Things will be better in the morning …

Let us pause and examine Major League Baseball’s draft last week and find it to be a pragmatic, sober mutually realistic with minimal hype. NBA drafters should be less greedy and so fortunate. Ditto, NCAA rules-makers counting cash as Scrooge McDuck did, by the dump truck load. No time for innovation, let alone political courage to force change.

A few ball coaches will have time.

Jim Calhoun at UConn. With time and space available to study MLB’s model, we can be sure UConn will have a look since Calhoun’s defection-riddled and scholar-poor roster will stay home from the next Big Dance.

Scott Drew. In Waco, Baylor and coach will have three years (probation) to study the MLB model.

In Lexington, University of Kentucky’s baseball team had nine players/prospects selected in MLB draft. A school record. Five are high school seniors who signed with UK, but stand at a clear crossroads today.

Options.

1. Skip college. Haggle for a signing bonus, sign a contract, take an assignment to MLB’s bus ride rookie league in Washington state. Job Time.

2. Or, opt for college. Play, study, party, grow and grow up (between the ears), be eligible for MLB draft in 2015.

Easy choice, right?

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UK PIPPED?

• If IU and Louisville sign a contract, UK may have been Pipped.

When Wally Pipp took a day off from the Yankee lineup June 2, 1925, Lou Gehrig replaced him. Gehrig was such a natural, the lineup stayed the same for the next 14 years.

• What would a UofL-IU series mean for UK short term? Not much if fans enjoy trade offs for Samford and Portland State.

Clearly, Wildcat fans who love the border traditional with IU, and know its competitive and brag rights and a Commonwealth pride that parallels marquee value of Army-Navy, Alabama-Auburn football, the signal to fans from Calipari is – you don’t matter.

Things will be better in the morning, when …

• Opportunity knocks. A Louisville-Indiana series home-and-home Bloomington-Yum Center, could be the new Dream Game.

CB$ $ports schedule-makers wouldn’t hesitate.

• Recruiting coup for Western Kentucky University football. To be aired on ESPN3, Coach Willie Taggart’s Hilltoppers play Southern Miss (12-2 last season) on September 22.

Western can make a show for recruiting prospects on ESPNU again October 11 against rival Troy, and November 1 against traditional rival Middle Tennessee.

• Pascal Benson owns one of the best ever names in Kentucky sports. Three-time letterman at UK, Benson will be inducted into the KHSAA Hall of Fame. At Henderson High, he was an all-state player in football, basketball and baseball.

• I’ll Have Another has one. And another, again and again.

• The decline of thoroughbred horse racing is (media) vastly exaggerated. Belmont Stakes drew its sixth best crowd ever with no triple crown candidate.

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Things will be better in the morning, when …

• New pecking order for UK’s Unforgettables. Sean Woods is Morehead State’s new hoops coach. If Woods sustains the Eagles rise in college hoops, he would move past coaches Dale Brown, John Pelphrey (Florida assistant) and just behind Travis Ford (Oklahoma State). Mississippi Valley’s melt-down against Western Kentucky last spring aside, if Woods succeeds at Morehead his next job jump should be spring 2014.

• Kentucky’s boys basketball all-stars will beat Indiana one of these days. Maybe when Hoosiers officials agree to play on a neutral floor … in Kentucky.

• That University of Kentucky’s football team will be cast as underdog in nine of 12 games, including four SEC games at Commonwealth Stadium, is a motivational hot button for Joker Phillips.

• The Ohio Valley Conference having East and West divisions is a solid leap forward that should increase fan interest and ticket sales across one of the last leagues in college sports. Now, about a television contract.

• If he keeps his scholarship commitment, Derek Willis could become a People’s Choice caliber player at Kentucky beginning next season. Latest developments …

1. Willis skipped the ‘cattle show for prima donnas,’ – so-called NBA Player Association for top 100 players camp in Virginia, to play with fellow seniors-to-be against Indiana counterparts.

2. When told last month that his “stock had fallen,” with dot.com experts who rank players based on (pick something), Willis handled it well enough. While the 6-9 forward enjoys the attention, “I don’t worry about that stuff.”

• Jabari Parker is latest hoops phenom prize out of Chicago every coach wants. Here’s a hope that Parker makes himself a referendum on college hoops by saying in some form, “I will choose a college where my coach emphasizes the college experience and earning a degree.”

• Curious thing. Kentucky’s eighth national championship winning basketball team never quite achieved the affectionate embrace of Wildcat fans who tack on a nickname.

• NBA Thug Season will be finished sometime after Father’s Day (June 17).

Never mind, things will be better in the morning.

WORTH REPEATING DEPT.

• Moral high ground? IU officials took it when two things happened recently – coach Tom Crean said “let’s move on,” and John Calipari agreed. But then, true to form, Calipari did not move on, but opened his mouth instead asking reporters last week, “are (IU) fans too poor to travel two hours (to Indianapolis)?”

• On one-and-done in college hoops …

Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner: “I just think there’s every good reason to change the rule to wait-3-years. The only people who like the one-and-done concept are fans at Kentucky.”

He added, “For every Kobe (Bryant) or (Kevin) Garnett or Carmelo (Anthony) or LeBron (James), there’s 100 Lenny Cookes.”

Lenny Cooke was a New York high school star who declared for the NBA Draft in 2002, was not selected and never played in an NBA game.

And so it goes.