Pressbox pickups from the sports whirl…

* As the guy who told you before anyone that UK and Notre Dame would play this season in Freedom Hall, I’m now here to tell you that the first UK-U of L basketball game in the KFC Yum! Center will be played on Dec. 31. That should make for quite a New Year’s eve on Main Street. The Galt House, Hyatt, and Marriott should be booked solid with revelers who want to mix hoops with Fourth Street Live!

* WANTED — Executive vice-president who can stage a music festival that will lose less than $5 million. Interested paeties should contact Churchill Downs. A six-figure salary and good Derby tickets will go to whomever is hired.

* Let’s see how it long it takes to Churchill to announce price hikes in next year’s Oaks and Derby tickets. The suits have to cover that $5 million loss somehow. By the way, it was interesting that Steve Sexton, the Churchill executive in charge of HullabaLOU, was not quoted in today’s C-J story. I wonder if he’s been told to clean out his desk.

* I don’t care what Bret Favre does. I really don’t. I’ll just be glad when this perennial soap opera is over so ESPN, the network that gave us the LeBron debacle, can obsess about something else.

* I hope the Cavaliers’ president is right. I hope Cleveland wins an NBA title before Miami. I don’t see how anyone can pull for the Heat. How can you like a team that was made not by shrewd trades and drafts but by LeBron and his cohorts?

* I attended a couple of sessions of the Bengals training camp and wish I could tell you I saw something worth reporting. But I didn’t. Maybe important stuff happens on the practice field, but it’s generally not visible to the naked eye.

* The Bengals have a very competent public-relations director in Jack Brennan. Whatever Mike Brown is paying him, it’s not enough.

* When I watched Jay Bruce play for the Bats, I was confident he would be a solid .290 big-league hitter with about 30 homers and 90 RBIs every year. Now I’m ready to say I overestimated him. He still swings at too many bad pitches and gets tied in knots by left-handers.

* Is Louisville’s Rick Sweet on his way to a third straight International League Manager-of-the-Year award? I’d hate to see him leave the Cincinnati organization, but he ought to be managing somewhere in the big leagues next season.

* Was Aroldis Chapman the only pitcher in baseball whose fastball matched Tuesday’s 102 temperature? I thought so.

* The last 10 Derby winners, in reverse order, are Super Saver, Mine That Bird, Big Brown, Street Sense, Barbaro, Giacomo, Smarty Jones, Funny Cide, War Emblem and Monarchos. Anybody see a Hall of Famer in that bunch?