum will play a big part in that.

The Lexington History Museum struggled after it was forced to leave the old courthouse in 2012 because asbestos and other hazards were found. Over the years, it relied on volunteers and part-time employees, took its resources online and hosted pop-up exhibits in temporary locations.

“We did not give up,” Dickinson said Saturday.

Under an agreement with the city, the museum has created a five-year strategic plan that included hiring a full-time director and leasing space. As long as the organization meets certain benchmarks, the city will provide $270,000 in funding each year for the three years, the Herald-Leader reported after the lease was signed in November.

The Thomas Hunt Morgan House is owned by the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation, which also has its administrative offices there, and Higgins said the partnership is already proving beneficial.

“This work started the moment we had to close our doors at the old courthouse. For 10 years, we’ve been working to find a home,” Higgins said Saturday. “Ten months ago, I started in this position, and we’ve worked hours and hours and weeks and months to make sure that we are representing Lexington history in a place where people can find and see themselves and understand how the city developed, where we are today and where we can go in the future.”

The museum will be open noon to 4 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays.

Admission is $10 with children under 5 admitted free. The organization says special rates are available for groups, seniors and members of the military, and school and group tours are available by appointment.

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The Lexington Herald-Leader’s 2023 College Football Preview will be published in the print edition on Sunday, Aug. 27. Click below to view all the stories that have been published on Kentucky.com.

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Things will go wrong. That’s what things do. There will be a key injury. Or a rash of injuries. Or a bad break. Or a bad call. We don’t know for sure what will happen this 2023 football season, but we know adversity will occur.

It happened last season to Mark Stoops’ Kentucky Wildcats. Quarterback Will Levis missed one game and was limited in others by a foot injury. Problems surfaced on the offensive line. Key kicks were missed. Balls bounced the wrong way. The Cats dropped home games to South Carolina and Vanderbilt. Their SEC record was 3-5.

“We didn’t respond well to adversity,” head coach Mark Stoops said afterward. “And that’s on me.”

So what about this season? With Kentucky in preparation for the Sept. 2 opener against Ball State, does Stoops believe these Wildcats are better prepared for the bad things to come?

“I do,” the coach said after his team’s second fall scrimmage. “We all have to take a good look at ourselves year to year. I never pretended to put it all on any one group. Ultimately, I have to get that out of them. As I mentioned in week one, I have to do a better job and I’ve got to just put my foot down and demand it out of them.”

Teammates must also demand it from teammates. This is Stoops’ 11th season. Consistency compounds. Older players are expected to teach the culture to younger players through deeds and words.

Example: Kentucky’s defense. Brad White enters his fifth year as UK’s defensive coordinator. Last season, White’s defense ranked 11th nationally in points allowed per game and 12th in yards allowed. His players know what to expect and what’s expected.

“There were some plays that you watched as a whole defense where guys didn’t live up to our standards,” White said after the team’s first scrimmage.

Listen to Trevin Wallace, the junior linebacker moving from a reserve role to a starter, replacing DeAndre Square, who graduated.

“We had DeAndre Square and Jacquez Jones,” Wallace said recently of UK’s two veteran starters at inside backer a year ago. “They always told us, ‘When we leave, it’s going to be you all. So we’re going to build on you what you all can do to be a good leader.”

Offense is in a different place. Liam Coen is in his second stint as coordinator, reassuming his 2021 play-calling duties. But North Carolina State transfer Devin Leary is the brand new quarterback. His leadership style differs from Levis’ style. Where Levis took charge from day one, Leary wanted to feel his way.

“He was shy at first, but I love seeing him open up and being the great leader he is right now,” outside linebacker J.J. Weaver said.

“I would definitely say I’m kind of a laid back person, for sure, and I’m sure I can come off that way,” Leary said. “I just wanted to put my head down and go to work as soon as I got here. I didn’t want to be a super rah-rah guy, or feel entitled to anything. It was my job to earn, the players who have been here for awhile, their respect, like J.J.”

The schedule isn’t easy. Not with eight SEC games. On paper, the slate appears particularly tough after Kentucky’s Oct. 21 off date. Tennessee comes to Kroger Field on Oct. 28. UK visits Mississippi State on Nov. 4. Alabama is at UK on Nov. 11. The Cats finish the regular season with a Nov. 18 game at South Carolina and a Nov. 25 game at Louisville.

Being relatively healthy for that stretch run is imperative. So is a tough, strong mindset that can help a team overcome obstacles. That’s something UK wasn’t able to accomplish a year ago.

“I do think they got that message,” Stoops said. “We’ve been more consistent. We haven’t been perfect, but I like their attitude and I like their work ethic and I like the energy. At times, I felt like I fell short in that area (last year). I’ve got to get it out of them.”