I know you are all familiar with Tennessee’s living mascot, Smokey. The lovable blue tick hound roams the sidelines for the Vols athletic teams. At first glance Smokey looks like a pleasant pup, but from reports recently submitted to the Tailgate Review, things are not always what they seem.

An unnamed source informed the TGR News Crew that Smokey is quite a problem for his handlers. Smokey was thought to be named such, because of the close proximity to the Great Smokey Mountains. Turns out, this is not the case at all. Smokey suffers from an addiction to smoking crack cocaine. I know “R.A, you silly fool, dogs don’t smoke crack!” Believe you me, I thought the same thing when I heard the news. How could he even light the lighter, he doesn’t have plausible thumbs or anything like that? Is someone helping him hold the pipe? Could it be one of those basketball players that are toting around pistols and marijuana? I am getting upset by this news, and I have known about this for months, it is very disturbing.Are crack dealers selling the crap straight to the dog, or is there a middle man?

We got this news only because the crack scene was about to be exposed by the local authorities. They had a lead on a University of Tennessee employee, and were about to go in to take the criminal down, but he bolted for the west coast. Seems he found a better boss out there that will allow him to get away with more than what UT was. I have heard that UT knows about the entire situation, but have chosen to protect their former hired
Gun, instead of looking out for the well being of Smokey.

I don’t look down upon Smokey from my ‘drug free’ pedestal. Instead, I pity the fool as Mr. T would. I hope that the University of Tennessee can find time in their busy schedule to help their long time mascot. Instead of using more than 8 hours to paint the entire body of their men’s head coach orange, why not take a moment to help out their biggest fan.

If you are reading this Smokey, I care about you. If you ever want any help escaping your momentary high, to join a circle of friends as high as you can be on life, holler at your boy dawg!

In Gary Parrish’s “Friday Look Ahead”, he has tagged John Wall as his “Player trying to get rolling”. To me, John looks poised for the stretch run, he seems to be bored at times with the last few regular season games he has played. I look for a big performance tomorrow afternoon in Knoxville.

Here is what Gary had to say about “The Great” and the Cats…

-Player trying to get rolling: John Wall is still terrific, and anybody suggesting otherwise is crazy. But it is a fact that the super freshman is 7 of 26 from the field in his past two outings with eight turnovers and five assists, and that’s no good. Kentucky is so talented that it can get by when Wall is in a funk, proof being that the Wildcats are 27-1 and on an eight-game winning streak. But next up is Saturday’s game against Tennessee at Thompson-Boling Arena — otherwise known as the only place Kansas has lost — and Wall probably needs to be sharper for UK to escape.-

The last time 20,474 inbred hillbillies filled Thompson-Boling Arena to watch their Vols battle the Cats, they were ‘Witness’ to the single greatest scoring performance in the history of the UK basketball program. Jodie Meeks, to the delight of the Big Blue nation, was beyond ‘hotter than a pistol’ for 39 minutes against the Volunteers on January 13, 2009.

Despite Billy Clyde Gillispie, Meeks put on a shooting display never before seen in college basketball. Meeks hit a school record 10 3 point shots, he hit all 14 of his free throw attempts and hit five 2 point shots to break the 39 year old scoring record of Dan Issel.

There is no doubt in my mind that I will not live long enough to see another scoring performance like the one the kid from Norcross, Georgia put on that night in Knoxville. After about the 4th long one he hit, it looked like every one of his shots were going in, and most of them were. I have never received, and answered, as many phone calls as I was during that game. Normally my friends and I do not talk during a game, but that night was special.

It could not have happened to a better kid, and could not have happened to a better opponent. My favorite part of the night was late in the game. Meeks was sitting on 49 points and was fouled. He stepped up to the line and drained the first. After sinking it, he looked over at Bobby Mays, who was continuously talking trash as he was being torched, and said to him “FIFTY”. It was absolutely one of the best moments of my sports life.

Cheers to Jodie for that night and all of the great moments he provided us, and here’s to another big afternoon in Knoxville! Go Cats!

The cats clinched a first round bye with their win last night in Lexington. The below article gives the standings and match-ups (before last nights action, don’t think anything changed) for the upcoming tournament in Nash Vegas. I can’t wait for some Tootsie’s action!
Check out the forecasted SEC Tourney bracket here!

I am probably going to regret this, I mean, every time I flip-flop back over to not hating on him, he plays another bad game well, here goes anyway. Atta boy darius! That is what I am talking about brother! You played exactly the kind of game we need you to play. You attacked on offense without hesitation, you attacked the ball on defense, and you showed a willingness to do the little things, finally. I am not even going to copy and paste any stats in to this post, they don’t matter. You should take the same approach; your STATS do not matter. Let’s see some of that 10th Region blue collared style, not this weak, soft, hesitant nonsense.

It has been thought throughout the Big Blue nation that you are the key to the team taking itself to the next level of ‘greatness’. We don’t need 10 points and 10 rebounds out of you each game; we only need the aggressiveness you showed last night. If you can hit 2 or 3 from the arch, that is great, but that is not what is going to get you more playing time…It is that grit you showed last night. Here is to you darius, A True Blue hero, at least for one night.