Kentucky

This time, it wasn't even close. In a rematch of last season's national championship game, top-ranked Arizona, which had to go overtime to win the title last season, toyed with No. 8 Kentucky this time, registering an 89-74 victory last night in the semifinals of the Maui Invitational in Lahaina, Hawaii. Arizona (3-0) will face No. 3 Duke in the championship game tonight. "I haven't seen anyone play better than Duke right now," Arizona coach Lute Olson said, anticipating a tough game.

Michael Gilchrist, of Somerdale, N.J., who is considered one of the top basketball recruits in the country, announced yesterday he would attend the University of Kentucky. Gilchrist was also considering Villanova and Oregon. He is a 6-7 junior forward at St. Patrick High in Elizabeth. He averaged 16.4 points, 11.5 rebounds and three blocks a game, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. He made his selection known on ESPNU. Gilchrist praised Kentucky fans after announcing his decision: "They have a lot of energy.

Chuck Hamwright, a hard-hitting safety from Highland, has made an oral commitment to the University of Kentucky. Hamwright, who is 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds, also played running back at Highland, but he projects as a strong safety in college. He visited Kentucky over the weekend and made his decision Monday, Highland coach Larry Ziemba said. "I really liked the family atmosophere down there," Hamwright said. "Plus, they do a great job helping their players get jobs who aren't going to be playing pro football.

No way would Kentucky fall to two conference opponents in succession. The No. 5 Wildcats, the defending national champions, rebounded from a rare Southeastern Conference loss, getting 24 points from Derek Anderson and a strong first-half performance from their bench last night in an 86-65 rout of No. 21 Georgia in Athens, Ga. Kentucky (15-2 overall, 3-1 SEC), which was upset by Mississippi on Saturday, broke open a close game late in the first half with one of its patented, defense-generated runs.

Princeton pins its hopes for an upset of Kentucky today on one simple premise: Because of an environment unique to the NCAA Tournament, youth will not be served. After conceding that UK is the more athletic and skilled team in this NBA-vs.-MBA game, Princeton noted its greater experience. "We definitely acknowledge that they're an athletic team," guard Dan Mavraides said yesterday. "That's something, obviously, that's highlighted in our scouting report. "I can't give away any secrets about how we're going to stop that.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Freshman Marquis Teague is taking Kentucky to the South Regional semifinals in Atlanta. And maybe a lot farther than that. Teague scored a career-high 24 points and top seed Kentucky put together another complete performance with a dominating second-half run in an 87-71 victory over Iowa State in the third round of the NCAA tournament on Saturday night. Freshman Anthony Davis had 15 points and 12 rebounds, senior Darius Miller added 19 points and Doron Lamb finished with 16. The Wildcats (34-2)

NEW ORLEANS - Kansas coach Bill Self was perhaps 20 minutes removed from seeing his team secure a spot in Monday night's national championship game when he crystallized the critical issue. This Kentucky team, he said, is better than the Memphis team that outplayed his best team for 39 minutes in 2008. Left unsaid is that this Kansas team isn't anywhere near as good as the 2008 national champions. So, how exactly does Kansas beat Kentucky? It probably doesn't. "They've got guys that can make plays you can't coach," Self said.

The University of Memphis gave Kentucky permission yesterday to speak to John Calipari about the Wildcats' head coaching position, then made a final push to try to keep the coach. Some of Memphis' key boosters met with Calipari yesterday. But one booster expects Calipari to go to Kentucky, though the person, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing negotiations, acknowledged the coach was torn between the two great opportunities. The Wildcats had a short meeting at their practice gym yesterday afternoon.

Florida coach Billy Donovan passed out pizza to fans who waited outside the arena for hours before last night's game against No. 5 Kentucky. Wonder if he had some victory cigars for afterward. Freshman Mike Miller scored 20 points and Donovan's program got its biggest boost in his three seasons with the Gators' 75-68 upset over the visiting Wildcats. In front of a record crowd of 12,443, Florida (16-4, 7-3 Southeastern Conference) opened up a 14-point lead midway through the second half and withstood a late Kentucky rally.

Rex Chapman scored 13 of Kentucky's final 16 points as the second-ranked Wildcats rallied to defeat Vanderbilt, 81-74, last night in Lexington, Ky., in the Southeastern Conference opener for both teams. It was the 400th career win for Wildcats coach Eddie Sutton, who coached Creighton and Arkansas before taking over at Kentucky in 1985. Vanderbilt, which led by six points at the half, opened a 65-56 edge with 8 minutes, 1 second remaining on Barry Booker's sixth three-point field goal of the game.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Now that Claude R. "Shug" McGaughey III has won the Kentucky Derby, it's time for the 62-year-old trainer to go after another race missing from his Hall of Fame resumé. Orb will follow up his win at Churchill Downs by running in the Preakness on May 18, giving the colt a shot at the Triple Crown. Orb arrived back at his home base in New York on Sunday, as did McGaughey and jockey Joel Rosario. The trainer was still absorbing what had happened a day earlier. The colt extended his winning streak to five races, splashing through the slop to win the Derby by 21/4 lengths, giving McGaughey and Rosario their first Derby wins.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A trainer flooding the field with five horses. An African American jockey trying to make history, and a woman rider, too. Louisville coach Rick Pitino seeking a double - champions in racing and basketball. He's sure in the right place. The 19-horse field for Saturday's Kentucky Derby is balanced, with no definitive favorite. Orb is the prerace choice, just barely. Nearly overshadowed is his trainer, Shug McGaughey, who really, really wants this race. Doug O'Neill trying to win back-to-back.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Orb was so far behind a wall of horses at the Kentucky Derby that even his jockey wasn't sure he could master the muddy track and make a run for the roses. "I was really far back," Joel Rosario said. "I said hopefully he can go faster than that. I was saying maybe I was too far back, but it was so easy. " The bay colt made it look that way Saturday, splashing through the slop to win the Derby by 21/2 lengths and giving Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey his first victory in the classic for 3-year-olds.

BURKESVILLE, Ky. - In southern Kentucky, where children get their first guns even before they start first grade, Stephanie Sparks paid little attention as her 5-year-old son, Kristian, played with the rifle he was given last year. Then, as she stepped onto the front porch while cleaning the kitchen, "she heard the gun go off," a coroner said. In a horrific accident Tuesday that shocked a rural area far removed from the national debate over gun control, the boy had killed his 2-year-old sister, Caroline, with a single shot to the chest.

Download our bettors' guide and in-depth look at the Kentucky Derby here : LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The best way to understand a race is to envision how it will be run. I have decided that Goldencents is fast enough to clear Saturday's Kentucky Derby field in the first few hundred yards, set moderate fractions and be in front from start to finish. Whenever you can find a quality horse that possesses an attribute that is different from the other logical contenders, you have a live play.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Kentucky Derby post position draw draws a lot of scrutiny, but the reality is that nobody can predict what will go down in the first few seconds when the 20 stall doors open in the annual cavalry charge. And that matters more than the actual post positions. There is no better example than what happened to Union Rags last year when he got squeezed from his inside and outside and lost all chance to get a decent early position in a race where position is critical.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Normandy Invasion, runner-up in the Wood Memorial, is named for the pivotal Allied assault in World War II. Rick Porter, the colt's owner, decided he could do more to honor that effort than simply naming a horse. He has arranged for four veterans of that campaign to join him at the Derby. "Three of them were on the beaches for the D-Day invasion," said Porter, a Wilmington native who has two-second place finishes in the Derby with Hard Spun (2007) and Eight Belles (2008)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Todd Pletcher has won 2,500 races in the last 10 years. The horses he trains have accounted for nearly $200 million in purses during that time. He has accumulated somewhere around $20 million for himself. His horses are 1-for-31 in the Kentucky Derby. "I think a couple ways you can look at it," Pletcher said. "I think for one, people seem to think that I've been training for 50 years or something, when in reality I first got my license in '96 and I think we had our first Derby starters in 2000.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - When the Kentucky Derby was first run in 1875, black jockeys were dominating the sport, as they had done since horses first started racing in fields all over America before and after the Revolution. In that first Derby, 13 of the 15 horses were ridden by African-American jockeys. Exactly 15 of the first 28 Derbies were won by black jockeys, former slaves and sons of former slaves. Isaac Murphy was the first rider to win the Derby three times. Judging by his statistics, he may have been the greatest jockey who ever lived.

BOB BAFFERT won't be saddling a horse in Saturday's Kentucky Derby for the first time since 2008. The Hall of Fame trainer said yesterday that Govenor Charlie would not run. His other possibility, Code West, also won't compete in the Derby at Churchill Downs. Sunland Derby winner Govenor Charlie was 11th on the points leaderboard that determines the 20-horse field for the 1 1/4-mile race. Code West was ranked 21st. Baffert hasn't been on the Derby sidelines since 2007 and '08. He has won the race three times, but not since 2002.