Orlando “Tubby” Smith, former UK men’s basketball coach and 1998 NCAA National Champion, caps off the 2013 inductee class for the UK Athletics Hall of Fame.
In his time at UK, Smith won prolifically.
“The thing that sticks out with me is his consistency over his 10 years,” said Tony Neely, a UK media relations director who participated in the voting. “Every year we won a lot of games.”
Smith is the only coach in UK history to win an NCAA National Championship in his first year of coaching. Also in his first year at UK, Smith won the SEC regular season championship and the SEC Tournament.
Smith and the 1998 team set a new NCAA record that year for the most wins by a coach in his initial season at a school with 35 wins, according to Tom Wallace’s “The University of Kentucky Basketball Encyclopedia.”
Smith won 76 percent of his games during his 10 years at UK.
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.
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