At no point during this basketball season did I get the feeling that John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, and Eric Bledsoe were playing as much for the University of Kentucky as they were for their careers in the NBA.
They came to Lexington not to get an education and not because they had any kind of deep […]

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I liked Duke University even before my older daughter enrolled there in 1990. One reason was that Duke was connected, however tenuously, to the Methodist church, in which I was raised. Another was that Jeff Mullins, whom I covered during his senior year (1959-’60)at Lexington Lafayette High, picked Duke over Kentucky, which was a huge […]

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On the day of the first basketball game between Kentucky and Cornell since Dec. 28, 1966, I might as well tell you about why Adolph Rupp accused me of helping the Ivy League school shock the mighty Wildcats, 92-77, in Memorial Coliseum.
That was the season after the UK team known as “Rupp’s Runts” had gone […]

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I must begin with a disclaimer: I’ve done three books that were published by Butler Books, including two that are still on the market (The Monarchs and The Great American Rock n’ Roll Dream and Celebrating 54 Years at Freedom Hall). I also must point out that I have always fought for transparency and integrity […]

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Maybe the basketball gods are saying “enough” to the gross excesses in the college game. Maybe they are going to give us a Final Four that celebrates academic integrity and perspective. Maybe they are going to send Northern Iowa, Butler, Cornell, and St. Mary’s to Indianapolis.
Would that be great or what? A Cinderella story from […]

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If you liked the movie “Hoosiers,” you’re going to love the NCAA basketball tournament. The little team from Indianapolis, Butler, has an excellent chance of coming home for the Final Four.
I hesitate to call Butler a “Cinderella” because the Bulldogs have been a consistent Top 25 team for years. They’re always a team that nobody […]

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Well, at least the 2009-’10 University of Louisville Cardinals didn’t screw up the final game at Freedom Hall. That’s their epitaph. Of all the 54 U of L teams that played at the Kentucky State Fairgrounds arena, this one has to be the most maddening.
Assistant coach Ralph Willard described the team by recalling the Forrest […]

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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — At both the campuses where I teach, Indiana University in Bloomington and IUPUI in Indianapolis, there’s no building excitement about the NCAA tournament because neither school’s name will be called when the 65-team field is announced Sunday evening.
This assumes, of course, that IU will not pull off a miracle in the Big […]

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Now that it is upon us, a lot of people seem surprised by how emotional they feel. After tomorrow afternoon’s game against Syracuse, the University of Louisville never again will play a home game in Freedom Hall. Next season the men’s and women’s teams both will begin playing in the new downtown arena.
Wedged between the […]

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Shame, shame on The Courier-Journal for not including Earl Cox in its otherwise outstanding special <a href=’http://www.courier-journal.com/section/sports0202&template=fullpage’ >Sunday section</a> about the end of the University of Louisville’s reign in Freedom Hall.
For those who have asked, it doesn’t bother me that my former employer, which I served as sports editor from 1977 through 1986, did not […]

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