A video tribute to Kentucky legend Cawood Ledford on the 10th anniversary of his death
In His Old Kentucky Home, Far Away
Ever since you were old enough to drink water after 6 p.m., you’ve probably understood that Adolph Rupp ranked right up there with Colonel Sanders, Man o’ War, Mammoth Cave and other great Kentucky inventions. You’ve known it and believed it, another legend to help you through those desultory days when you needed a push every 15 minutes to get…
A barnburner in the old barn
The Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Ind. stood gray and gloomy, matching the drizzly December afternoon. Inside, where there should have been fans yelling and pompons shaking and a basketball floor gleaming, there was nothing but darkness and wet gravel. For more than three years construction men have been blasting out limestone and piecing together concrete slabs, preparing this…
Terrence Jones makes the cover of Sporting News; names Anthony Davis first team All-American
The Sporting News College Basketball Yearbook likes what is going on at the University of Kentucky. UK forward Terrence Jones is the dominant face on a cover that also includes Will Barton of Memphis as well as Glen Rice Jr. of Georgia Tech. As for the first-team all-Americans? Anthony Davis, the UK freshman, made the…
The Kain-tuck-eee Jubilee
Last Saturday night anxious fingers tuned radio dials in Gap Tooth and Wet Rye. On a lonely mountain in eastern Kentucky, two men sharing a quart of moonshine pulled a coughing car to the edge of the road and listened in. An executive, off duty from a Louisville boardroom, settled down in front of his fireplace to…
The “B” in Joe B. Hall stands for “Basketball”
A lacquer of frost is on the bluegrass again, time for the farmer to prepare his tobacco for auction, for the mare to wait out her foal, for the Governor and Senator to unwind from another round of that fine old Commonwealth tradition of musical seats. And time, too, for the voice of Kentucky basketball,…
Jack Givens’ soft jumpers provided a touch of class to Kentucky’s attack
The story goes that Adolph Rupp once had a 6’9″ center who assiduously avoided contact. This infuriated Rupp, who liked Kentucky pivotmen to throw more elbows than hook shots. In practice one day, Rupp caught the timid one loitering on the foul line during a fierce battle under the boards. Calling the workout to a halt, Rupp gazed up at the center and said,…
Kyle Macy had the goods in every department
Wherever it is that old basketball coaches go when they die, Adolph Rupp is there now, wearing his brown suit, sipping his smooth bourbon and cussing his cruel fate. Here he is, five seasons retired and a month removed from this earth; and there they are, the Kentucky Wildcats, a superb team but not his team at all.…
A dark night in Kentucky…
College Basketball has several records that probably will never be broken, among them UCLA’s seven consecutive national championships, former Bruin coach John Wooden’s 10 national titles in 12 years and Pete Maravich’s scoring average of 44.2 points a game during his career at Louisiana State. But the safest record of all must be Kentucky’s 129-game home court winning streak,…
More than a century of glorious Kentucky basketball sights and sounds…
When one sport, one school, one supreme program so dominates a state, you can take its measure with sounds alone. Cock an ear to the sound track of more than a century of basketball in the Bluegrass State and you’ll hear: The buzz of the Hyatt lobby in advance of a game at Rupp…