A couple quick links to national stories to get you even more jacked up about Kentucky basketball.

First, Gary Parrish is continuing to show love to John Wall, this time naming him the top point guard in the country, and Sherron Collins is none too pleased:

Why he’s here: I’ve pretty much tied my reputation as a brilliant evaluator of talent — yes, it’s a reputation I gave myself — on the Wildcats’ star freshman. You know what? I’m OK with it. Lots of fans questioned me for naming Wall the CBSSports.com Preseason National Player of the Year, as did Collins. But I’ve had several coaches tell me I’ll end up looking smart for doing it, and I tend to trust coaches more than fans. And I trust Brett Dawson, too. He’s the Kentucky beat writer for the Louisville Courier-Journal. He watched UK scrimmage over the weekend and tweeted the following: “John Wall looks like nothing you’ve ever seen in blue and white. Ever.”

Second, Andy Katz was going around the country running down some of the more prominent Madness events of the weekend. Katz talks briefly about the UK team and the unprecendented excitement permeating Big Blue Nation:

The Kentucky event was unprecedented. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an entrance like John Calipari’s at Kentucky. It was part Bono at a U2 concert and part President Barack Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. The hype over the Wildcats and their coach is something we’ve never seen before in college basketball. Calipari can handle the attention and is embracing it, but he also has said to me many times that his team will be young and inexperienced. So, we’ll see how the populous handles some expected growing pains this season. I still think the Wildcats can make the Final Four, but there will definitely be losses in a rugged SEC East.

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I know all of the hype this weekend was about Big Blue Madness and the official kickoff of the 2009-10 basketball season. But, the real action went down Saturday with the team’s first official practices under John Calipari.

The Pinkie crew was there and here are our notes from Saturday’s practices.