Wearing cargo shorts and a Kentucky basketball T-shirt, he walks with a slight limp through the cement underworld of the KFC Yum Center in Louisville, site of his team’s first stop along the road to their goal of an eighth NCAA tournament championship. A freshman listed at just 5-foot-11, Sam Malone looks more Sigma Chi than Kentucky Wildcat. His super-elite, super-tall teammates stroll silkily along in Nike practice uniforms, a lustrous assemblage of future NBA players.

Walter Cornett, of Glendale, Kentucky, is the owner and operator of Walter’s Wildcat World. He founded WildcatWorld.com in 1998 making it one of the oldest Kentucky basketball fan sites in operation today.