Any Chance Wade Attends the UK Game?

[TallTitan34]

Wade recently attended the IHSA state championship and saw his former high-school Richards win it all.  Any chance Wade attends the UK game?  His new shoe is debuting apparently plus he's on leave from Miami.

[New Era Warriors]

Yes. I believe there is a great chance he will be at the game sitting courtside. Perhaps a pre-game speech? Who knows, but we'll find out thursday...
WE ARE MARQUETTE!!!

[Mayor McCheese]

since we are the early game, he could make the game and then fly to Miami by Friday night's game, I don't see why not, hell, their head coach is missing games to scout, D-Wade can just say he's scouting the Anaheim area for Miami.   

[MUEng92]

If they are debuting the new Wade shoe, I would almost expect him to be there.

[garekis]

If they are debuting the new Wade shoe, I would almost expect him to be there.

God, I hope not.  In fact, I hope we're not "debuting" anything new.  Recall the stunning yellow shoes of the MSU first round debacle of last year and our road baby blues at L-ville this year.

Let's just hit the ground running from the tipoff, play hard-nose defense, make all of our gimmes, and rebound the basketball.

[TallTitan34]

Recall the stunning yellow shoes of the MSU first round debacle of last year

Those shoes last year debuted in the Big East Tournament with a win against St. Johns.

[mviale]

lets save the wade speech for the 3rd game

[ppp098]

Wade would be very fitting. Read the very end of this article. FIRE UP!!!!!

The New York Times
March 20, 2008
Kentucky Tries a New Role: Underdog
By JOE LAPOINTE
ANAHEIM, Calif. — In a discussion Wednesday about the worst moments of Kentucky's uneven season, Ramel Bradley asked his fellow senior guard Joe Crawford about their first defeat.

"What was the name of that school again?" Bradley said.

"Gardner-Webb," Crawford said of the Nov. 7 defeat.

"Gardner-Webb," Bradley continued. "You're like: 'This is ridiculous. Things can't get any worse at Kentucky.' But then when you lose ... "

He paused. Crawford jumped in.

"To San Diego."

"To San Diego," Bradley said of the Wildcats' Dec. 29 defeat. "It can get worse. You're just like, 'Oh, God!' "

Unlike Gardner-Webb and San Diego, Kentucky is a prestigious brand in basketball, a seven-time national champion. But the Wildcats are in a rebuilding year under Coach Billy Gillispie, who replaced Tubby Smith.

Despite those early defeats, despite eight losses in an 11-game stretch in December and January, and despite the loss of two key players to injury, the Wildcats (18-12) compiled a 12-4 record in the Southeastern Conference.

Their 11-2 finish in the regular season — and, perhaps, their famous name — helped them earn an N.C.A.A. tournament berth. They take a No. 11 seed into the South Region for a first-round game Thursday against sixth-seeded Marquette (24-9). The winner will face Stanford or Cornell on Saturday.

It could be a difficult test for Kentucky, which has won at least one tournament game every year since 1987. Its seeding this year is its lowest since the Wildcats were 12th in 1985. This is Kentucky's 49th N.C.A.A. tournament berth and its 17th in succession, and it is uncommon for the Wildcats to be underdogs in a first-round game.

"People just count us out and don't think we can win," said Bradley, a Brooklyn native who goes by the nickname Smooth. "That's the best place to be in, when no one believes in you."

Those who doubt them have their reasons. First, it was the strained hip flexor to Jodie Meeks, a 6-foot-4 sophomore guard who last played Feb. 16. He has said he wants to play in the tournament, but Gillispie said Wednesday that was not likely.

Then the 6-8 forward Patrick Patterson, the Wildcats' leading rebounder, was lost for the season Feb. 29 because of a stress fracture in his left ankle. Patterson, the SEC's co-freshman of the year, had averaged 16.4 points and 7.7 rebounds.

"It's been hard the entire way, and it gets harder as we go down the stretch," Patterson said Wednesday. "Looking at our two seniors, I really want to play with them. It's hard to not be there."

Derrick Jasper, recruited as a 6-6 point guard, has been filling in at power forward. Kentucky's tallest probable starter is Mark Coury, a 6-8 walk-on sophomore forward who averages 2 points and 1.8 rebounds.

Kentucky is capable of radically different results. It beat Vanderbilt by 6 points in double overtime in January, then lost to the Commodores by 41 a month later. Among the Wildcats' weaknesses is an average of 15.9 turnovers a game.

Marquette's guards — Dominic James, Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews — comprise one of the tournament's best backcourts. McNeal has 73 steals, and James has 60.

Not all of Kentucky's adversity has been on the court. Last Friday, waiting to play Georgia in an SEC tournament quarterfinal in Atlanta, the players heard a booming sound outside their locker room. A storm had ripped part of the roof from the Georgia Dome.

After a delay, the Wildcats were told their game would be delayed. After another delay, they were told they would play the next day. They lost in overtime, 60-56, at a different arena.

"It was chaotic," Bradley said. The game was moved to the Alexander Memorial Coliseum on the Georgia Tech campus and played before a crowd announced as 1,458. Crawford said the uncertainty and changes were "kind of draining."

"That was tough," he said.

Kentucky's current streak of N.C.A.A. tournament appearances is the country's third longest, behind Arizona (24) and Kansas (19).

The last time Kentucky and Marquette met in the tournament was in 2003, when Dwyane Wade of the Golden Eagles had 29 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in an 83-69 victory. That win sent Wade and Marquette to the Final Four.

Several players said Wednesday that watching that team's performance on television helped persuade them to attend Marquette. One of the players was James, whose average of 13 points a game is tied for second on the team with Lazar Hayward. McNeal, at 14.3, is the Golden Eagles' leading scorer.

"That's probably the first time I really heard of Marquette," said James, who was then a high school sophomore in Indiana. "It's great to follow in the footsteps of guys like Dwyane Wade and Travis Diener and Steve Novak."