Since Patrick Patterson’s announcement on Friday afternoon that he will return to Kentucky for his junior year, it’s been a pretty quiet weekend in terms of UK basketball news. The silence will stop tomorrow, however, as P-Double, himself, and Coach Calipari will hold a press conference at 1 p.m. discussing the awesomeness that is his return.

The quiet weekend was good for me though, because I’ve been running around the state of Indiana all weekend for IU graduation festivities and Mother’s Day.

Now that all that is overwith, it’s time for me to get back into the swing of things, because we are entering the last week and a half of the John Wall sweepstakes, and there’s some thought that Wall may be making a decision before next weekend. As I watch the Celtics and Magic fight it out during game 4 and Paul Pierce is trying to lead his team to victory by hijacking the C’s half court offense (Rondo nearly had a points-rebounds double-double at halftime), I’m going to try to give you an update on a few UK topics that are on my mind.

First up, as always, is John Wall (a man who lives vicariously through himself and once had an awkward moment just to see what it feels like). Wall has yet to cut his list and there is no indication when that will happen. At this point him cutting his list is just a formality, because his massive list includes schools like Kansas, Baylor, and NC State that are barely recruiting him at this point and are not even deluded enough to think they have a shot.

Seriously, a copy of this video about John Wall NEEDS to be on YouTube ASAP. I think Wall to UK would be a “done deal” if a UK fan gets this done

The schools that are still active with Wall at this point, as I’m sure everyone knows, are UK, Duke, Miami, and Florida. Everybody also knows all about the Roy Williams-Brian Clifton-John Wall stuff and I really don’t feel like rehashing it again, so I won’t.

Even though there was no real news from John Wall this weekend, more and more experts and coming out and saying that UK is in the best position to land him. First, ZagsBlog had an interview with the always reliable Tom Conchalski in which he voiced this sentiment, then Bob Gibbons was quoted in a Jerry Tipton notebook saying “I’d be shocked if they don’t get him”. At this point, I feel confident that John Wall at UK…unless something changes, which it very easily could. Let’s hope Wall’s mom didn’t use Mother’s Day as leverage to get him to stay close to home.

Another hot topic this weekend has been the UK roster situation now that Patterson (who was the more likely of the Meeks/Patterson duo to stay in the Draft according to most) will return. The guys who we KNOW will have spots are:

Returnees

Patrick Patterson
Darius Miller

Newcomers (assuming qualification)

DeMarcus Cousins
Daniel Orton
Eric Bledsoe
Jon Hood
Darnell Dodson

That’s 7 spots of 13 that are taken for sure. The next group is the rising seniors:

Jodie Meeks (Barring the best workout in the history of workouts, he’s back)
Ramon Harris
Perry Stevenson
Kevin Galloway

It’s difficult for me to see any of these guys off next year’s roster, but I would not call it impossible. I would call Perry Stevenson the most likely to be a casualty, because with all of UK’s front court depth next season and his poor fitting into the DDM, I don’t see him on the floor. I also wouldn’t rule out the possiblity of him taking a red shirt year, even though he would still count against the 13 scholarships. Out of that group, the second most likely to depart would be Kevin Galloway.

For my purposes, I will go ahead and give spots to those guys, so that puts us at 11. If John Wall comes, he obviously has a spot. Since I think that is likely at this point, let’s call it 12.

The next group is far and away the most uncertain:

Matt Pilgrim
Josh Harrellson
AJ Stewart (Widely assumed to be moving on)
DeAndre Liggins
Donald Williams (Only included Williams because no official announcement on his status has come, so I don’t yet want to exclude him)

Harrellson is a guy who loves UK and is known to be working very hard to do everything he can to earn that for himself. Even so, his perceived inability to fit into the dribble drive will likely be his undoing.

Most “news” this weekend has centered around the academic status of DeAndre Liggins and Matt Pilgrim. Some have even gone so far as to say that they expect grades to force them to leave UK. Honestly, I have no idea where this information is coming from or whether it’s reliable. Grades are kept VERY private, so I don’t know who’s leaking this information and why. Frankly, I wish that this speculation wasn’t so pervasive. I think it’s fine to wonder out loud about John Wall, but I don’t like the fact that kids grades and academic standing have become a topic for debate and speculation.

I don’t see the roster situation as a problem, just something that needs to be resolved privately. We’ll KNOW who’s on the roster when we know who’s on the roster, and that’s how it should be.

Finally, John Calipari topped 20,000 followers on Twitter today…wow. On a tip from reader UKdude, he’s now about 80 from the top 1000 Twitter users according to Twitterholic. Let’s take him to that number and beyond. What I want to know is how many followers will Calipari have when the season starts? 100,000? 200,000? More? What do you think?