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 Kain-tuck-eee Jubilee
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…
1958: The Fiddlin’ Five make sweet music
This is a story about a brash young man who had the misfortune to run into the Old Master of tournament basketball, Adolph Rupp of Kentucky. The brash young man was John Castellani of Seattle, a fast-talking, sharp-dressing 32-year-old. On the coaching level, it was no contest. Since 1952-53, when Kentucky was obliged to cancel…
The Harrison Twins expected to be at Big Blue Madness
The father of five-star 2013 twins Andrew Harrison and Aaron Harrison said his sons are also likely to attend Big Blue Madness, according to Steve Jones of Rivals.com. Know what that means? That means 10 total blue-chip recruits will be making the trip to Lexington to attend Kentucky’s much heralded first official practice, Big Blue…
Kentucky target Archie Goodwin to attend Big Blue Madness
Archie Goodwin will join seven other recruits: Shabazz Muhammad, Alex Poythress, DaJuan Coleman, Willie Cauley, Dakari Johnson, Chris Walker and T.J. Warren making the trip to Lexington to attend Kentucky’s much heralded first official practice, Big Blue Madness. Archie Goodwin, a top 2012 shooting guard from Arkansas, has confirmed that he will attend Big Blue Madness in…
Kentucky basketball adds two new walk-ons
Both Anthony Davis and Kyle Wiltjer, within the past 24 hours, have tweeted that the Kentucky basketball team has added two new players: Sam Malone and Brian Long. You can follow Sam on twitter here and Brian here. Long is the younger brother of Travis Long, who played a season under John Calipari at Memphis.…