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Demarcus Cousins’ hated basketball at first

Football, not basketball, came first for a young DeMarcus Cousins.

DeMarcus Cousins - photo by Matt York | AP

– photo by Matt York | AP

From .com:  “Football came first for me. I remember going out to play when I was 5 or 6, and I started playing little league football a year later, when I was 7, in my hometown of Mobile, Ala. I was a quarterback then, and I loved it. It's football. In Alabama. Football is the No. 1 sport there. Everybody in Alabama grows up wanting to play football, and I was determined to get to the NFL. I still, to this day, love watching it.

I made the switch to basketball in eighth grade. I remember walking to football practice, and we had to change in a locker room at school in the basketball gym. I was walking over to the field, and one of the coaches came up to me because he thought I was a junior or senior already. Now, I was real tall at that point, like over six feet. Maybe 6-foot-3, 6-4, and he asked me if I played basketball. He said the team really needed me. And my mom was begging me to play basketball because she thought I was going to get hurt playing football. But I certainly didn't want to play basketball at first. I hated it.”

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On This Day In UK Basketball History

On March 28, 1992, in what many called the “best NCAA Tournament game ever,” Kentucky takes defending NCAA champion Duke into overtime before losing 104-103 in the East Regional finals in Philadelphia. A last-second shot by Christian Laettner sends Duke to the Final Four, and breaks the hearts of Wildcat fans everywhere. It is Cawood Ledford’s last game as the “Voice of the Wildcats.”

 

On March 28, 1998, against Stanford, Kentucky rallied from a 10-point second-half deficit, then grabbed a 5-point overtime lead, before fending off the Cardinals to advance to the title game for the third straight season. Jeff Sheppard canned three long-range three-pointers - two in the final three minutes and one in overtime - en route to a career-high 27 points.

 

On March 28, 2014, unranked Kentucky beat No. 5 Louisville 74-69, in the 2014 NCAA Tournament Sweet 16.  Aaron Harrison buried a three-pointer from the left corner with 39 seconds left that put UK ahead to stay before 41,072 in Lucas Oil Stadium.

 

On March 28, 2015, No. 1 Kentucky defeated No. 8 Notre Dame, 68-66, in the 2015 NCAA Tournament Elite Eight.  With its 37-0 record on the line, Kentucky trailed Notre Dame 59-53 with 6:14 left. UK rallied in front of 19,464 fans in Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena and preserved its perfect season thanks to a crucial blocked shot by Willie Cauley-Stein and two game-deciding free throws from Andrew Harrison in the final seconds.

 

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