TheCatsDomain.Com Message Boards: Kentucky passed on K80 tournament in Portland

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Posted by SCWC (Member # 2464) on 11-22-2017, 04:15 PM:

The Nike Founder is not happy with Cal and Kentucky for not playing in his first all Nike team tournament in Portland starting Thursday. The following is from KSR:

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The PK80 starts tomorrow in Portland, Oregon and will feature all of the premiere Nike schools in college basketball…except Kentucky. Kentucky opted not to participate in the tournament celebrating Nike founder Phil Knight’s 80th birthday, and last night, John Calipari said Knight is not very happy about it. “Phil Knight, he was not happy we’re not playing in it,” Cal said on his radio show. “He called me two days ago and said, ‘Hey, when you guys get out here, let’s go out to dinner. Oh, that’s right, you’re not playing out here.'” What was Cal’s reasoning for not playing in the tournament? “We did, we considered it. But this team, just think about how young this team is. We knew they’d be this young. For us right now, having home games and figuring out what we are [is more important].” I kind of agree with Phil on this one. Everyone’s going to be watching the PK80 this weekend, which means Duke, North Carolina, Michigan State, Florida, Arkansas, etc. will be front and center on ESPN. Not only that, each team is getting specially designed uniforms and sneakers, which means that, for at least a few games, we could have ditched the checkerboard:

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We are always going to have a young team, I would like to see us playing against better competetion early even if we lose a few more games. I never thought I would see a time when one could go to Rupp arena on game night and buy a ticket for face value. Even the student section is not selling out this year. They upped the student ticket price from 5 to 10 dollars and a lot of the students are not buying the seats in the Eruption zone.

Posted by catmandoo (Member # 1284) on 11-22-2017, 07:05 PM:

Hate to hear that as it would be good for our young Cats.